Energy demand will likely force more nuclear power....
Today's post: Wednesday, 1-27-2010
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
Further, it’s extremely clear that the most supported and economically beneficial solution to add energy that does not use oil nor burn fossil fuels to release more CO2 into air that already has too much is to build massive amounts of new renewable energy production, particularly those that generate electricity & to dramatically increase energy efficiency and reduce the amount of energy that is now wasted.
And, of those the more important long range solution is to build massive amounts of new renewable energy generation.
Today’s post:
Let’s hope the controls on banks & credit that will gradually get put into place or back into place will eventually lead to a more stable economy that is growing. It certainly seems likely to me that this will happen & has begun to happen.
And, with this happening in the United States plus the arrival of new useful new technology everywhere, primarily new energy technologies, we will gradually restart global economic growth. Also, barring some kind of disaster, population growth will continue. THAT combination in the short term, 5 to 20 years out, will gradually begin to cause energy demand to rise faster than new supply is brought online.
As I consistently have said, that is possibly an even more important reason to bring massive new amounts of every kind of renewable energy online within 20 to 30 years than fighting global warming. Certainly if we don’t want a permanent world-wide depression due to horrible fossil fuel price run ups and shortages it is.
Worse, with increasing use of fossil fuels that this might cause, global warming will get worse; & we risk economic collapse if we still are dependent on oil and it becomes too expensive to use.
So, as this begins to happen, it will bring enormous economic and political pressure to bear on adding new energy and rolling out every kind of energy efficient products possible.
Last week NPR’s Christian Hill interviewed Bob Irish, Managing Editor of Investor's Daily Edge.
Bob Irish stated that the International Energy Agency predicted that energy demand will be up 40% by 2030! (See my comments above.)
He then goes on to say that in his opinion this will be very forceful in increasing the use of electricity generated by nuclear power.
He also said that a major driver for this is that “a kilogram of uranium produces 50,000 kilowatt-hours of power.” This is 10,000 to 50,000 times what a kilogram of fossil fuel can produce.
Christian Hill then notes that people are afraid of nuclear power.
Bob Irish replied to that by saying: “There's an emotional component, certainly. But the smart money isn't invested emotionally.”
He also notes that China is now building 10 nuclear power plants every year& their goal is to have 25% of their power generated by nuclear power. (In the next 20 years, that would be 200 new nuclear reactors.)
He also believes that in a way similar to the space race with the Russians, Americans will begin to compete so we don’t fall behind in the world and will soon add more nuclear also.
He also points out that no matter where the reactors are located, they all need uranium.
(He doesn’t say so; but this sharp increase in nuclear will put a massive premium on using, as France has been doing, breeder reactors where far less, I’ve heard 50 times less, uranium is needed to operate the reactors.)
Since that also means that the uranium wastes are NOT transported elsewhere and less uranium need be brought in, that makes reactors that recycle the uranium onsite where it never leaves much more defensible against terrorist attack and partially solves the question of where to store the waste.
In my own view, that will cause very heavy use and building of that kind of reactor -- even in the United States where we have been building the other kind that takes more uranium and creates radioactive waste to be moved elsewhere and stored there.
Bob Irish then notes that their customers who have bought stocks in the better uranium mining companies have already done well with those stocks.
(Stocks in companies that make breeder nuclear reactors or their components should also increasingly do well, I think. Another investment advisory service thinks that companies that supply lithium or build lithium ion batteries or make superior technology to use in them also look like good bets. Nuclear, solar photovoltaic, solar thermal, geothermal, and wind all will be used to generate electricity for the huge number of all electric and plug-in hybrid cars and trucks that will soon replace most gasoline and diesel powered vehicles. And, at this time, it looks as if they will all have lithium ion batteries.)
The good news is that all nuclear reactors do NOT use up fossil fuels or release CO2 -- or other kinds of air pollution such as oxides of Nitrogen or create acid rain.
And, by using breeder reactors, we will literally have hundreds of years to build more renewable energy to replace nuclear power before we run out of uranium.
So, since using breeder reactors are both far more efficient and safe to build and operate, I think such reactors will increasingly be built and used.
People who have strong reservations or concerns about building any more nuclear power, as to some degree I do myself, should realize that these economic and other environmental concerns mean more nuclear will be built, regardless. As Bob Irish noted, even if the people in the United States drag their feet, more new nuclear reactors will be built all over the rest of world. He gave the large program already happening in China as an example. India and even some countries in the Middle East have already said they plan to do so as well.
So, I think for such people, the most productive strategy is to ask that the countries and companies involved to both use extremely reliable and safe operating methods and very competent and sane people to run them AND to make comparably fail resistant military security to ensure no terrorists can get in or do any kind of damage.
This WILL make nuclear power more expensive and slower to build when it already takes huge upfront capital costs; but I personally think it is reasonable to ask and extremely important to do.
Plus it will make building the reactors we look very likely to need desperately more doable and salable politically.
(By the way, one renewable energy executive pointed out to me that the plutonium that the breeder reactors make can be made into atomic bombs, etc. He said he disliked nuclear using breeder reactors for that reason.
But, one of my more technically savvy friends pointed out, that all the plutonium is INSIDE the reactor. It’s not transported to be easily gotten at by terrorists since it never leaves the reactor. This means the security for the plutonium can be focused at the known location of the reactor itself which makes it much more doable and reliable. In addition, in order to take the plutonium to transport elsewhere the terrorists would have to know and bring the technology with them to get at it without dying before they could and to transport it afterwards.
It might be possible to do. But, if the security that should be there is present and competent it should virtually never happen.
So, let’s ask for breeder reactors instead of the kind that generate dangerous waste and for every one of them to have such security and be thankful we’ll use less fossil fuels and be less harmed by excessive price run ups while we still rely on petroleum for transport and petrochemicals.
Showing posts with label nuclear power. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nuclear power. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Comments on the Republican Energy plan....
Today’s post: Wednesday, 6-10-2009
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
In today’s online news relating to energy I found an AP story that listed some of the ideas in the new proposals for energy by Republicans that came out earlier today.
Some things in it I liked. Some things in it I felt were mixed review items but which might be used in part to gain their cooperation for a bill with more aggressive methods that would actually get passed and enacted. One thing was clearly harmful; but has a legitimate concern behind it.
1. The thing I liked most is that most of the items are proposed as solutions instead of only listing attacks on other proposals they disliked. We need solutions -- not rejections of other proposals however justified.
2. They said they liked incentives to switch to cleaner energy sources. Since adding clean sources is the most important single part of energy policy since that will enable the rest and incentives DO work, I think incentives should be
encouraged.
It will allow some businesses to make a lot of money. But that also means we will have more renewable energy faster. That’s critical. So, I agree that rewarding those who get the job done makes sense. And we absolutely should do so.
3. The Republican proposal is to build 100 new nuclear plants in the next 20 years.
This is a point on which a win-win compromise might be built.
First the good news:
More than half the population of the United States lives in the East or Eastern Midwest from Chicago and St Louis on the West to Boston to Miami in the East and it will be a decade or two before we can get power lines built to bring wind energy from the center of the country & solar from the West to those cities. It also WOULD help to provide night time energy, and energy growth for the Eastern part of the country to build more nuclear power plants. That way we need build no more coal burning plants and can use the existing ones less and/or close the most polluting ones sooner.
Nuclear power releases no CO2 whatsoever as well.
The bad news is that by adding the complete security costs to ensure these nuclear plants are extremely terrorist resistant and the costs to build them and manage their waste even half way safely, the 100 plants goal is likely not financially doable. And building the plants is simply not safe or worth doing if these safety features aren’t fully funded.
Second, in the second half of the 20 year time period, power lines connected to renewable energy generation further to the West and improved energy storage will begin to come online.
