Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Huffpost has published a very supportive post, about New York State embracing nuclear power as an equal player in the low carbon energy game.
The Game Changer: New York’s Clean Energy Standard and Nuclear Energy
For years, I’ve said that when it comes to the challenge of fighting climate change, we will need every tool available to reduce carbon pollution and create opportunities for new clean energy technology.
Yet, despite a world that demands more carbon-free energy – not less – public policies have left some of the tools in the toolbox. Until now.
In August, with the help of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s leadership, the New York State PSC took unprecedented action in passing a Clean Energy Standard that, in addition to ensuring ample opportunity for more wind, solar, and energy efficiency, recognizes the important role of existing carbon-free nuclear power. This is a game-changer: never before has nuclear received economic credit for its environmental benefits.
New York State is now the first government to include nuclear in its clean energy policy, providing a mechanism that will help keep New York’s nuclear energy plants open. In the wake of an energy market that did not previously adequately value this power, the state faced the very real prospect of having these plants shut down.
…
Last month’s news represents a meaningful step in the fight against climate change that will impact our energy policy outlook for decades to come. This is a worthwhile cause that Governor Cuomo should be acknowledged for undertaking, not only for the sake of cleaner air, but for establishing a common sense and fair policy of recognition for nuclear that ensures that nuclear power remains a vital component of our clean energy strategy for years to come.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carol-browner/the-game-changer-new-york_b_11802988.html
Whatever your position on global warming, this development is bad news for Renewables. Who in their right mind will lend money to finance new renewable installations, when nuclear power now offers the same access to carbon subsidies, without the uncertainty?
That freaking silly. There is no risk on solar PV. Costs and production are totally known.
Not so with nuclear.
maybe 30 days of cloudy weather…
You might want to read this Lat….
http://www.utilitydive.com/news/decommissioning-costs-a-blind-spot-in-the-nuclear-power-debate/425415/
No risk? ROFLMAO!
http://dailycaller.com/2014/12/08/112-solar-companies-have-closed-their-doors-in-5-years/
It’s not even clouds to be concerned about, it’s the spectre of those short days at low sun angle in the northern tier states which makes solar PV a losing proposition. Let the enviros try to run their homes on radiant electric heating systems powered solely with PV solar on a cold week in February in upstate NY. Get out the uggs and mittens boys.
RW, sure solar companies have gone out of business, but why do you propose that that present risk to the owners of an asset? Be specific and then we will run the argument to ground.
Both solar and wind power are too intermittent to exist totally by themselves. They must have a ‘regular’ (meaning coal, gas or nuclear fired) power plant ‘hot & spinning’ as standby backup for when the wind suddenly stops blowing or clouds cover the sun (or night arrives). These ‘standby’ backup plants use a lot of energy keeping the turbines spinning, ready for immediate switching, without producing ANY output power. It takes several HOURS to start a regular power plant & the utility can’t wait to start one until they are ‘needed’, because that would leave the grid down for those hours required to start the standby plant.
The wind never suddenly stops blowing – it predictably falls off.
You can absolutely fire up your gas plant in line with the drop (better still use grid storage/pumped storage to pick up till gas plant online: drastically reduces need for spinning reserve)
Check out this – shows UK gas plant going up/down in line with wind strength
http://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
…”The wind never suddenly stops blowing – it predictably falls off.” ??
…Just the other day, I was thinking to myself…Griff’s comments could not possibly get any dumber….
…Silly me !
I’m afraid Griff that you are very mistaken. Neither Solar nor wind make a reliable source of power for the grid this is why Germany is having serious issues now that they have been shutting down their coal and nuclear plants. The wind and solar plants they have just can’t support the power grid.
The same thing is happening in the UK which is why subsidies for solar and wind are on the way out the door there.
As usual, Griff makes it up when the real world doesn’t support his delusion.
shows UK gas plant going up/down in line with wind strength…
but not going off and on
“it predictably falls off”
Maybe in computer models.
In the real world, not so much.
>>shows UK gas plant going up/down in line with wind strength…
>>but not going off and on
Semantics. You still need one power system to provide unreliable power, and another working at less than optimum efficiency to back it up. (ie: the gas system is not working on a combined energy-heat cycle, where it is most efficient).
And since wind power is very expensive to construct, and the gas is working below optimum, you end up paying four times as much for the infrastructure. And then you save precious little CO2, as the gas system is spewing it, the diesel-powered UK Strategic Reserve is spewing even more, and the wind system spews gigatonnes of it during the construction phase. All in all, the whole charade is unicorn economics and looking-glass science, from fantasist lobbyists.
R
‘The wind never suddenly stops blowing – it predictably falls off.’
Griff with his daily Grift.
He couldn’t possibly sound more like a used car salesman.
How can you say “fire up your gas plant in line with the drop” and keep a straight face? Just the fact that you need gas to back up the unreliable renewable should end your argument in its tracks. Dead. RIP.
Conversely the gas plant doesn’t need wind back up.
See what I did there?
Lamont, Germany is having no issues whatever… it has the worlds most stable grid…
Marcus, Mark – here’s the track of UK power demand and source of supply which met it.
