Sweden, China, India, Russia, and others are changing from occasional electricity from renewables to fossil-free electricity from nuclear that is continuous and uninterruptible.
Published Nov 24, 2023 at Heartland https://heartland.org/opinion/while-america-pursues-renewables-worldwide-expansion-is-underway-for-nuclear-generated-electricity/
Ronald Stein is an engineer, senior policy advisor on energy literacy for the Heartland Institute and CFACT, and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations.”
American political leaders such as President Joe Biden and California Governor Gavin Newsom continue “to dream the impossible dream” that intermittent electricity from wind and solar can run the world while countries such as Sweden, China, India, and Russia are changing from occasional electricity by renewables to electricity from nuclear that is continuous, uninterruptible, and fossil-free.
With regards to reliable electricity, Sweden has said their electricity policy goal is “changed from 100% renewable to 100% fossil-free”. The Swedish government unveiled a roadmap which envisages the construction of new nuclear generating capacity equivalent to at least two large-scale reactors by 2035. Sweden plans ‘massive’ expansion of new nuclear generated electricity by 2045.
The Swedish agreement also said necessary regulations should be developed to create the conditions for the construction and operation of small modular reactors (SMRs) to service smaller communities. In addition, the permitting process for nuclear power plants must be shortened.
Elsewhere, about 60 nuclear power reactors are currently being constructed in 15 countries, notably China, India, and Russia. Together, China and Russia account for 70 percent of new nuclear plants.
America continues its pursuit of reducing crude oil usage, in favor of wind and solar generated electricity. In addition, the “American renewables dream“ would mean sacrificing an estimated 6,000 useful products that rely on by-products manufactured from crude oil – products that range from asphalt for highways to fertilizers, cosmetics, synthetic rubber, medicines and medical devices, cleaning products, plastics, so many more.
Without fuels and without products now based on crude oil, we would be unable to operate the international and military airports that now accommodate a large number of the more than 20,000 commercial aircraft and a large number of the more than 50,000 military aircraft, as well as many of the more than50,000 merchant ships.
Without the fuels and products now based on oil, the world would see the elimination of all militaries and space programs as the world reverts to the pre-1800’s when civilization existed without oil!
The billions who live on this planet without the benefits of those products made from the petrochemicals manufactured from crude oil have provided are also the poorest, sickest, and most vulnerable humans on the planet.
For any electricity generation method, whether it’s coal, natural gas, hydroelectric, nuclear, wind turbines, or solar panels, the most reliable are those that can generate continuous and uninterruptible electricity year-round to support hospitals, industry, militaries, electronics, and communications.
The nameplate rated capacity of renewables is very misleading as the generated electricity is intermittent and unreliable. Wind facilities only generate their stated output about 30-40 percent of the time. Solar units typically only kick in 25 percent of their purported “capacity factor.” That means backup electricity from coal, natural gas, and nuclear generating plants must be provided for the other 60-75 percent of the time that wind and solar are napping.
To the electrical engineer, the available wind and solar farms operational data shows that, it is not possible for wind and solar electricity to ever displace dispatchable, reliable generation of continuous uninterruptable electricity supplying the base load demand. In this regard, the proposal by some policymakers to replace major coal, natural gas, hydro, and nuclear power stations with a fleet of nameplate rated wind and solar farms that are dormant most of the time is not technically achievable, thus “they dream the impossible dream”.
Further, the minerals and components of renewable electricity from wind and solar are typically garnered overseas in developing countries, chiefly in China, Africa, and Latin America. What this means is that it will be on the backs of poor Asians, Blacks, and Hispanics to provide the low-cost, cheap labor that will drive a “Green revolution” – to include any potential child and slave labor as well as extensive environmental degradation to “their” country, as discussed in detail in the Pulitzer Prize Nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations – Helping Citizens Understand the Environmental and Humanity Abuses That Support Clean Energy”.
As for the environmental credentials of “clean electricity”, governmental leaders need to look at the trail of environmental and human damage from the beginning to the end of the life of batteries, turbines, and solar panels. The cleanliness of “clean” electricity is one of the Big Lies of our time. Wind and solar electricity are not cheap or energy-efficient, after considering the energy required for mining, transporting, processing, construction, and disposal of the hardware at the end of the line.