So, a good compromise might be to agree on a first step of building 25 to 40 nuclear plants in the next 10 years. Then if that goes well and the power lines and renewable energy sources fail to show up, we could add more nuclear plants in the following 10 years. But if we barely can build 20 of the planned nuclear plants safely in the first 10 years and the power lines and renewable energy sources DO come online as expected, we can stop there.
4. They are reported as proposing that a trust fund using royalties from oil and gas be used to build more renewable energy.
This also might be a win-win compromise that could work. Rather than completely reverse the tax incentives the oil and gas industries now have it might smooth the transition to leave some of them in place and then have the oil and gas industries use much of the rest to invest in building renewable energy sites. That would provide them some ownership in the new energy sources and an incentive to develop them that they do not now have.
5. They also propose that we increase drilling and production of oil and gas from offshore and “fast-track” new refinery construction.
This also might be a win-win compromise. Adding new use of oil and gas is a BAD idea for global warming. But if these new sources of oil and gas are used ONLY to replace oil and gas that we now import it would strengthen the United States economically and increase national security. We do have large and untapped resources in the Gulf of Mexico we can tap into.
And, new refineries can be built that preplan to blend biofuels &/or liquid fuels from coal with petroleum as they come online. That will both ease the transition to using mostly biofuels AND give the existing companies an incentive to gradually build that business which will help speed it up.
6. They do NOT set mandatory targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions or for producing electricity from renewable sources.
Here they revert to saying what NOT to do. But their stated reason makes some sense. We do want to minimize the negative impact on our economy of the energy transition while we are trying to climb out of the severe recession. That part of their idea is sound.
The problem is that NOT setting such mandatory targets will mean we get less done when we cannot afford to make that choice.
The second but grave problem is we cannot make the energy transition or slow global warming enough without global action. And, if we don’t show we are serious by setting mandatory targets, we may lose enough global cooperation to be disastrous.
So, this part of their proposal is simply not acceptable as stated.
However, their concern it is designed to prevent is legitimate.
First, we must remember that if we fail to bring renewable energy online to help contain price increases, the continuing increases in the costs for fossil fuels will derail the economy anyway.
So, to the extent mandatory targets speed up the transition to renewable energy they will HELP the economy.
However, it may make good sense to make thing like cap settings and carbon taxes initially less and increases contingent on actually having the renewable energy in place to switch to.
Then we need to use things like incentives and feed-in tariff utility financing for renewable energy and a full national commitment to build more renewable energy and make our economy much more energy efficient to ensure we have the renewable energy to switch to.
THAT combination will allow us to ratchet up the caps and carbon taxes in time but will also avoid harming the economy overall because we won’t do this until we’ve made it safe for the economy to do.
Today’s post: Wednesday, 6-10-2009
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
In today’s online news relating to energy I found an AP story that listed some of the ideas in the new proposals for energy by Republicans that came out earlier today.
Some things in it I liked. Some things in it I felt were mixed review items but which might be used in part to gain their cooperation for a bill with more aggressive methods that would actually get passed and enacted. One thing was clearly harmful; but has a legitimate concern behind it.
1. The thing I liked most is that most of the items are proposed as solutions instead of only listing attacks on other proposals they disliked. We need solutions -- not rejections of other proposals however justified.
2. They said they liked incentives to switch to cleaner energy sources. Since adding clean sources is the most important single part of energy policy since that will enable the rest and incentives DO work, I think incentives should be
encouraged.
It will allow some businesses to make a lot of money. But that also means we will have more renewable energy faster. That’s critical. So, I agree that rewarding those who get the job done makes sense. And we absolutely should do so.
3. The Republican proposal is to build 100 new nuclear plants in the next 20 years.
This is a point on which a win-win compromise might be built.
First the good news:
More than half the population of the United States lives in the East or Eastern Midwest from Chicago and St Louis on the West to Boston to Miami in the East and it will be a decade or two before we can get power lines built to bring wind energy from the center of the country & solar from the West to those cities. It also WOULD help to provide night time energy, and energy growth for the Eastern part of the country to build more nuclear power plants. That way we need build no more coal burning plants and can use the existing ones less and/or close the most polluting ones sooner.
Nuclear power releases no CO2 whatsoever as well.
The bad news is that by adding the complete security costs to ensure these nuclear plants are extremely terrorist resistant and the costs to build them and manage their waste even half way safely, the 100 plants goal is likely not financially doable. And building the plants is simply not safe or worth doing if these safety features aren’t fully funded.
Second, in the second half of the 20 year time period, power lines connected to renewable energy generation further to the West and improved energy storage will begin to come online.
So, a good compromise might be to agree on a first step of building 25 to 40 nuclear plants in the next 10 years. Then if that goes well and the power lines and renewable energy sources fail to show up, we could add more nuclear plants in the following 10 years. But if we barely can build 20 of the planned nuclear plants safely in the first 10 years and the power lines and renewable energy sources DO come online as expected, we can stop there.
4. They are reported as proposing that a trust fund using royalties from oil and gas be used to build more renewable energy.
This also might be a win-win compromise that could work. Rather than completely reverse the tax incentives the oil and gas industries now have it might smooth the transition to leave some of them in place and then have the oil and gas industries use much of the rest to invest in building renewable energy sites. That would provide them some ownership in the new energy sources and an incentive to develop them that they do not now have.
5. They also propose that we increase drilling and production of oil and gas from offshore and “fast-track” new refinery construction.
This also might be a win-win compromise. Adding new use of oil and gas is a BAD idea for global warming. But if these new sources of oil and gas are used ONLY to replace oil and gas that we now import it would strengthen the United States economically and increase national security. We do have large and untapped resources in the Gulf of Mexico we can tap into.
And, new refineries can be built that preplan to blend biofuels &/or liquid fuels from coal with petroleum as they come online. That will both ease the transition to using mostly biofuels AND give the existing companies an incentive to gradually build that business which will help speed it up.
6. They do NOT set mandatory targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions or for producing electricity from renewable sources.
Here they revert to saying what NOT to do. But their stated reason makes some sense. We do want to minimize the negative impact on our economy of the energy transition while we are trying to climb out of the severe recession. That part of their idea is sound.
The problem is that NOT setting such mandatory targets will mean we get less done when we cannot afford to make that choice.
The second but grave problem is we cannot make the energy transition or slow global warming enough without global action. And, if we don’t show we are serious by setting mandatory targets, we may lose enough global cooperation to be disastrous.
So, this part of their proposal is simply not acceptable as stated.
However, their concern it is designed to prevent is legitimate.
First, we must remember that if we fail to bring renewable energy online to help contain price increases, the continuing increases in the costs for fossil fuels will derail the economy anyway.
So, to the extent mandatory targets speed up the transition to renewable energy they will HELP the economy.
However, it may make good sense to make thing like cap settings and carbon taxes initially less and increases contingent on actually having the renewable energy in place to switch to.
Then we need to use things like incentives and feed-in tariff utility financing for renewable energy and a full national commitment to build more renewable energy and make our economy much more energy efficient to ensure we have the renewable energy to switch to.
THAT combination will allow us to ratchet up the caps and carbon taxes in time but will also avoid harming the economy overall because we won’t do this until we’ve made it safe for the economy to do.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Mostly good news for renewable energy....
Today’s post: Wednesday, 1-14-2009
The news on renewable energy lately is mostly good.:
1. Yesterday, AP online news reported that Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu was “warmly received” at his Senate confirmation hearing to be Energy Secretary.
And, he “confirmed as energy secretary he will aggressively pursue policies aimed at addressing climate change and achieving greater energy independence by developing clean energy sources.”
He “appeared before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee where he received immediate support from both Democrats and Republicans.”