Look at the column showing what type of power was supplied: see how as wind drops, gas picks up (and vice versa)
http://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
A note on the predictability of wind power (prediction has improved since this article)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/9508765/UK-wind-power-predictable-enough-to-keep-lights-on-says-think-tank-IPPR.html
Griff, Griff, Griff. How many times are you going to keep repeating that lie.
The only reason why Germany’s grid is stable is because they buy electricity from France’s nuclear plants whenever your magic windmills fail to produce enough power.
Sheesh, it’s almost as if you are being paid to make a fool of yourself.
LamontT on September 1, 2016 at 8:14 am
Neither Solar nor wind make a reliable source of power for the grid this is why Germany is having serious issues now that they have been shutting down their coal and nuclear plants.
From Germany: lol lol lol.
1991: 64% fossile, 30% nuke, 6% renew
2015: 57% fossile, 14% nuke, 29% renew
Imagine just one moment Germany yearly needing 600 TWh but nevertheless shutting down fossile and nuke.
Do we really live on the same planet, LamonT?
MarkW on September 2, 2016 at 6:43 am
Griff, Griff, Griff. How many times are you going to keep repeating that lie.
The only reason why Germany’s grid is stable is because they buy electricity from France’s nuclear plants whenever your magic windmills fail to produce enough power.
I guess rather MarkW should stop repeating such lies.
https://www.energy-charts.de/exchange.htm
MarkW simply knows nothing about Germany’s energy sector.
Binned again:
There is always an amazing thing about pie charts. They tell a person absolutely nothing.
The more complex the pie chart, the less information it actually contains.
From: the European Commission
For 2014;
Germany in 2014 produced in Ktoe: 30% of their energy through renewables.
Germany in 2014 used, in Ktoe: 11.3% of their energy from renewables.
Germany in 2014 produced in Ktoe: 20.1% of their energy through nuclear.
Germany in 2014 used, in Ktoe: 8% of their energy from nuclear.
United Kingdom in 2014 produced in Ktoe: 9% of their energy through renewables.
United Kingdom in 2014 used, in Ktoe: 6.4% of their energy from renewables.
United Kingdom in 2014 produced in Ktoe: 15.3% of their energy through nuclear.
United Kingdom in 2014 used, in Ktoe: 8.7% of their energy from nuclear.
Once again the old game is used. Energy produced is a combination of nameplate, (potential energy generation), actual energy production without energy used factors; especially energy exported and energy imported.
In the electrical grid quagmire of Europe, though various machinations, it is possible for various countries to claim more renewable energy than actually produced and used.
It is rather amazing that the zealots somehow always manage to state electrical generation in absurdly glowing terms; without the gritty details of actual use.
Yes, and the low cost leader of solar PV includes recycling in its pricing. Practically all industry costs quoted on solar are inflated averages with assorted zombie companies included. Nuclear costs a lot just to sit as waste in on-site storage in lieu of a long term repository. Rate payers and their supposed regulators have been hoodwinked for years on nuclear cost promises, first in construction cost overruns and then in dead weight, waste storage and decommissioning costs. Solar PV will win with economies of scale if policymakers would ever get out of the way of lowest bidder market forces…..and ban rooftop solar.
It has been opponents of nuclear power that were the strongest supporters of the decision to stop construction of the Yucca Mountain long term repository. Many of the construction cost overruns were from paying interest at a time of high interest rates during construction delays caused by nuclear power opponents.
They can build those mega-Solar farms in your backyard. NIMBY.
I prefer my electricity the old-fashioned way, from a reliable base-load generated, interconnected grid that won’t cost me 3x per Kwh just so I can feel good about meaningless CO2 emissions.
Renewable PV grid power is just another tax and rate payer subsidized crony capitalist get-rich scheme that relies on the Gruber principle.
Senate Majority leader Harry Reid used his position to kill Yucca Mtn Repository.
Why?
Likely because His hand was in billionaire, renewable investor Tom Steyer’s wallet doing his bidding to make US nuclear power plant expansions or life extensions uneconomical or not feasible as onsite storage of spent fuel filled up.
I love the way that supporters of solar declare that it doesn’t matter how much money each solar cell looses because they are going to make it back on volume.
PS, everyone of the costs that you mention are the direct result of environmental nutcases using regulations to increase the cost of nuclear.
How funny, “if policymakers would ever get out of the way”! In the way of what? Subsidizing the energy cost of solar so that they can exist in the first place? That’s like saying, I wish this damn bridge would get out of the way so that I could see the canyon below me.
The nuclear waste issue would be a non-issue if it weren’t for the anti-nuclear crowd creating hurdles to safe and simple solutions. One simple way to dispose of it would be to put it down deep wells within closed geologic basins.
Furthermore, fast breeder technology will be commercially available in 20 years and the “problem” becomes energy for future generations.
Reprocess it. Most of the stuff remaining after reprocessing is low enough in radioactivity that it isn’t worth worrying about, or has half lives in the months to years range.
That is not a given. There is such a thing as diseconomies of scale. In any case, most of the economies of scale for solar pv are captured by relatively small installations.
