Chernobyl should be left out of the nuclear mortality analysis. It was built in a country with an almost nonexistent safety culture, and no licensing criteria. It would not have been licensed or built anywhere else. Nothing like it will ever be built again. Nobody was injured, made ill, or killed by Three Mile Island or Fukushima. In the entire civilized world, nuclear power is safer than Teddy Kennedy’s car.
Simon Michaux was more pessimistic concerning critical materials. Five times more copper than is known or projected to exist in forms that can be extracted from the Earth would be required to build the "technology units" that the IEA demands. Ten times more nickel. 26 times more cobalt....
The situation with spent nuclear fuel (not waste) is better than you describe. It's only 5% used, not 10%. Argonne and Idaho National Laboratories have developed a better reprocessing system than the ones used in France, UK (until Thorp was closed), Russia, and Japan (if Rokkasho enters service): Pyroelectric refining. After fission products are separated from spent fuel, if caesium and strontium are separated from the others, the mass is reduced by a factor of 200 compared to "once through" and the custody duration is reduced by a factor of 1,000. http://vandyke.mynetgear.com/Radiotoxicity.html.
Storage is an extreme problem. For USA as a whole, storage to provide firm power would cost NINE TIMES TOTAL GDP EVERY YEAR! http://vandyke.mynetgear.com/Worse.html.
Thanks. Credit given right from the start, I make a point of it, plus the source always quite visible on top of my translation. I don't think I messed up your surname anywhere, at least not that I can detect.
Your article about hydrogen is just as high-end as this one so I'll translate it ASAP.
Good, but old news. Folks must go before any of their local administrations, agencies, clubs... and clearly, forcefully, explain the scam that is 'renewable energy'.
Thanks to John for bringing this to our attention.
But the report's analysis of nuclear power is deeply flawed. They put everything with the word "nuclear" into one lump (except maybe nuclear DNA and nuclear family). They made no distinction between antique technology that will never be repeated, such as Chernobyl, and technology that has been proven to be inherently safe, such as EBR-II. Their projections of future cancer incidence due to the Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents are based on reports that used the linear-no-threshold model that has been exposed as fraudulent by Cuttler, Welsh, Calabrese, and others.
On the other hand, I haven't seen nor do I foresee any significant technology evolution in hydro, solar, and wind, so the conclusions in those areas are probably valid.
Capacity Factor (CF) data are interesting. These are shown in the bulk material usage table at Fig 10 - but CF seems to be a wider systems issue. Two points/Qs, if I may:
[1] CF data seem important but vary substantially on other sites. For example, the US Office of Nuclear Energy (quoting US EIA data) give CF figures for Coal (49%) and N Gas (54%), whereas the Fig 10 table states Coal (85%) and Gas (30%). These are big variations and beg Qs on methods and influences, as I think you mention. For major issues - and perhaps CF is one of those - is it feasible to compare sites and offer average and spread data?
[2] My understanding of CF is that it measures how often the source is running at maximum capacity - one might call this MCF. It would be interesting to know the actual energy generated as a percentage of the (theoretical) MCF - one might call this ACF. Are ACF data readily available? If so, would ACF be a meaningful or even better comparator?
I would suggest looking at potential availability to generate rather than actual capacity factors. Coal has the capability of being 85%+ on capacity factors, but may actually run much less because it is out of the money at times. Same with gas peaking resources that might be capable of doing 90%+, but may only run 1-2% of the time because it will only generate electricity when it is most valuable to generate. Contrast this with wind that essentially has a similar potential capacity factor and actual capacity factor, as it will generate almost whenever it is possible due to production tax credits (at least in the U.S. during the PTC horizon, which at a base level is 10 years plus multiple potential 10-year extensions due to technical repowers).
The problem with wind becomes that as you install more of it you reach the point where higher outputs cannot be fully utilised because they occur at times of lower demand, yet there is very little extra generation in still winds. The same idea applies to solar. The economics are such that storage beyond short duration is uneconomic and very costly in EROEI terms. Marginal curtailment ends up being a high percentage of marginal generation.