“Chu, …. told senators that climate change is "a growing and pressing problem" and the nation's dependence on oil represents a threat to the U.S. economy and security.
Of the risks from global warming, Chu said: "It is now clear that if we continue on our current path, we run the risk of dramatic disruptive changes to our climate system in the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren." “
So, if the Senate’s initial response is any indication, Chu will be confirmed; and renewable energy and a variety of means to improve our energy efficiency throughout our economy, and a commitment to reducing CO2 emissions will get a huge boost when he takes office.
Specifically this article quotes Chu as saying.: “ "Improvements in energy efficiency is the one single factor that can most reduce our dependency on foreign oil,"”
My main concern when he was appointed is that he would get derailed by the traditional energy industries due to his seeming lack of political background. But, between his experience running the Lawrence Lab and his preparation for the job, he seems to have the ability to deal well with that.
He is apparently willing to allow some offshore drilling in less environmentally sensitive areas which will keep the representatives of the oil industry from voting against him now or derailing his programs later.
(He is following the lead of President-elect Obama in so doing.) And, despite it not being the very best choice for global warming, it will slightly improve our ability to be energy self-sufficient and pay less to import oil which many help our national security which he knows is also important.
And, since the Lawrence Lab he ran is and was involved in nuclear matters, he is aware that it will likely remain part of our energy mix.
“Chu said nuclear energy produces a fifth of the nation's electricity and 70 percent of the carbon-free electricity and "is going to be an important part of our energy mix." “
I still have safety concerns about nuclear power; but I like that he is aware that it DOES provide” carbon-free electricity.” And, he clearly made points with those senators who back it.
He realizes that we are now dependent on burning coal for electricity now and that so are China and India. Plus he was aware that senators from states where coal is a key part of their economies will be voting on his confirmation. So, as a near term solution, he strongly favors work on developing effective methods to burn coal but to retrofit some kind of devices that prevent CO2 from entering the atmosphere.
As an optimistic scientist, he has more faith than I that this is doable at all, let alone soon enough or inexpensively enough. But within 10 years, there may be breakthroughs that do the job. And, in the near term, he keeps the support of coal state senators and of India and China.
(As regular readers of this blog know, I favor turning coal into substitutes for natural gas and for gasoline and diesel fuel that we would burn anyway, which would help us wean our economy from its unsafe dependence only on natural gas and petroleum and improve our energy self-sufficiency. And, I favor replacing ALL coal burning plants for generating electricity with renewable sources or at worst nuclear power instead. So I hope those approaches also make progress.)
But I still find it very reassuring to see that Steven Chu is politically sound and looking for global warming solutions that will avoid short term harm to our economy. So my expectations of his performance have gone from liking his support for renewable energy and fighting global warming but fearing he would be ineffective to now believing he will be quite effective as well once confirmed and in office.
2. And, which will fit right in with new Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s emphasis on renewable and sustainable energy research and research to fight global warming, also in the past few days, Stanford University added a new $100 million donation to an earlier $75 million dollar donation by one of Yahoo’s founders to create a new research group on renewable and sustainable energy research, which in addition to doing new research will also plug in ALL related work done at Stanford AND begin to help train new young people into experts in this new field.
Since I live near Stanford and am affected by the economy of the Silicon Valley, I’m personally very please with this announcement. But it looks to be easily as important to the developing field of renewable and sustainable energy research and research on fighting global warming. In addition to the short term benefit we get from the research, in the longer run, & starting in just a few years, the new experts in the field developed at Stanford will also be hugely positive.
3. And yesterday, Massachusetts governor, Deval Patrick announced he has set a goal for Massachusetts to produce2,000 megawatts of wind electricity annually by 2020, which is enough to provide 10 percent of the state's current energy needs.
Massachusetts only produces seven megawatts of power annually now.
And, the entire United States now only produces a bit more than 21,000 megawatts a year now. Texas, thanks in part to T Boone Pickens, now produces 6,300 megawatts a year from wind, which is the most of any state.
So, for Massachusetts to put a new 1993 megawatts of wind power electricity generation in place is a significant increase by comparison.
And, governor Patrick has a start on his goal because there are already
300 turbines in various planning and permitting stages in Massachusetts, which will generate an estimated 420 megawatts of power.
4. Lastly, as a fan of cost-competitive solar photovoltaic power, I’ve liked the upbeat and accurate supporting scientific facts the CEO of Nanosolar periodically posts on Nanosolar’s blog. (They print thin film photovoltaic cells on something like a high speed continuous roll printing press to help speed manufacturing and bring costs down.)
About 4 weeks ago, as I recently discovered, he posted this.:
"1kg CIGS = 5kg Uranium
December 16, 2008
By Martin Roscheisen, CEO
The notion of a kilogram of enriched Uranium conjures up an image of a powerful (amount) of energy. Enough to power an entire city for years when used in a nuclear power plant, or enough to flatten an entire county when used in a bomb - that's presumably what many people would say if one asked them about their thoughts.
In our new solar cell technology, we use an active material called CIGS, a Copper based semiconductor. How does this stack up against enriched Uranium?
Here's a noteworthy fact, pointed out to me by one of our engineers: It turns out that 1kg of CIGS, embedded in a solar cell, produces 5 times as much electricity as 1kg of enriched Uranium, embedded in a nuclear power plant.
Or said differently, 1kg of CIGS is equivalent to 5kg of enriched Uranium in terms of the energy the materials deliver in solar and nuclear respectively.
The Uranium is burned and then stored in a nuclear waste facility; the CIGS material produces power for at least the warranty period of the solar cell product after which it can then be recycled and reused an indefinite number of times."
To be fair, nuclear power also has a breeder reactor version that allows for a lot more of the energy in the Uranium to be used. But I like Martin Roscheisen and the way he thinks and thought this an upbeat way to end this post.
Today’s post: Wednesday, 1-14-2009
The news on renewable energy lately is mostly good.:
1. Yesterday, AP online news reported that Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu was “warmly received” at his Senate confirmation hearing to be Energy Secretary.
And, he “confirmed as energy secretary he will aggressively pursue policies aimed at addressing climate change and achieving greater energy independence by developing clean energy sources.”
He “appeared before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee where he received immediate support from both Democrats and Republicans.”
“Chu, …. told senators that climate change is "a growing and pressing problem" and the nation's dependence on oil represents a threat to the U.S. economy and security.
Of the risks from global warming, Chu said: "It is now clear that if we continue on our current path, we run the risk of dramatic disruptive changes to our climate system in the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren." “
So, if the Senate’s initial response is any indication, Chu will be confirmed; and renewable energy and a variety of means to improve our energy efficiency throughout our economy, and a commitment to reducing CO2 emissions will get a huge boost when he takes office.
Specifically this article quotes Chu as saying.: “ "Improvements in energy efficiency is the one single factor that can most reduce our dependency on foreign oil,"”
My main concern when he was appointed is that he would get derailed by the traditional energy industries due to his seeming lack of political background. But, between his experience running the Lawrence Lab and his preparation for the job, he seems to have the ability to deal well with that.
He is apparently willing to allow some offshore drilling in less environmentally sensitive areas which will keep the representatives of the oil industry from voting against him now or derailing his programs later.
(He is following the lead of President-elect Obama in so doing.) And, despite it not being the very best choice for global warming, it will slightly improve our ability to be energy self-sufficient and pay less to import oil which many help our national security which he knows is also important.
And, since the Lawrence Lab he ran is and was involved in nuclear matters, he is aware that it will likely remain part of our energy mix.
“Chu said nuclear energy produces a fifth of the nation's electricity and 70 percent of the carbon-free electricity and "is going to be an important part of our energy mix." “
I still have safety concerns about nuclear power; but I like that he is aware that it DOES provide” carbon-free electricity.” And, he clearly made points with those senators who back it.