There is only so much land that is prime for solar. Those being places as close to the equator as you can get with few clouds on a year round basis.
Those places take up may 0.5 to 1.0 percent of the earth’s surface.
Once those places are fully covered, you are going to have to use areas that are less than optimal for your solar installations.
There are no economies of scale for solar, the economies work the other way.
Not to mention that the places that are best for solar are places where few people live. As a result easily 10 to 20 percent of whatever power you do get will be lost in transmission.
Nuclear power has been solid inexpensive energy producer for decades.
Claims that nuclear power has somehow hoodwinked consumer, tax payers, regulators, bureaucrats are absolute fabrications. All of the truth and reality of fairy dust.
Recycling costs are overstated? Most recycling companies are dangerously close to bankruptcy from dealing with consumer wastes that are more expensive to recycle than to bury. Many of the recycling centers survive through taxpayer surcharges.
Then there are the truly absurd claims of “economies of scale”!
• Just what is an economy of scale for solar cells?
• Their manufacture in China? There goes another bankrupt manufacturer!
• Their shipping from China? More storage trailers to dispose of, but no economy of scale!
• Perhaps Resourceguy and stock mean the installation costs? How do the magic wand wavers of eco-loon land manage to obtain economies of scale during manual installation? Less bolts, nuts and screws?
• Or is it during the regular maintenances keeping those solar cells clean? Going to leave them to weather in; how much does that drop efficiency?
• Then there is, how many square miles of land will solar cells consume? Shading out plants and wildlife, restricting use to solar cell shade formations…
Oh Yeah, economies of scale… Silliness and stupidity from mass eco-hysteria.
So, which is it? Deregulate and remove subsidies and let the market decide? Or (as your “ban rooftop solar” comment suggests), a crony capitalist market that is “some for me, but none for thee”?
Eh? Ban roof top solar? The only place it makes sense. All that “waste” sitting in pools at plants is very valuable fuel. If we recycle anything, it should be that spent fuel.
Why doesn’t the US recycle spent fuel?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/10/01/why-doesnt-u-s-recycle-nuclear-fuel/#113b41637db4
Land for solar Mark?
roofs. parking lots.
Plenty of those.
Griff, I know that you are paid to make a fool of yourself, but sheesh, do you have to be so good at it?
Above, you demand that roof top be banned, now you are citing roof top as the salvation of solar?
Secondly, are those rooftops in the prime locations that I mentioned previously? If not, then your point does not address my argument.
To put it simply, wind and solar power are the least green power sources on the planet. Both use quantities of rare elements that are energy intensive to mine and purify. In addition, both use construction materials that are also energy intensive and/or unrecyclable and the lifetimes of these systems are shorter than claimed. As of a couple of years ago there were 14,000 dead wind turbines in the US alone. Furthermore, these systems require constant maintenance, mostly cleaning—the blades of wind turbines, 100s of feet long, have to be cleaned regularly or they lose efficiency. Both systems require an extensive infrastructURE as the power is generated in a distributed form and must be brought together and routed to where it is needed. Finally, the sun sets, the wind dies, and clouds form, which renders both systems unreliable and often operating at 25% of their rated capacity or less. There is no inexpensive means of storing energy for use at night.
The bottomline is that these systems really only work well for the end user, such that a farm wind turbine or solar PV will lower the farm’s demand for energy from the grid.
YOU CANNOT BUILD A RELIABLE ENERGY SUPPLY FROM UNRELIABLE ENERGY SOURCES.
The powers that be, the Administration, globalists, and the UN, know that these two systems, even solar thermal do not work for supporting a healthy civilization. That is the point: they want to lower our standard of living and de-industrialize the Western world, as industry cannot function without reliable energy.
YOU CANNOT BUILD A RELIABLE ENERGY SUPPLY FROM UNRELIABLE ENERGY SOURCES.
I do believe that if someone was given a vast array of solar and wind generators but not allowed any other power they could not make a new turbine or solar panel to replace ones that eventually failed. However if someone was given a good supply of crude oil they could use it to get more. So which is sustainable?
Not without a sufficient energy storage. While possible in principle, it has eluded us so far.
Eric, thank you for noticing this one. I don’t read HuffPo.
higley7 – to add to your points –
https://stopthesethings.com/2014/08/16/how-much-co2-gets-emitted-to-build-a-wind-turbine/
it is a few years old however point taken
Wow! The Copper Mountain solar created 6 WHOLE JOBS!!!
Plant construction was completed in 2010, so the construction jobs was a blip – and probably lots of out-of-state workers.