Yes, it's a difficult one. Especially for peaker plants designed to work when there's peaks of demand. Plus there's seasonality variations and variations in the costs of fuel determine whether it's better to run coal or gas. Plus, in the UK at least gas plants are forced off if the wind is blowing.
It would be good to see some sort of effective CF of what plants are capable of and whether that CF is controllable.
The UK grid is far more unstable now than in my living memory (I'm 54). The reasons are multiple but the addition of significant quantities of wind and solar are by far the biggest. Demand management is creeping in because we are phasing out reliables and replacing them with intermittents. The cost of emergency interventions by ESO are increasing all the time. People can work the calcs as they see fit but by the time energy gets to the consumer what is important is; availability, reliability and cost. All have deteriorated as wind and solar have penetrated the UK grid. The impact across the country is starting to be felt everywhere..... quick example; sandwich shop around the corner from me... energy bill up from £600/mth to £2300/mth. Prices up. Custom down. Staff hours cut. Energy costs at home and transport costs to and from work are up for the staff so they get hit twice. This is what the green revolution means for working class people. The impact happens relatively slowly but its starting to show up everywhere.
I cover the nuclear waste issue in the article. Yes, it's a problem, but not insurmountable: dry-cask storage, deep geological storage, but most importantly, reprocessing the fuel to close the cycle.
Good article!
The other dimension:
China's Quest for World Domination via "Clean Energy" Manufacturing
Stunning new statistics and USA capitulation
https://tucoschild.substack.com/p/chinas-quest-for-world-domination
Thanks for the excellent summary.
Chernobyl should be left out of the nuclear mortality analysis. It was built in a country with an almost nonexistent safety culture, and no licensing criteria. It would not have been licensed or built anywhere else. Nothing like it will ever be built again. Nobody was injured, made ill, or killed by Three Mile Island or Fukushima. In the entire civilized world, nuclear power is safer than Teddy Kennedy’s car.
Simon Michaux was more pessimistic concerning critical materials. Five times more copper than is known or projected to exist in forms that can be extracted from the Earth would be required to build the "technology units" that the IEA demands. Ten times more nickel. 26 times more cobalt....
Read four articles at https://vsnyder.substack.com.
The situation with spent nuclear fuel (not waste) is better than you describe. It's only 5% used, not 10%. Argonne and Idaho National Laboratories have developed a better reprocessing system than the ones used in France, UK (until Thorp was closed), Russia, and Japan (if Rokkasho enters service): Pyroelectric refining. After fission products are separated from spent fuel, if caesium and strontium are separated from the others, the mass is reduced by a factor of 200 compared to "once through" and the custody duration is reduced by a factor of 1,000. http://vandyke.mynetgear.com/Radiotoxicity.html.
Storage is an extreme problem. For USA as a whole, storage to provide firm power would cost NINE TIMES TOTAL GDP EVERY YEAR! http://vandyke.mynetgear.com/Worse.html.
This is very well researched and well written, thank you.
I've just translated it in French and published it on my blog: http://skidmark.blog/2023/04/15/les-energies-renouvelables-ne-sont-pas-durables-par-david-turver/
Hope you don't mind!
PS: the link for Siemens Gamesa is incorrect.
I am happy for my work to be shared. Please give a credit and a link back to the original.
Also my surname in TurVer, not Turner.
I have fixed the erroneous link. Thanks for pointing it out.
Thanks. Credit given right from the start, I make a point of it, plus the source always quite visible on top of my translation. I don't think I messed up your surname anywhere, at least not that I can detect.
Your article about hydrogen is just as high-end as this one so I'll translate it ASAP.
Good, but old news. Folks must go before any of their local administrations, agencies, clubs... and clearly, forcefully, explain the scam that is 'renewable energy'.
We knew >100 years ago the problem with GHG emissions. We knew 60 years ago what to do: http://tinyurl.com/6xgpkfa and we've no excuse now: https://tinyurl.com/44uv49z3
More refs: www.humanists.org/blog/2020-11-22
https://tinyurl.com/yy2puqbz https://tinyurl.com/3vgfsx9e
--
Alex
650-400-3071
TY for a fine piece. One comment about the mortality part. Here is data more curre nt than Glex <http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/97206/1/manuscript_2nd%20revision.pdf>. The study's conclusions: Normalized Wind deaths surpass all other electricity sources...