He realizes that we are now dependent on burning coal for electricity now and that so are China and India. Plus he was aware that senators from states where coal is a key part of their economies will be voting on his confirmation. So, as a near term solution, he strongly favors work on developing effective methods to burn coal but to retrofit some kind of devices that prevent CO2 from entering the atmosphere.
As an optimistic scientist, he has more faith than I that this is doable at all, let alone soon enough or inexpensively enough. But within 10 years, there may be breakthroughs that do the job. And, in the near term, he keeps the support of coal state senators and of India and China.
(As regular readers of this blog know, I favor turning coal into substitutes for natural gas and for gasoline and diesel fuel that we would burn anyway, which would help us wean our economy from its unsafe dependence only on natural gas and petroleum and improve our energy self-sufficiency. And, I favor replacing ALL coal burning plants for generating electricity with renewable sources or at worst nuclear power instead. So I hope those approaches also make progress.)
But I still find it very reassuring to see that Steven Chu is politically sound and looking for global warming solutions that will avoid short term harm to our economy. So my expectations of his performance have gone from liking his support for renewable energy and fighting global warming but fearing he would be ineffective to now believing he will be quite effective as well once confirmed and in office.
2. And, which will fit right in with new Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s emphasis on renewable and sustainable energy research and research to fight global warming, also in the past few days, Stanford University added a new $100 million donation to an earlier $75 million dollar donation by one of Yahoo’s founders to create a new research group on renewable and sustainable energy research, which in addition to doing new research will also plug in ALL related work done at Stanford AND begin to help train new young people into experts in this new field.
Since I live near Stanford and am affected by the economy of the Silicon Valley, I’m personally very please with this announcement. But it looks to be easily as important to the developing field of renewable and sustainable energy research and research on fighting global warming. In addition to the short term benefit we get from the research, in the longer run, & starting in just a few years, the new experts in the field developed at Stanford will also be hugely positive.
3. And yesterday, Massachusetts governor, Deval Patrick announced he has set a goal for Massachusetts to produce2,000 megawatts of wind electricity annually by 2020, which is enough to provide 10 percent of the state's current energy needs.
Massachusetts only produces seven megawatts of power annually now.
And, the entire United States now only produces a bit more than 21,000 megawatts a year now. Texas, thanks in part to T Boone Pickens, now produces 6,300 megawatts a year from wind, which is the most of any state.
So, for Massachusetts to put a new 1993 megawatts of wind power electricity generation in place is a significant increase by comparison.
And, governor Patrick has a start on his goal because there are already
300 turbines in various planning and permitting stages in Massachusetts, which will generate an estimated 420 megawatts of power.
4. Lastly, as a fan of cost-competitive solar photovoltaic power, I’ve liked the upbeat and accurate supporting scientific facts the CEO of Nanosolar periodically posts on Nanosolar’s blog. (They print thin film photovoltaic cells on something like a high speed continuous roll printing press to help speed manufacturing and bring costs down.)
About 4 weeks ago, as I recently discovered, he posted this.:
"1kg CIGS = 5kg Uranium
December 16, 2008
By Martin Roscheisen, CEO
The notion of a kilogram of enriched Uranium conjures up an image of a powerful (amount) of energy. Enough to power an entire city for years when used in a nuclear power plant, or enough to flatten an entire county when used in a bomb - that's presumably what many people would say if one asked them about their thoughts.
In our new solar cell technology, we use an active material called CIGS, a Copper based semiconductor. How does this stack up against enriched Uranium?
Here's a noteworthy fact, pointed out to me by one of our engineers: It turns out that 1kg of CIGS, embedded in a solar cell, produces 5 times as much electricity as 1kg of enriched Uranium, embedded in a nuclear power plant.
Or said differently, 1kg of CIGS is equivalent to 5kg of enriched Uranium in terms of the energy the materials deliver in solar and nuclear respectively.
The Uranium is burned and then stored in a nuclear waste facility; the CIGS material produces power for at least the warranty period of the solar cell product after which it can then be recycled and reused an indefinite number of times."
To be fair, nuclear power also has a breeder reactor version that allows for a lot more of the energy in the Uranium to be used. But I like Martin Roscheisen and the way he thinks and thought this an upbeat way to end this post.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
New information on energy....
Today’s post: Wednesday, 9-17-2008
Some information on energy that I read today may be accurate at last in part and if so is likely quite important.
A. A free email newsletter that I subscribe to is mostly for entrepreneurs and people who would like to do online information marketing or simply manage to have more money. And, this newsletter also has good articles on health and on managing or working well in companies.
It’s called Early to Rise. And, you can see today’s issue or subscribe to it yourself if you like at www.earlytorise.com .
As you might imagine, they make their money by selling information products or allowing other information marketers to advertise on their website and newsletter.
The very first item today was an ad:
"What George Bush Was Told Behind Closed Doors…Could Make You Very Rich
Special Report: Make Enormous Gains Before Wall Street Wakes Up to the "Oil Hoax" "
The first sentence sounded so dreadful, I almost skipped reading the rest of the teaser copy. But the next sentence and those that followed caught my eye.
It seems the investment letter writer who is advertising is willing to explain what he sees as some of the more important and little known aspects of the world energy situation that will cause some investments to go up dramatically. Of course, you have to pay him to find out what stocks he’s found that this information suggests may do unusually well.
I found some of what he had to say worth reading. Some of it I think he has right. Some of it will be correct but not for very long. And some of it may not be correct.
That said, I thought it worth bringing some of his comments to your attention.
1. The “oil hoax” he speaks of is NOT that people are being oversold that oil will run out. It’s that oil may be running out much faster than many people have been led to believe it will.
It seems that the Saudis and other members of OPEC have very possibly inflated their real oil reserves that they claim to have to increase the share of the OPEC oil they can pump & deliver. Or, as other members do this, they do it also to avoid having their share shrink. This is the “oil hoax” he speaks of.
In 1979 when ARAMCO left, his article says they said that Saudi Arabia had 110 billion barrels of proven oil reserves. Between then and 17 years later, the Saudis have extracted 46 billion barrels. So, if the 110 reserve figure was accurate, they would have about 64 billion barrels left.
And, he states they have found no new oil fields between then and now. But they claim to now have 260 billion barrels of reserves.
Did they hire someone with better technology to better survey their known reserves and find that much more oil? Did the increase in oil prices allow for more complete extraction, albeit using more expensive methods? Was new extraction technology developed?
If so, maybe they do still have 260 billion barrels of oil left. But because they had an incentive to claim more and did not add any few oilfields, the writer’s point is that they might only have the 64 billion barrels of oil left.
If that’s so & oil consumption per year goes up somewhat, they might only have 20 years of supply left.
This author doesn’t seem to know anything about renewable energy. But some of his other ideas that follow may have some validity.
The first thing that strikes me is that if any of the executives of the major oil companies believe this information might be accurate, it would certainly explain them spending a lot or money to get the politicians willing to do so to support a lot more offshore drilling for oil in the United States.
He makes a lot of other points that he believes follow from this first point.
2. He says that Europeans have developed efficient and clean burning and quiet diesel engines. He says that the remaining particulate pollution from such engines can be eliminated by a new technology that removes them from the exhaust pipe or tailpipe of the engine.
And, he believes that this kind of diesel in a diesel hybrid car may be the winning technology in energy efficient new cars.
He then goes on to say that coal can be used as a feedstock to make diesel fuel in a nonpolluting way.
Those ideas might be partly accurate. If they are, the company or companies that make and sell the new “tailpipe” pollution removers for such diesel engines would indeed do very well as might his clients who bought the stock of the company that developed the technology.