That’s not the first time “YOU CANNOT BUILD A RELIABLE ENERGY SUPPLY FROM UNRELIABLE ENERGY SOURCES” has been said here. Which is saddening, because it is obviously untrue. Engineers build reliable (enough) systems out of unreliable components all the time. Communication systems use error-correcting codes. The basic Internet protocols are designed to provide a reliable (continental- then) planetary-scale communication and computation system out of individually less reliable computers and communication links. The idea of cloud computing is to provide a continuing service in the presence of failing components. Buildings are supposed to be designed so that taking out one support won’t bring down the whole building. An important reason for using two-phase materials is to *expect* cracking in one phase but use the other phase to prevent the cracks from spreading. Individual farms can fail, but that doesn’t take out the entire food supply system. In business, nearly every business fails, most of them quite quickly, but the *system* keeps going. In energy, coal mines run out, oil wells run out, gas fields are exhausted so don’t kid yourself that those things are intrinsically reliable; the *system* is reliable despite being built out of unreliable pieces because the system just depends on *enough* pieces being available. Heck, even *chairs* aren’t 100% reliable, they’re just easy to replace. (Except the driver’s seat for my van. Apparently 1994 Japanese vans are antiquities and such spares as exist are in museums or private collections.)
Whether you can build an *affordable* energy supply out of wind, wave, and sun without doing terrible things to the environment is another matter.
You say it is obviously untrue and then change the subject to anything but BUILDING A RELIABLE ENERGY SUPPLY which is what was being discussed.
Did you think no-one would notice?
SteveT
“Engineers build reliable (enough) systems out of unreliable components all the time. ”
Airplanes can fly, therefore unreliable power won’t bring down a power grid.
Engineers can build error correction codes into data streams, therefore the unexpected loss of power from a windmill won’t harm the power grid.
Sheesh, what is it about supporters of wind and solar and their inability to understand basic physics and engineering.
Confidence in reliability:
It is also important to note that corporate investors have not been at all keen to build major new plant where the electricity supply is erratic. The classic case is the fear of the aluminium in a potline freezing from molten state and having to be jack hammered out.
Globally, engineers appraising sites for new investment in industries like resources processing place a high weight on low cost and high reliability of electricity supply. I have not seen any recent investor like this accepting a dominance of renewables as an accepted mix, but there could be some examples.
But, why take such a big investment risk? Simply go for nuclear, well proven over decades.
Geoff
Then there’s that old “night” thing…
Just let them know they are doing these multi project phases all wrong.
http://www.semprausgp.com/project/copper-mountain-solar-1/
Subsidy farms.
Resourceguy,
Cooper-mountain claims its emission savings are the equivalent of 18,000 cars annually. According to Wiki, there are 255.8 million cars in the US. In order to get zero emissions you would need over 14,000 cooper-mountains. Do they pay you commissions?
The risk with solar is that one of these days politicians will come to their senses and stop subsidizing them. Then your investment becomes totally unsupportable.
Nuclear is a known technology that works and has been for some 60 years.
Right…
http://www.utilitydive.com/news/decommissioning-costs-a-blind-spot-in-the-nuclear-power-debate/425415/
Fascinating how the troll has to link to propaganda sites touting disproven data.
Decommissioning has always been factored into the cost of nuke plants.
The fact that nut case environmentalists have driven decommissioning costs up is the fault of the nut case environmentalists.
Decommissioning costs: A blind spot in the nuclear power debate
In nuclear policy, too little thought is given to the considerable costs of storing radioactive waste on site
By Christina Simeone | August 30, 2016
…
In the interim, nuclear reactor Licensees have been forced to make significant capital investments to expand their ability to store spent fuel on site at power plants. Licensees sued the federal government for financial damages caused by the government’s failure to accept nuclear waste for disposal, and the Licensees won.
The federal government is therefore using taxpayer money to pay back the Licensee’s costs of interim waste storage. As of 2015, more than $5 billion of taxpayer dollars were paid to reactor Licensees. The total cost of damages is estimated to range from $29 billion to $50 billion if the government begins to accept waste in 10 years. If this date slides, government liabilities increase by $500 million per year.
So today, all 100 operating nuclear power reactors are storing waste on site in wet and/or dry storage. When a full plant retires, the entire site cannot be decommissioned, because a portion of the site must continue to store waste.
…
See Utility Dive for the full text
Come to my propaganda site where I tell even more and bigger lies.
Utilities have always paid a tax to pay for long term storage.
The fact that the government has refused to build the long term storage is not the fault of the utilities.
We need a new technology, but we need a new government even more.
Disposal costs have already been paid by nuclear operators. The federal government is liable because it has failed to live up to its responsibility to open the proven Yucca Mtn storage facility and accept the waste. It’s eco-lunatics like you that are generating the cost and defrauding ratepayers, operators, and taxpayers. Nothing new, I know.
Uh, working where I do I happen to know – without a doubt – that your claim about not considering decommissioning and storage of spent fuel is false. The problem was and is government interference and malfeasance. A deal was struck with the nuclear plant operators and the government that the operators would pay the government as well as cover the costs of spent fuel storage. In return the government would provide a safe and secure long term spent fuel storage solution. As we all know, the government failed to live up to their side of the bargain. As the government attorneys know all too well. So now the government is faced with having to reimburse the nuclear plant operators all fees paid over the years. Had Yucca been accepting spent fuel for – oh, the last 20 years or so – we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Plant decommissioning costs have always been figured into nuclear power plant cost projections. What cannot be anticipated is shifting government interference. A proposal to build a third reactor at Calvert Cliffs was abandoned because of the inability to judge just which way the government would jump next.