Then we have the oxymoron situation, where policymakers are not yet cognizant that everything that “needs” electricity is made with the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil, from the light bulb to the iPhone, defibrillator, etc., etc.! Thus, renewables are not displacing the need for crude oil.
Policymakers need to have a plan to be able to support the materialistic demands of the eight billion on this globe for all the products, infrastructures, and electricity that exist today that did not exist a few hundred years ago. Efforts to cease the use of crude oil, without a planned replacement, could be the greatest threat to civilization’s demands of the eight billion on this planet.
The so-called fossil fuel industry enables people to live lives of ease and comfort that were inconceivable for the masses before the 1800’s. The products and fuels manufactured from crude oil are the basis of modern life, providing thousands of products that are ubiquitous in modern society. These include items that we use practically every minute of the day from putting on our makeup and cleaning our teeth to undergoing medical treatment. Imagine the pharmaceutical industry without petrochemical products.
If we want to deliver continuous, uninterruptible, and emission-free electricity at scale, and at a low cost for millions of electricity consumers, to support the materialistic demands that did not exist a few short centuries ago, that pace will have to move to a warp speed timeline, like that in Sweden, China, India, and Russia with their focus on electricity from nuclear generation.
Ronald Stein, P.E.
Author | Columnist | Energy Literacy Consultant
https://expertfile.com/experts/ronald.stein
The problem here of course, is that a mentality which is very fearful of normal, extreme weather events, and which confuses weather events with climate change, will very likely be fearful of any harmful effects of nuclear power.
It’ll be very difficult to persuade such people that nuclear power can be safe, just as it’s very difficult to persuade such people that CO2 is not a pollutant.
It’s strange, isn’t it? Almost as if there is a death wish going on in some western democracies. I wonder if the U.S. media has ever asked the leading figures in both main political parties about nuclear power and if so what the answers were.
Here in the U.K. we have a similar puzzling situation. Mother Nature gave us a great gift of natural gas – we have something like 50 years of frackable gas beneath our feet. But politicians on BOTH sides of the political divide support a ban on fracking, so we are unable to benefit. Needless to say we still import fracked gas from other countries. Even if you speak really slowly to our members of Parliament they still don’t get it.
It is almost as if these politicians want us to fail as nations. But the reality is that they just aren’t very intelligent. I don’t know what the situation is in the States but a huge problem in the U.K. is that our right wing has over the last 50 years drifted to the left so we now have two left of centre parties dominating the political scene. So now, General Elections have largely lost their meaning because it doesn’t matter who you vote for you still end up with a socialist government.
I think our two nations may be done for.
This short video of : life without petroleum, says it all
I have a feeling that 85% of the article were posted here a only few weeks ago. But maybe I’ve read it elsewhere.
Wind facilities only generate their stated output about 30-40 percent of the time. Solar units typically only kick in 25 percent of their purported “capacity factor.”
The problem is, even that is misleadingly optimistic. Because the times when they are generating those percentages often does not coincide with the times when there is demand. Anyone can see it here, as I keep posting:
http://www.gridwatch.co.uk/wind.
So, in the UK, as I also keep saying, the classic is a cold dark calm winter evening in January or February. Its early evening peak demand. Its the electric millenium, the population has come home, plugged in their EV to recharge, turned up the heat pump, put the kettle on for a cup of tea and turned on the hob and maybe oven or grill. But this is a day when 150GW of faceplate that they have heroically managed to get installed only delivers 3GW for much of the day, in a week when it delivers under 10GW for a week or ten days, and in one of the years which occur every couple of decades when there is a season long and region wide wind drought. As explained by the Royal Society report, published in 2023, which no-one in power paid the slightest attention to.
Peak demand is now not 45GW as it used to be, but has risen to 90GW+, and the country is entirely dependent on wind. A policy endorsed by all political parties except Reform.
Out go the lights.
The UK Net Zero plan is a recipe for blackouts. Not just local ones either. Keep on with it to the bitter end and there will be several nationwide ones every winter, taking days to do a phased restart.