He also suggest that this “clean coal” use of coal will make the prices of coal and the stock of competent coal extracting companies go up if it’s used on as large a scale as he anticipates for these reasons.
3. He also believes that natural gas prices will go up dramatically from here and that natural gas is undervalued now so the percentage gains could be quite large. And the stocks that are pure plays in extracting natural gas, delivering it by pipeline, and those of companies that are LNG, Liquefied Natural Gas, related will all do well.
If this is thought to be accurate by oil company executives, it would also explain their interest in more offshore drilling as some of the prospective new areas in which to drill offshore, according this writer, have huge natural gas deposits.
He also says that such a run up in natural gas prices might well induce parts of the world that now flare off the natural gas that is to them a byproduct of their oil fields to instead build LNG plants and transport that natural gas to market. (That would also eliminate some CO2 release that is now happening on a large scale that has no economic value to even partially justify it.)
4. He also says that South Korea, much of Western Europe, & China are all rapidly developing new nuclear plants to generate electricity. (He doesn’t say so. But I’ve read that India also plans to do this & that Saudi Arabia and other middle-eastern countries may also do so.)
If that is true, and it does look to be true, based on the news I’ve seen, it may be good news for global warming as these plants may replace coal burning plants that would have been built or that now are burning coal.
But it has three other implications. One is that, although the existing nuclear facilities in these countries have not been raided so far as is known, by terrorists interested in making bombs, the potential for that might be growing on a worldwide basis.
And, even if they do not now exist in the United States, the companies that will build the components for these nuclear plants clearly exist or will be built elsewhere.
This suggests that the more nuclear plants may yet be built here.
B. I have several comments.
Since the upside potential of solar photovoltaics and solar thermal power is so huge, and is now cost competitive with coal and natural gas or very soon will be, this information suggest that it is even more important than we believed to start building more solar power generating sources both on individual buildings and as large solar power “farms” – and to begin immediately and continue until we have a huge amount of electricity flowing from solar sources.
If this is done, and many more nuclear electricity generating plants are built also, or the new natural gas source T Boone Pickens says is coming on line does do so, this may greatly soften the demand for natural gas and coal that the author of this piece now predicts. But if he is right in the short run, it will help us boost the use of solar as solar will clearly be cost competitive or even cheaper to build and operate than natural gas or coal burning plants.
However, if oil does begin to run out that soon, and liquefied coal diesel and biodiesel from algae do come online, both those kinds of businesses and the companies that make the diesel engines & pollution removal technology he describes may do well as he suggests.
His information also suggests that it might well pay us, economically & for the safety of our economy to do both the additional oil drilling and new nuclear plants the Republicans want AND the dramatic expansion of renewable energy the Democrats want to happen.
Since the renewable energy has the largest upside, is best for slowing global warming, and is safest to deploy, I still believe that Obama is by far the better choice for President.
But it also looks as if we need to address & use these other technologies this author describes; allow some more drilling for oil and natural gas in the short run & consider building more nuclear plants here.
And, whether we build more nuclear plants in the United States or not, we need to find out what we can do to ensure the safety of those that apparently are being build and will be built in the rest of the world.
Today’s post: Wednesday, 9-17-2008
Some information on energy that I read today may be accurate at last in part and if so is likely quite important.
A. A free email newsletter that I subscribe to is mostly for entrepreneurs and people who would like to do online information marketing or simply manage to have more money. And, this newsletter also has good articles on health and on managing or working well in companies.
It’s called Early to Rise. And, you can see today’s issue or subscribe to it yourself if you like at www.earlytorise.com .
As you might imagine, they make their money by selling information products or allowing other information marketers to advertise on their website and newsletter.
The very first item today was an ad:
"What George Bush Was Told Behind Closed Doors…Could Make You Very Rich
Special Report: Make Enormous Gains Before Wall Street Wakes Up to the "Oil Hoax" "
The first sentence sounded so dreadful, I almost skipped reading the rest of the teaser copy. But the next sentence and those that followed caught my eye.
It seems the investment letter writer who is advertising is willing to explain what he sees as some of the more important and little known aspects of the world energy situation that will cause some investments to go up dramatically. Of course, you have to pay him to find out what stocks he’s found that this information suggests may do unusually well.
I found some of what he had to say worth reading. Some of it I think he has right. Some of it will be correct but not for very long. And some of it may not be correct.
That said, I thought it worth bringing some of his comments to your attention.
1. The “oil hoax” he speaks of is NOT that people are being oversold that oil will run out. It’s that oil may be running out much faster than many people have been led to believe it will.
It seems that the Saudis and other members of OPEC have very possibly inflated their real oil reserves that they claim to have to increase the share of the OPEC oil they can pump & deliver. Or, as other members do this, they do it also to avoid having their share shrink. This is the “oil hoax” he speaks of.
In 1979 when ARAMCO left, his article says they said that Saudi Arabia had 110 billion barrels of proven oil reserves. Between then and 17 years later, the Saudis have extracted 46 billion barrels. So, if the 110 reserve figure was accurate, they would have about 64 billion barrels left.
And, he states they have found no new oil fields between then and now. But they claim to now have 260 billion barrels of reserves.
Did they hire someone with better technology to better survey their known reserves and find that much more oil? Did the increase in oil prices allow for more complete extraction, albeit using more expensive methods? Was new extraction technology developed?
If so, maybe they do still have 260 billion barrels of oil left. But because they had an incentive to claim more and did not add any few oilfields, the writer’s point is that they might only have the 64 billion barrels of oil left.
If that’s so & oil consumption per year goes up somewhat, they might only have 20 years of supply left.
This author doesn’t seem to know anything about renewable energy. But some of his other ideas that follow may have some validity.
The first thing that strikes me is that if any of the executives of the major oil companies believe this information might be accurate, it would certainly explain them spending a lot or money to get the politicians willing to do so to support a lot more offshore drilling for oil in the United States.
He makes a lot of other points that he believes follow from this first point.
2. He says that Europeans have developed efficient and clean burning and quiet diesel engines. He says that the remaining particulate pollution from such engines can be eliminated by a new technology that removes them from the exhaust pipe or tailpipe of the engine.
And, he believes that this kind of diesel in a diesel hybrid car may be the winning technology in energy efficient new cars.
He then goes on to say that coal can be used as a feedstock to make diesel fuel in a nonpolluting way.
Those ideas might be partly accurate. If they are, the company or companies that make and sell the new “tailpipe” pollution removers for such diesel engines would indeed do very well as might his clients who bought the stock of the company that developed the technology.
He also suggest that this “clean coal” use of coal will make the prices of coal and the stock of competent coal extracting companies go up if it’s used on as large a scale as he anticipates for these reasons.
3. He also believes that natural gas prices will go up dramatically from here and that natural gas is undervalued now so the percentage gains could be quite large. And the stocks that are pure plays in extracting natural gas, delivering it by pipeline, and those of companies that are LNG, Liquefied Natural Gas, related will all do well.
If this is thought to be accurate by oil company executives, it would also explain their interest in more offshore drilling as some of the prospective new areas in which to drill offshore, according this writer, have huge natural gas deposits.
He also says that such a run up in natural gas prices might well induce parts of the world that now flare off the natural gas that is to them a byproduct of their oil fields to instead build LNG plants and transport that natural gas to market. (That would also eliminate some CO2 release that is now happening on a large scale that has no economic value to even partially justify it.)
4. He also says that South Korea, much of Western Europe, & China are all rapidly developing new nuclear plants to generate electricity. (He doesn’t say so. But I’ve read that India also plans to do this & that Saudi Arabia and other middle-eastern countries may also do so.)