In my FLONUP proposal (Floating Nuc.PowerStations) the ultimate decommissioning is the Marianas Trench … pull all the plugs and let it drop.
All the uneducated Greenos will claim: “ENV’TL DISASTER IN THE DEEPS” However, from my experience as a qualified Nuclear Fallout Analyst — a rusty science! — 10 m. (meters, not miles!) in salt water mitigates the irradiation by 50% +/-. Besides which, the bottom of the Marianas Trench is far closer the THE MAJOR source of radiation … Earth’s core & mantle.
And any local marine life at that depth will be well adapted to enhanced radiation, 50% advance of which locally will be reduced every 10m. (metres, for Dr. Strangelove!)
And fish don’t have votes …. (will I regret this comment?)
Ross King says: “”THE MAJOR source of radiation … Earth’s core & mantle.”
..
I guess that explains why the lava flows coming from the Hawaiian volcanoes are radioactive !!!!!
Prob’ly at some level ….
Where else does background radioactivity come from? I don’t think it’s Fairy-Rings?
Ross King – check your email spam bucket re eggheads /mark
That freaking silly. There is no risk on solar PV. Costs and production are totally known.
Not so with nuclear.
Why does some nutter always get in the first reply?
No risk with solar – except that the 25 year lifetime that all the PV solar economics are based on turns out to be 2-3 years. Except if you are a bird living near Ivanpah (ok not pv but still solar). Or someone who has to pay for electricity. Or someone investing in covering their roof with PV not knowing when the government will change the subsidy structure. Or an investor. Etc…
/sarc
Another thing that’s known about solar PV: it has a negative EROI.
I have no clue why you think the costs of solar are widely known. Solar is unreliable and intermittant and therefore requires constant backup, which is virtually always provided by fossil fuel plants. Amazing why anyone can actually convince themselves that the costs of nuclear power are unknown, when the costs of building same are public knowledge and most of the nuclear plants in operation have been producing power for more than 30 years. Costs are exceedingly well known and vary from site to site, just as solar power costs vary from site to site, and more so, due to differences in cloud cover, natural irradiance, the costs of backup power. Apparently there are folks out there who, for one reason or another, think that wind and solar are equivalent power generators to reliable types. Unreliable types of power generation requires that two parallel power generating system exist, an extremely wasteful and costly proposition, especially in this case, where the only backup power producer costs that are reduced by their power being ignored at the expense of renewables (often the case) is a reduction in fuel costs. But those fuel costs only represent a small portion of the costs of maintaining a reliable power plany in operation. In the case of nuclear, it would be virtually impossible to reduce their fuel costs more than an insignficant amount, the plant simply cannot ramp up and down quickly and thus saving fuel (which is a tiny portion of the costs of running a nuclear plant) is absurd. What happens is what is hapening in the Midwest , where wind and solar are accepted in preference to nuclear, rendering the nuclear plant only a partial producer, and leading to an almost linear increase in the costs of the power that they sell. Reneable enthusaiasts are generally grid-ignorant and have weird ideas of the costs of nuclear power. Nuclear plants also have been contributing a small amount of the costs of each kWhr for disposal and shutdown costs. There will be no additional costs when a nuclear plant reaches the end of its lifespan, which is many times longer than that of solar and wind. And new design molten salt reactors will radicaly change everything, since they want nuclear wastes as fuel, so there will be no heavy expenses of nuclear wastes disposal, nor any need for long term containment. Nuclear plants that operate as designed (as baseload power plants) produce the cheapest power, period. ALL of their costs are known, excepting that future costs with respect to nuclear waste “disposal” will be grossly overestimated, which will reduce their power production costs even further.
And with repsect to nuclear, the new designs about to go commerical will vastly reduce even the low nuclear power costs of today : they will cost less than half as much to build, will seldom fail to meet build
costs, and will have essentially zero fuel costs, regardless of the type of fuel they consume. They also will require very little oversight as they are inherently safe. No renewable power type can hope to compete with these totally reliable (and load following) molten salt nuclear power plants , no matter which comparisons
are made. Renewables are primitive and doomed. They have no future on the grid. The rest of the world seems to know this, so why are Americans so clueless?
There is one big unknown when it comes to the cost of nuclear.
Who knows how much the next stupid and unneeded regulation passed by the eco-nuts and their bureaucratic fellow travelers will cost.
stock: “There is no risk on solar PV. “
Not for bien pensant middle class Western “Liberals”.
But for the less fortunate members of the World’s population who have to pay for their virtue signalling, the price can be very high indeed.
The Dirty Side of a “Green” Industry
As people worldwide increasingly feel the heat of climate change, many are applauding the skyrocketing growth of China’s fledgling solar-cell industry. Solar power and other “green” technologies, by providing electricity from renewable energy sources like the sun and wind, create hope for a world free of coal-burning pollution and natural resource depletion. A recent Washington Post article, however, has revealed that China’s booming solar industry is not as green as one might expect. Many of the solar panels that now adorn European and American rooftops have left behind a legacy of toxic pollution in Chinese villages and farmlands.