Thanks to John for bringing this to our attention.
But the report's analysis of nuclear power is deeply flawed. They put everything with the word "nuclear" into one lump (except maybe nuclear DNA and nuclear family). They made no distinction between antique technology that will never be repeated, such as Chernobyl, and technology that has been proven to be inherently safe, such as EBR-II. Their projections of future cancer incidence due to the Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents are based on reports that used the linear-no-threshold model that has been exposed as fraudulent by Cuttler, Welsh, Calabrese, and others.
On the other hand, I haven't seen nor do I foresee any significant technology evolution in hydro, solar, and wind, so the conclusions in those areas are probably valid.
Another good article, thank you.
Capacity Factor (CF) data are interesting. These are shown in the bulk material usage table at Fig 10 - but CF seems to be a wider systems issue. Two points/Qs, if I may:
[1] CF data seem important but vary substantially on other sites. For example, the US Office of Nuclear Energy (quoting US EIA data) give CF figures for Coal (49%) and N Gas (54%), whereas the Fig 10 table states Coal (85%) and Gas (30%). These are big variations and beg Qs on methods and influences, as I think you mention. For major issues - and perhaps CF is one of those - is it feasible to compare sites and offer average and spread data?
[2] My understanding of CF is that it measures how often the source is running at maximum capacity - one might call this MCF. It would be interesting to know the actual energy generated as a percentage of the (theoretical) MCF - one might call this ACF. Are ACF data readily available? If so, would ACF be a meaningful or even better comparator?
Thank you.
CF is uptime methinks
I would suggest looking at potential availability to generate rather than actual capacity factors. Coal has the capability of being 85%+ on capacity factors, but may actually run much less because it is out of the money at times. Same with gas peaking resources that might be capable of doing 90%+, but may only run 1-2% of the time because it will only generate electricity when it is most valuable to generate. Contrast this with wind that essentially has a similar potential capacity factor and actual capacity factor, as it will generate almost whenever it is possible due to production tax credits (at least in the U.S. during the PTC horizon, which at a base level is 10 years plus multiple potential 10-year extensions due to technical repowers).
The problem with wind becomes that as you install more of it you reach the point where higher outputs cannot be fully utilised because they occur at times of lower demand, yet there is very little extra generation in still winds. The same idea applies to solar. The economics are such that storage beyond short duration is uneconomic and very costly in EROEI terms. Marginal curtailment ends up being a high percentage of marginal generation.
Yes, it's a difficult one. Especially for peaker plants designed to work when there's peaks of demand. Plus there's seasonality variations and variations in the costs of fuel determine whether it's better to run coal or gas. Plus, in the UK at least gas plants are forced off if the wind is blowing.
It would be good to see some sort of effective CF of what plants are capable of and whether that CF is controllable.
Thanks.
Why don't you take up your thoughts on methodology with UNECE who produced the source data? I am sure they will be delighted to hear from you.
The UK grid is far more unstable now than in my living memory (I'm 54). The reasons are multiple but the addition of significant quantities of wind and solar are by far the biggest. Demand management is creeping in because we are phasing out reliables and replacing them with intermittents. The cost of emergency interventions by ESO are increasing all the time. People can work the calcs as they see fit but by the time energy gets to the consumer what is important is; availability, reliability and cost. All have deteriorated as wind and solar have penetrated the UK grid. The impact across the country is starting to be felt everywhere..... quick example; sandwich shop around the corner from me... energy bill up from £600/mth to £2300/mth. Prices up. Custom down. Staff hours cut. Energy costs at home and transport costs to and from work are up for the staff so they get hit twice. This is what the green revolution means for working class people. The impact happens relatively slowly but its starting to show up everywhere.
MWh are measures of energy, not time. Watts are power, expressed as Joules per second, multiplying MW by time gives energy.
I cover the nuclear waste issue in the article. Yes, it's a problem, but not insurmountable: dry-cask storage, deep geological storage, but most importantly, reprocessing the fuel to close the cycle.