If that is true, and it does look to be true, based on the news I’ve seen, it may be good news for global warming as these plants may replace coal burning plants that would have been built or that now are burning coal.
But it has three other implications. One is that, although the existing nuclear facilities in these countries have not been raided so far as is known, by terrorists interested in making bombs, the potential for that might be growing on a worldwide basis.
And, even if they do not now exist in the United States, the companies that will build the components for these nuclear plants clearly exist or will be built elsewhere.
This suggests that the more nuclear plants may yet be built here.
B. I have several comments.
Since the upside potential of solar photovoltaics and solar thermal power is so huge, and is now cost competitive with coal and natural gas or very soon will be, this information suggest that it is even more important than we believed to start building more solar power generating sources both on individual buildings and as large solar power “farms” – and to begin immediately and continue until we have a huge amount of electricity flowing from solar sources.
If this is done, and many more nuclear electricity generating plants are built also, or the new natural gas source T Boone Pickens says is coming on line does do so, this may greatly soften the demand for natural gas and coal that the author of this piece now predicts. But if he is right in the short run, it will help us boost the use of solar as solar will clearly be cost competitive or even cheaper to build and operate than natural gas or coal burning plants.
However, if oil does begin to run out that soon, and liquefied coal diesel and biodiesel from algae do come online, both those kinds of businesses and the companies that make the diesel engines & pollution removal technology he describes may do well as he suggests.
His information also suggests that it might well pay us, economically & for the safety of our economy to do both the additional oil drilling and new nuclear plants the Republicans want AND the dramatic expansion of renewable energy the Democrats want to happen.
Since the renewable energy has the largest upside, is best for slowing global warming, and is safest to deploy, I still believe that Obama is by far the better choice for President.
But it also looks as if we need to address & use these other technologies this author describes; allow some more drilling for oil and natural gas in the short run & consider building more nuclear plants here.
And, whether we build more nuclear plants in the United States or not, we need to find out what we can do to ensure the safety of those that apparently are being build and will be built in the rest of the world.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Solar thermal electricity makes a huge positive difference....
Today’s post: Wednesday, 8-20-2008
Last Thursday, I went to a presentation by John O’Donnell, Executive Vice President of Ausra Inc which manufactures and builds solar thermal farms and electricity generation.
(See www.ausra.com .)
The number & value of the useful facts I learned was impressive. And, these were in addition to the positive things I already knew about renewable energy and the importance of switching our economy to it.
Many people believe that only tiny amounts of renewable energy can be developed or that it is not cost effective or both which results in their belief that it won’t do as much for our economy or lowering our cost of transport and driving as drilling for more domestic oil.
The facts do NOT back this view.
Wind power can provide a surprisingly large amount of our electricity. Depending on how you calculate it, it can provide 10 to 20% of our electricity use, perhaps more. And, somewhere in the United States the wind is blowing 24 hours a day.
And, solar photovoltaic panels can provide up to 100 % of our current electricity use.
But both wind power and solar photovoltaic power are variable power sources. Solar photovoltaic power is not available at night. And, unless inexpensive and energy efficient batteries or other forms of electricity storage are developed, we would need something more reliable on a 24, 7 basis in addition to those sources.
In addition, solar photovoltaic is not quite to the cost level needed to be less expensive than electricity produced by fossil fuels. And, it will need to be installed in literally thousand of locations across the country.
But when you add solar thermal to the equation the picture changes dramatically for the better in every respect.
1. Electricity generated by solar thermal farms of the kind already being built by Ausra and its many competitors world-wide, is ALREADY cost competitive with electricity produced by fossil fuels.
2. In addition, just this one source alone can provide over 90 % of our current energy use in the United States or more and do it 16 to 17 hours a day.
a) This is achievable from solar farms that it’s doable to build in the Western and South Western United States alone. If you add those that could be build in Baja California and Northwest Mexico, you can just about double that output.
b) It seems that storing the heated fluid from solar thermal at night is over 90 % efficient and far more efficient and inexpensive than saving that much electricity in batteries would be. So by building solar thermal farms and generation facilities in this entire area may be able to achieve electricity very close to the 24 7 availability we need with 16 hours a day being quite doable.
3. It’s not generally known but we already added about 25 % of our current electricity generation from natural gas over the last 15 years or so without any subsidies from government.
So, if we add some government incentives to build renewable energy & some disincentives to using fossil fuels, moving to 100 % renewable energy in 10 years WOULD be extremely challenging. But doing it in 15 years is doable. And doing it in 20 years would be easy.
In addition, if we start now and push we can add so much new cost-competitive renewable electricity within 5 to 10 years that electric cars and plug-in hybrids will begin to lower the demand for gasoline a good bit MORE than drilling for more oil will do in twice that time. And, the auto makers have already announced plans to produce those cars.
Also, John McCain spoke about nuclear power as an alternative solution. It seems that the industry has been mothballed to such an extent due to opposition to it that if we are to build any significant amount of it, we are talking about rebuilding this highly technical industry and this is so much the case, we would have trouble adding more than a few nuclear reactors in the next few years. John O’Donnell made it sound like adding just 5 in the next 10 years would be a considerable challenge.
Adding the 45 proposed by John McCain is extremely unlikely. So much so, John O’Donnell thinks Senator McCain is seriously misinformed.
And, although it’s true that recycling inside a nuclear reactor instead or removing the uranium will turn it into plutonium and produce more energy over dramatically longer time periods and eliminate the need to move and store radioactive waste for tens of thousand of years, if a terrorist gets the plutonium out, it takes relatively little expertise or cost to make a nuclear device. So such reactors will be virtually too costly to operate safely due to the extremely high cost of adequate security.
And, if we go the route of NOT doing this kind or recycling or breeder reactor, we only have about 35 years of uranium left and WOULD have to worry about moving and storing radioactive waste for tens of thousand of years.
We may decide that using breeder reactors and providing the security needed even though it has this very large downside risk may be a lesser evil than having all the coastal cities of the world be under 50 feet or more of seawater and having our weather change for the worst so much it keeps us from growing food to eat.
But, the good news is that we CAN do it all with renewable energy. And, this is in part the case because of what large scale solar thermal farms and generators can provide.
And, what little we cannot do directly with renewable energy now, we may well be able to do at less cost than nuclear reactors with adequate security by using the new battery technologies now being developed.
To do this will require that government at least work intelligently with the renewable energy industry even if there are NO incentives from government.
Now, the Bureau of Land Management is apparently only processing applications in a timely manner for oil companies and is dragging its feet to the point of incompetence or deliberate obstruction, possibly at the direction of the Bush administration, when processing renewable energy applications.
John McCain has voted against or abstained from votes where his supporting vote would have allowed more solar thermal projects to be built soon, and this is true even when some of the solar thermal projects were in his own home state of Arizona.
And, he spoke of his belief that nuclear power is the best solution literally as he was being photographed at a large wind power project.
Here is my take on it.:
John McCain seems like a good guy personally. And, he has said he thinks global warming should be addressed.
But his actions predict that if elected he will continue the policies of the outgoing Bush administration: The deliberate lack of action on renewable energy and giving front burner support ONLY to the oil industry that have gotten us into this mess and are in part responsible for the lack of action to hold down gasoline prices is not desirable or even safe to continue.
Since the health of our economy and our way of life in the climate we have adapted ourselves to depend on action to install massive amounts of renewable energy, which is DOABLE NOW, I think John McCain is a risk we cannot afford to take.
Barack Obama is far from perfect and I don’t support some of his policies. But those considerations are secondary.
If our economy crashes or the effects of global warming cause both our economy and our ability to grow food to collapse, none of those considerations are at all important in comparison.
The energy economy and the policies of the next President and his administration will ruin us or save us. This is the single most important issue.