The Post article describes how Luoyang Zhonggui, a major Chinese polysilicon manufacturer, is dumping toxic factory waste directly on to the lands of neighboring villages, killing crops and poisoning residents. Other polysilicon factories in the country have similar problems, either because they have not installed effective pollution control equipment or they are not operating these systems to full capacity. Polysilicon is a key component of the sunlight-capturing wafers used in solar photovoltaic (PV) cells.
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5650
But hey, who cares when you’re “Saving the World™”, right?
Solar companies without subsidies suffer high economic losses and company failure. I would not buy stock in one. Also, as regards “risk” consider the chemistry of a solar panel, where those chemicals come from, and their relative abundance. Ignoring silica, you have rare elements including cadmium, tellurium, copper, indium, gallium, and selenium, all toxic. You not only have to mine them, which means greater physical effects for rarer elements, but consider the fun of disposing of old solar cells. They are hazardous waste by definition. Following the BRAC process – Defense Base Closure and Realignment – following the “peace dividend” when the USSR finally collapsed, every branch of the armed services in the US has been entangled in clean-up of hazardous materials and the heavy metal issues are some of the most durable problems. Some of the materials of concern include copper and cadmium contamination.
I’m pretty sure that copper isn’t all that rare.
No risk? Ever hear of a hailstorm? You are always one hailstorm from being out of business. In winter it is called snow. Now you get to pump hot water onto the panels to keep that clear. The output also degrades over time. You need a good supply of water to keep them clean from bird poop and dust, and good access to clean them. To produce they require silver, which must be available.
Over time, dust clouds the panels and greatly reduces their output. As a result they have to be cleaned regurally. Let’s not mention what a poorly timed flock of birds can do to those panels. Yuck.
There is no risk on solar PV. Costs and production are totally known. …
…To be way higher (costs) than even the most overreacted nuclear reactor…
..as for production, it’s known… to be absolutely dire, especially at midnight.
great,
nuclear is SO much better than solar from an Nature perspective imo
compact land usage high energy BASE load avail 24/7 vs expansive land usage, medium energy base load avail 12/7 …provided it is not raining on cloudy
thorium nuclear plants would be even better but…..
+100
Just let you know that thorium has been used in reactors as “fertile” material for decades.
It can be used in many reactor designs, including Canadian Candu.
Just my2c
Are you really sure that is the Huffington Post? If so, somone is about to be forced out for violating the standards of the green blob, as all greens in good standing hate nuclear. Utter heresy!
including the Governor who only backed up when the grid operators kicked his butt (another good piece by Robert Bryce, Manhattan Institute) – grid reality versus green dreams:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/upstate-power-play-14667.html
I guess part of the art of being a HuffPo contributor is being able to state the bleeding obvious with a sense of wonder and discovery.
lol, I’ve been pro nuclear since I was 10.
A large portion of the cost problems are due to protesters, and legal interference.
It was written by Carol Browner, “former Environmental Protection Agency administrator and former director of the White House Office on Energy and Climate Change Policy.”
It’s interesting that there are no comments under the story that was published more than 16 hours ago.
Traditional readers are shocked by the revelation…
They are still looking for all the pieces- they were not warned to wrap their heads in duct-tape before reading. I foresee lawsuits…
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
The high priests of the Global Warming faith embracing Nuclear!
Sound the death knell for unreliable energy – wind/solar – as a fanciful baseload alternative to fossil fuels!
What a truly catastrophic disaster – environmentally, socially and economically the feel-good ‘Green’ energy experiment has been.
Sigh.
“New York State is now the first government to include nuclear in its clean energy policy”
I think the UK was first…
Aha, you found the nit.
Good picking.
It’s not like he’s reading for understanding.
You mean where UK has scheduled half of their nuclear power plants to close by 2025?
Or where UK was going to have a Chinese contractor build old technology nuclear power plants for outrageous prices, using loans from China?
Which is it griffy?
The plants closing are at the end of their useful life Theo…
You missed UK climate policy includes plans for new nuclear reactors at up to 7 sites to replace them.
Nuclear plants have very long useful lives griffy.
All it takes are the necessary approvals, some refitting and upgrades and most nuclear plants are easily good for sixty years. Most ‘early’ reactors are into their second twenty year approval cycle.
Given that the ‘new’ plants that are supposed to be heading construction are ‘on hold’ and zero progress has been made for starting construction on any of the others.
Then there are the nuclear plants due to close… Fortunately, the bad news regarding UK’s contracts for new construction might be offset by approving the old nuclear sites for longer lifespans.
There, you might have learned something griffy child. Though you do not exhibit much reading comprehension in your comments; still one can hope.
…Wait, what ?? Sanity from New York State AND the Huffington Post ?? ….Did Hell freeze over ? It really is worse then they thought !! LOL
Why isn’t there more effort to Thorium. Thorium is more abundant in nature than uranium. Thorium fuels can breed fissile uranium-233 to be used in various kinds of nuclear reactors. Molten salt reactors are well suited to thorium fuel, as normal fuel fabrication is avoided.
More abundant, yes, but less concentrated … that is, it’s easier to get a bunch of uranium for fuel, in general, than it is to get a similar amount of thorium.