This is madness on a level with the cattle killing mania of the Xhosa in the 19C, also heavily promoted by a teenage girl prophet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nongqawuse
A nuclear scientist spoke to a French politician a few years ago about nuclear energy. The politician’s response was that insane Greens would start smashing car windows if he made a wrong move. It was Macron. This same scientist commented that while the media and Green movement had strong feelings against nuclear, there was none of this from engineers he had spoken to but that they were scared to openly support nuclear. Sadly these fringe lunatics have a disproportionate influence on governments and many politicians.
I suspect my following philosophical argument is going to get lots of negative votes.
We know that, throughout the history of Homo Sapiens, tribes and nations have competed with each other for land, resources and dominant power.
It used to be thought that humans were the only species who organized themselves into warrior-type tribes to compete for resources, until Jane Goodall observed a tribe of Chimpanzees trekking through the forest to invade and kill another tribe which was too close.
The following article provides some details, for those interested.
https://news.mongabay.com/2014/12/tribal-violence-comes-naturally-to-chimpanzees/
In other words, it seems we are wired to fight wars. All countries, as far as I know, have an army to protect themselves from invasion. One of the most peaceful nations, Bhutan, which measures its wealth in terms of a ‘happiness index’ instead of GDP, also has an army to defend itself.
So what has this to do with ‘Anthropogenic Climate Change’, you might be thinking? Well, this is just an hypothesis, but it does make some sense. In order to change this wired-in, competitve nature for wars, we create a world-wide enemy that is attacking every nation.
The world-wide enemy is CO2 emissions. If we can devote our resources to fighting this enemy, we can perhaps avoid another world war.
Given that renewables only produce electricity at rated capacity a limited amount of time (25% for solar panels was stated in the article), has there been any analysis of how much power a renewable resource must produce to replace itself along with it’s expected output during it’s lifetime. For example, If a solar panel lasts 20 years, but only produces 25% rated output, then it’s really operating only 5 years. If 20% of the panel’s lifetime output would be needed to build it’s replacement, then the net production for that panel is only 5% of the rated output. I’m using made up numbers here – has there been any analysis using actual output numbers?
Russia building more nuclear reactors than any other country, IAEA data show
MOSCOW, November 13, 2023
According to the IAEA, a total of 412 nuclear reactors are in operation at power plants across the world, with their total capacity at about 370.2 gigawatts
Russia is building more nuclear reactors that any other country in the world, according to data from the Power Reactor Information System of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The data show a total of 58 large-scale nuclear power reactors are currently under construction worldwide, of which 23 are being built by Russia. A plant may have up to 4 reactors, usually about 1,200 MW each
Rosatom is doing the most construction of international nuclear power units.
In Egypt, 4 reactors, each 1,200 MW = 4,800 MW for $30 billion is about $6,250/kW, which includes financing by Egypt $5 billion and by Russia $25 billion
That cost is at least 40% less then US/UK/EU
In Turkey, 4 reactors, each 1,200 MW = 4,800 MW for $20 billion is about $4,200/kW, entirely financed by Russia. The plant will be owned and operated by Rosatom
It is interesting, Rosatom’s direct competitors, according to PRIS data, are three Chinese companies: CNNC, CSPI and CGN.
They are building 22 reactors, but it should be noted, they are being built primarily inside China, and the Chinese partners are building five of them together with Rosatom.
If we talk about the Americans and Europeans, they are lagging behind by a wide margin,” Alexander Uvarov, a director at the Atom-info Center and editor-in-chief at the atominfo.ru website, told TASS.
Very good, plain straight forward language, sort and to the point. We need more like this.
The transition isn’t from one fuel to another, it is transition to a single energy source – electricity.
The preoccupation with how electricity will be generated, ignores (deliberately?) how the electricity will get from the power station to point of use, in an electricity only World.
It is akin to being preoccupied with manufacturing large number of locomotives and rolling stock without there being any railway infrastructure to run them on – nor any plans to build them.
Nuclear is not the answer in the U.S. because nuclear was the problem first. The groups demonizing CO2 began as groups demonizing nukes.