Obama will at least get us started on the right path. He even is willing to make some compromises with the backers of the oil industry to do so.
McCain’s actions suggest he is badly informed and will do little or worse, will prevent us from beginning.
And, at the moment, because Obama and the Democratic party have not yet communicated this information at all well, they are now running behind in the polls.
This is unnecessary since the facts are on their side and have been all along.
Will they show the voters in the United States this information and explain how it will impact these voters if they don’t know this information and act on it and support politicians who do?
They haven’t done it at all well yet. And, the clock is ticking.
Today’s post: Wednesday, 8-20-2008
Last Thursday, I went to a presentation by John O’Donnell, Executive Vice President of Ausra Inc which manufactures and builds solar thermal farms and electricity generation.
(See www.ausra.com .)
The number & value of the useful facts I learned was impressive. And, these were in addition to the positive things I already knew about renewable energy and the importance of switching our economy to it.
Many people believe that only tiny amounts of renewable energy can be developed or that it is not cost effective or both which results in their belief that it won’t do as much for our economy or lowering our cost of transport and driving as drilling for more domestic oil.
The facts do NOT back this view.
Wind power can provide a surprisingly large amount of our electricity. Depending on how you calculate it, it can provide 10 to 20% of our electricity use, perhaps more. And, somewhere in the United States the wind is blowing 24 hours a day.
And, solar photovoltaic panels can provide up to 100 % of our current electricity use.
But both wind power and solar photovoltaic power are variable power sources. Solar photovoltaic power is not available at night. And, unless inexpensive and energy efficient batteries or other forms of electricity storage are developed, we would need something more reliable on a 24, 7 basis in addition to those sources.
In addition, solar photovoltaic is not quite to the cost level needed to be less expensive than electricity produced by fossil fuels. And, it will need to be installed in literally thousand of locations across the country.
But when you add solar thermal to the equation the picture changes dramatically for the better in every respect.
1. Electricity generated by solar thermal farms of the kind already being built by Ausra and its many competitors world-wide, is ALREADY cost competitive with electricity produced by fossil fuels.
2. In addition, just this one source alone can provide over 90 % of our current energy use in the United States or more and do it 16 to 17 hours a day.
a) This is achievable from solar farms that it’s doable to build in the Western and South Western United States alone. If you add those that could be build in Baja California and Northwest Mexico, you can just about double that output.
b) It seems that storing the heated fluid from solar thermal at night is over 90 % efficient and far more efficient and inexpensive than saving that much electricity in batteries would be. So by building solar thermal farms and generation facilities in this entire area may be able to achieve electricity very close to the 24 7 availability we need with 16 hours a day being quite doable.
3. It’s not generally known but we already added about 25 % of our current electricity generation from natural gas over the last 15 years or so without any subsidies from government.
So, if we add some government incentives to build renewable energy & some disincentives to using fossil fuels, moving to 100 % renewable energy in 10 years WOULD be extremely challenging. But doing it in 15 years is doable. And doing it in 20 years would be easy.
In addition, if we start now and push we can add so much new cost-competitive renewable electricity within 5 to 10 years that electric cars and plug-in hybrids will begin to lower the demand for gasoline a good bit MORE than drilling for more oil will do in twice that time. And, the auto makers have already announced plans to produce those cars.
Also, John McCain spoke about nuclear power as an alternative solution. It seems that the industry has been mothballed to such an extent due to opposition to it that if we are to build any significant amount of it, we are talking about rebuilding this highly technical industry and this is so much the case, we would have trouble adding more than a few nuclear reactors in the next few years. John O’Donnell made it sound like adding just 5 in the next 10 years would be a considerable challenge.
Adding the 45 proposed by John McCain is extremely unlikely. So much so, John O’Donnell thinks Senator McCain is seriously misinformed.
And, although it’s true that recycling inside a nuclear reactor instead or removing the uranium will turn it into plutonium and produce more energy over dramatically longer time periods and eliminate the need to move and store radioactive waste for tens of thousand of years, if a terrorist gets the plutonium out, it takes relatively little expertise or cost to make a nuclear device. So such reactors will be virtually too costly to operate safely due to the extremely high cost of adequate security.
And, if we go the route of NOT doing this kind or recycling or breeder reactor, we only have about 35 years of uranium left and WOULD have to worry about moving and storing radioactive waste for tens of thousand of years.
We may decide that using breeder reactors and providing the security needed even though it has this very large downside risk may be a lesser evil than having all the coastal cities of the world be under 50 feet or more of seawater and having our weather change for the worst so much it keeps us from growing food to eat.
But, the good news is that we CAN do it all with renewable energy. And, this is in part the case because of what large scale solar thermal farms and generators can provide.
And, what little we cannot do directly with renewable energy now, we may well be able to do at less cost than nuclear reactors with adequate security by using the new battery technologies now being developed.
To do this will require that government at least work intelligently with the renewable energy industry even if there are NO incentives from government.
Now, the Bureau of Land Management is apparently only processing applications in a timely manner for oil companies and is dragging its feet to the point of incompetence or deliberate obstruction, possibly at the direction of the Bush administration, when processing renewable energy applications.
John McCain has voted against or abstained from votes where his supporting vote would have allowed more solar thermal projects to be built soon, and this is true even when some of the solar thermal projects were in his own home state of Arizona.
And, he spoke of his belief that nuclear power is the best solution literally as he was being photographed at a large wind power project.
Here is my take on it.:
John McCain seems like a good guy personally. And, he has said he thinks global warming should be addressed.
But his actions predict that if elected he will continue the policies of the outgoing Bush administration: The deliberate lack of action on renewable energy and giving front burner support ONLY to the oil industry that have gotten us into this mess and are in part responsible for the lack of action to hold down gasoline prices is not desirable or even safe to continue.
Since the health of our economy and our way of life in the climate we have adapted ourselves to depend on action to install massive amounts of renewable energy, which is DOABLE NOW, I think John McCain is a risk we cannot afford to take.
Barack Obama is far from perfect and I don’t support some of his policies. But those considerations are secondary.
If our economy crashes or the effects of global warming cause both our economy and our ability to grow food to collapse, none of those considerations are at all important in comparison.
The energy economy and the policies of the next President and his administration will ruin us or save us. This is the single most important issue.
Obama will at least get us started on the right path. He even is willing to make some compromises with the backers of the oil industry to do so.
McCain’s actions suggest he is badly informed and will do little or worse, will prevent us from beginning.
And, at the moment, because Obama and the Democratic party have not yet communicated this information at all well, they are now running behind in the polls.
This is unnecessary since the facts are on their side and have been all along.
Will they show the voters in the United States this information and explain how it will impact these voters if they don’t know this information and act on it and support politicians who do?
They haven’t done it at all well yet. And, the clock is ticking.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
The Renewable Energy Challenge...
Today’s post: Weds, 7-23-2008
Last week, Al Gore challenged the United States to produce every kilowatt of electricity through wind, sun and other renewable energy sources within 10 years.
His Alliance for Climate Protection estimates the cost of transforming achieving this at $1.5 trillion to $3 trillion over 30 years in public and private money. But he says it would cost about as much to build greenhouse gas-polluting coal plants to produce that much electricity.
In 2005 in the United States, coal produced slightly more than half of our electricity generation while nuclear power accounted for 21 percent of it, natural gas 15 percent, & renewable sources, including wind and solar, about 8.6 percent.
It was recently predicted that world energy demand will grow 50 percent over the next 20 years.
This means that even if we meet his challenge in 20 years instead of 10, we will need to produce about 129 percent of the electricity we produced in 2005 from renewable sources alone.