Thorium has been used in various reactors over the years, including in the US, but these designs didn’t work out for one reason or another. Eventually, it will be used again, but there is no rush.
Thorium does not need to be isotopicaly enriched. Thus it is cheaper than enriched uranium
Thorium is fertile, needs a neutron to be fissile.
There is no need for an alternate fissionable fuel for nuclear plants. There is plenty of uranium around, at very reasonable prices considering that the cost of the raw uranium is a tiny fraction of the overall cost of the electricity produced. It would still be economic to extract U from seawater to use in existing powerplants. MSR Thorium, OTOH, requires the development of an entirely new technology for handling the material. There is ONE thorium fuel design that could be used in existing reactors, but no one wants to have to go thru the hassle of getting it approved, when U is approved and ubituitous.
The last thing that nuclear needs is more research and development activities that spend a lot of money and end up with nothing but an expensive site to decommission. The greens will use that against nuclear forever.
Separately; if it was so easy then everyone would be doing it, thorium and molten coolant. Kind’a like fusion.
Actually it has been done. Back in the 60s. Thorium doesn’t make good breeders so the government didn’the pursue it. Thorium is abundant and easy to refine. It is actually a byproduct of rare earth mining… as a waste product. The government has disposed of over 3000 metric tons in Nevada.
You missed the tense of my comment, PAST IMPERFECT. I am quite familiar with the history of nuclear power.
Because in the US the DoD wanted reactors that could be used to produce H-bomb elements. Th reactors are pretty useless for nuclear arms races.
BS, low enriched commercial LWR have are not practical and never have been used to make weapons material.
There are several Thorium research projects underway, notably in china and Norway (which is also UK financed).
But they don’t expect to deliver a first ‘commercial’ design before the early 2030s.
They can store the waste at Cuomo’s house.
They won’t frack because the idiots think plant food is destroying the planet but now they will have bury the muc waste or put it who knows where to manufacture another “crisis” down the road.
Why store it? Recycle it.
We should not be applauding this trojan horse. They still are pushing renewables, and they still want to kill fossil fuels.
France demonstrated you can run an economy on nuclear power, which is an improvement on wasting money on useless renewables, at least from an engineering POV. I agree the political situation is still completely nuts.
Yes, and I understand that their solution to waste storage is to reprocess. The US ban on reprocessing is a story unto itself – not sure why someone hasn’t written a book on the topic, maybe too depressing…
France plans to close its nuclear and go with solar and wind instead. Green madness gets everywhere.
What France did with nuclear is a red herring. Completely different situation. Don’t get me wrong; a ramping up of nuclear to some degree wouldn’t be a bad idea, just not at the expense of fossil fuels. Nuclear needs to be sold for the right reasons, not based on lies.
Renewable that works as opposed to renewables that don’t work.
It’s a step in the right direction.
I see that Andy Boy is for continuing existing nuclear plants but not that he is for new and improved ones.
I absolutely love how this CO2 nonsense has driven the conversation to supporting Nuclear Power, the power Green Peace was founded upon to fight. The nitwits created a crisis without a solution. Wind and Solar aren’t solutions. You can either use nuclear or carbon, those are the only two real alternatives. Go ahead, convert every coal burning power plant into nuclear, you have my 100% support. Now that is a real solution.
Why would anyone want fission or hot fusion, which cost billions, when we’re on the cusp of LENR availability. a 1 MW unit is already being sold: http://ecat.com/ecat-products/ecat-1-mw
Thanks, it was time for a bit of comic relief.
That’s because anyone with any sense is wary of scams and notorious snake-oil salesmen.
Hmm, Fredster.
Should that initial ‘e’ be an ‘au’ ?
Awesome!! That reminds me of an ad from the ’90s for a better TV antenna that “actually pulls signals right out of the air!!”. It was rabbit ears with a fake dish mounted to it but the tag line was “Not Technical Razzle Dazzle but a Marketing Breakthrough!!”
Why I’m Certain That The Rossi E-Cat Doesn’t Work As Advertised
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/11/29/why-im-certain-that-the-rossi-e-cat-doesnt-work-as-advertised/#1d0c9fff392f
Some have speculated that the entire “global warming” theme was conjured up to gain public acceptance of nuclear power, before the idea wa usurped by the red/greens.
It was, in a sense. Margaret Thatcher hyped it up during her battles with the Miners Unions in the UK. The UK nuclear plants were the thing that kept the UK from going dark during the strikes, and Thatcher wanted to get out from under the thumb of the unions. Unfortunately, it got a bit out of hand, because the left realized that it could be used to control all of society.
Wow! You must as old as I am to remember this.
(And you are absolutely correct)
I recall the rolling power cuts of the 70’s. But the 3 day week was before Thatcher for exactly the same reason, miners strikes.
That was covered in the Documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle.
https://youtu.be/52Mx0_8YEtg
No : it was cooked up to hammer coal in favour of natural gas.
It seems, watching from the sidelines over lo’ these many years from the 1950s to now, that a large part of the cost and time to build nuclear power plants is now due to a regulatory quagmire that adds decades to the process and thus orders of magnitude to the final cost. Thanks, once again, to the radical environmental movement and an uncritical, fear mongering media.
I am sure there is someone here in the WUWT blogosphere that can comment with numbers contrasting the times and adjusted costs to build the various generations of nuclear power plants. It would be an interesting article. I have a feeling that the graphed curve of the cost of increasing stupid will be highly correlated with AlG0re’s waistline.
Maybe I can become an environmentalist again.
May need a new term though. The existing one has been corrupted beyond recognition.
Meanwhile….
http://www.utilitydive.com/news/decommissioning-costs-a-blind-spot-in-the-nuclear-power-debate/425415/
OK, so you’ve posted this what, three or four times so far? Repeating it over and over does not make it any more credible. Mods: Doesn’t this amount to some sort of spamming?
It did not appear to work earlier.
It ain’t gonna work now because it’s the sort of “facts” that would do Roger Sowell proud.
You’ve said it multiple times, now make new points to the replies.
How many times are you going to post the same claim and the same links?
Your claim? Bogus!!
See my comment below at September 2, 2016 at 5:33 am
The pro and anti nuclear greens are analagous to the Sunnis and Shiites in the great green Caliphate they are fighting for. Expect some anti-nuclear bombs to go off from the other greens any moment…
There is still the issue of the DOE’s failure to provide a repository for high level radioactive waste, as mandated by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. As of 2012, a ‘Blue Ribbon’ commission set up by Obama had formed three subcommittees: Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology, Transportation and Storage, and Disposal, which had merely produced a ‘comprehensive recommendation for disposal strategies’.
Reopen Yucca Mountain or restart reprocessing.
Even better, change the government.
Never closed because it has not yet opened. The courts have ruled that Obama must follow environmental laws too and continue to fund the licensing process. The NRC has resumed their review.
My signature is all over scientific reviews of the project to determine if the site should move forward when Clinton was POTUS.
Yucca Mountain is massive overkill. Nuke plants are demonstrating on a daily basis safe dry cask storage.
Gonna keep those dry casks sitting there for 100,000 years, Kit? Good plan.
There must be some way of making nuclear power more unreliable and intermittent, so that it can properly be called renewable and worthy of subsidies.
We closed the poorly manged nuke plants 20 years ago. Then utilities that were good at managing nuke plants started buying up the poorly run ones. I think that is the case in NY.
Carbon pollution…detest the idiots that use this insidiously false language.
https://youtu.be/lj-XOJsHKsE?t=829
What more needs to be said ? ONLY Trump will stop this madness and save the world from the One World Order of elitists….and personally…I don’t like him…but he has my vote…from an American living in Canada !
I look at this as not an embrace of nuclear, but rather a realization that “renewables” will not be enough for the foreseeable future. So they are supporting keeping existing plants going. If anyone were to actually propose a new plant, I think their tune would change.
Actually new plants were proposed and embraced by NY state officials when the cost of natural gas was much higher than today. COL application for NMP Unit 3 has been withdrawn.
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/col.html
Renewables will not be enough for the foreseeable future – and as an engineer that’s about the next million years. Unless we go back to a global population in the few millions, and use charcoal. And go to bed at sunset.
It’s hard to cheer for another industry being thrown into the crony capitalism pot. I’ll cheer when the regulatory burden is adjusted to a reasonable level and nuclear can compete without handouts. I totally agree nuclear power is by far the most promising solution to reduced emissions, but qualifying for subsidies (like the fringe power sources of solar and wind) is not my idea of the solution. Nuclear has always made more sense, but has been choked by red tape to near death in the USA. Site selection issues haven’t done the industry any favors either – I’m looking at you Fukushima. If it’s likely to have a catastrophic natural event cause irreparable harm, then that site isn’t a good one. Otherwise, if we’d let the modernization and development of better nuclear power sources flourish, it would be a very good thing for us all. Forget about the CO2 foolishness – the dramatic reductions in all emissions that nuclear power provides is good for everyone, including the adherents to the religion of global warming.
+100
Jim where did you get the idea that electricity was a free market. We would just love to have the same markup as a cup of coffee at a gas station.
When I had a big house it would cost $1/day/person to cool the house on the hottest summer day. Less that 25 cents for a long hot shower.
Electric utilities are heavily regulated. So Jim, do you want to take a stab at predicting the future cost of natural gas 60 years into the future? One hint, natural gas is only cheap when supply exceeds demand. What will happen when too many nukes and coal plants are retired?
I want the least cost sources to flourish, and if they have the added benefit of providing clean energy, what’s not to like? Deregulating the electric industry is unlikely, but if the cost to produce energy is low, the rates will track. Free markets are a great thing in almost every case where there aren’t giant capital costs as barriers to entry for competition. Like the billions that have to be spent attempting to comply with the labyrinthine regulatory hurdles placed before the nuclear power industry. The energy industry is likely to always be a hybrid of truly free market principles, but it is still a slave to the costs of doing business, if we want clean, abundant and cost effective energy, nuclear is a clear choice – except for the regulatory costs.