Since, in my estimation, the 5 percent or so we got from hydroelectric sources in 2005 is likely to go down, perhaps falling as much as in half due to drought conditions from global warming already in place, that means solar, wind, & geothermal will need to go from the 3.6 percent or so it did produce in 2005 to something like 131.5% of all the electricity we produced in 2005 to achieve his goal. This means a 100 fold increase in electricity from solar, perhaps 20 times as much from geothermal, & about three times as much from wind.
The good news is that each one of these increases may well be doable, particularly as new technologies ramp up & the costs come down per unit with the much increased production AND as the costs of the alternatives begin to double once or twice in that same time period.
(T. Boone Pickens, Texas oilman and wind-power booster T. Boone Pickens, an oilman for over 20 years said that this is ..”one problem we can’t drill our way out of.” And, he warned that “….oil could cost $300 a barrel in 10 years as supplies drop, if the nation continues to "drift" on energy policy.”)
And, if these increases come to pass we will also need, as Al Gore & his group emphasizes, to sharply increase & improve our national electricity distribution grid to get the electricity from where it’s generated to where it is being used.
Gore said that:
“The nation's electric grid is still not sufficiently developed to move solar power from sunny states out West or wind power from windy states to power-hungry markets.”
The other piece of good news is that when oil goes over $300 a barrel, it will then be cost effective to use the coal we no longer burn for electricity production to make gasoline, diesel fuel, & jet fuel. Then by adding alcohols & biodiesel from nonfood biofuels to that plus producing new cars to be electrics & plug in hybrids and retrofitting existing vehicles to operate as plug-in hybrids, we can also totally stop using oil to run our cars, trucks, & buses.
(This will also give today’s coal producers and coal producing regions an economic role in the transition instead of simply bankrupting them by using no coal at all.
Oil companies have lots of money now & still have time to invest in owning some of the new energy producing companies plus it will take more than 20 years to wean the whole world away from using oil. So they have plenty of cushion now, IF they act in time.)
The bad news is that NOT doing this over the next 20 years guarantees gasoline will hit $20 a gallon, food prices will also triple, & fires, floods, and droughts will get even worse world wide. We may even have our coastal cities begin to need to invest in dikes or relocate to higher ground. This will be caused by burning the coal, natural gas, & coal NOT converting to carbon free sources will add to the CO2 that is already in the process of causing these exact climate changes.
The other piece of bad news is that neither the man on the moon analogy that Gore used in his speech nor the Manhattan project analogy New York Times columnist Tom Friedman uses are as large in scope or scale as Gore’s challenge or the very real problem it aims to solve.
To get the job done will require massive action by almost everyone in the United States over the initial 5 or 10 years to adequately get this huge change into place.
The only historical precedent of comparable size is the effort the entire United States made to win World War II. Virtually everyone in the country was involved and made strong and focused efforts to get the job done and did so over a several year time period.
The other thing that will be necessary, according to Jim Owen, a spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities that produce 70 percent of the nation's electricity. He said this.
"We cannot do the job with renewables and energy efficiency alone," he said. "We have …. to include nuclear. And we frankly think that nuclear should be increased."
I agree with Al Gore that we can get to his goal of using renewables only. But it may well take longer than 20 years. And to begin to approach replacing all coal, oil, & natural gas for generating electricity in 20 years, let alone in 10 years, I suspect Jim Owen is correct. It will be necessary to produce the speed of this change we look to desperately need, to at least double our generation of nuclear power over the next 20 years.
John McCain looks to plan to carry on the other policies of the Bush administration that helped get us into this mess. So I plan to vote for his opponent. But I think his nuclear policy is a good idea. I hope Obama adopts it in addition to doing his best to make exactly the changes Gore suggests.
Can we make all these changes in 10 years?
I personally suspect it will take 20 years if we do an excellent job with all the national effort we can muster.
But that’s the WRONG question. Since it’s desperately needed and clearly the right thing to do, we need to ask instead:
1. Presuming making these changes IS doable within 10 years, what are some of the ways we might get it done?
(Gore pointed out that the United States gets more than enough solar energy to the job alone & the mid-Western United States gets enough wind to do it with wind alone. So it is doable in theory at least.)
2. How can we make as much progress right away as we can?
We’re 30 years too late in starting; & the results of that are beginning to hurt us economically. So we need a FAST start.
3. And, if we cannot get there in 10 years, how can we get it done in as close to 10 years as possible?
By the way, gasoline in the United States will very likely go to nine or ten dollars a gallon as this transition happens.
The key thing to remember is that this transition will cause the price of gasoline to go DOWN once that happens and to provide alternatives that cost LESS than gasoline to power cars and trucks.
If we don’t do as Gore suggests, twenty dollar a gallon gasoline plus rationing plus gas lines will result. And, world wide economic depression or collapse is possible.
(Drilling for more oil would mean $18 or $19 dollars a gallon instead of $20.)
If anything, I think Gore UNDERSTATED the problems that will occur if we fail to do as he suggests.
Former Rep. Bob Barr, Libertarian presidential candidate: "None of us can walk away from this issue without agreeing with him that we do have a very serious problem, and it's only going to get worse unless we do something about it. ... I hope to be a part of that, and I would like to see the free market take the lead, not the government."
Gore believes in the entrepreneurial businesses we have to rise to this challenge. And, I think he knows that many already are. But he understated how important it is to have government support and speed this process as a part of the solutions he recommends.
Businesses CAN help do the job. But they respond much more and dramatically faster to incentives for doing the right thing than they do from penalties for doing the wrong thing. So, to get the job done, I think we need to dramatically boost the incentive side more than Gore suggested.
One good effect of the recent run up in gasoline prices is that they begin to make it cost effective to put the changes Gore recommends in place.
Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash.: Gore “…. pointed out that the only way we have a chance to drive down oil prices is if we become free of the slavery of oil. If we can give Americans choices of electrical cars or ... biodiesel cars, then and only then do we have a chance of dealing with this cost issue. That is why $4-a-gallon gas is not an enemy of action, it's an ally of action."
The other thing that Gore said that I like is that if we do this in the United States and take the lead in it, it will have two very desirable effects.
It will at least partly restore the United States in the eyes of people in other countries to being thought of as a country that takes the lead in making good things happen.
And, as the methods we use and the positive economic effects of these changes happen and begin to be copied and emulated, we will also help solve these problems world wide.
Today’s post: Weds, 7-23-2008
Last week, Al Gore challenged the United States to produce every kilowatt of electricity through wind, sun and other renewable energy sources within 10 years.
His Alliance for Climate Protection estimates the cost of transforming achieving this at $1.5 trillion to $3 trillion over 30 years in public and private money. But he says it would cost about as much to build greenhouse gas-polluting coal plants to produce that much electricity.
In 2005 in the United States, coal produced slightly more than half of our electricity generation while nuclear power accounted for 21 percent of it, natural gas 15 percent, & renewable sources, including wind and solar, about 8.6 percent.
It was recently predicted that world energy demand will grow 50 percent over the next 20 years.
This means that even if we meet his challenge in 20 years instead of 10, we will need to produce about 129 percent of the electricity we produced in 2005 from renewable sources alone.
Since, in my estimation, the 5 percent or so we got from hydroelectric sources in 2005 is likely to go down, perhaps falling as much as in half due to drought conditions from global warming already in place, that means solar, wind, & geothermal will need to go from the 3.6 percent or so it did produce in 2005 to something like 131.5% of all the electricity we produced in 2005 to achieve his goal. This means a 100 fold increase in electricity from solar, perhaps 20 times as much from geothermal, & about three times as much from wind.
The good news is that each one of these increases may well be doable, particularly as new technologies ramp up & the costs come down per unit with the much increased production AND as the costs of the alternatives begin to double once or twice in that same time period.
(T. Boone Pickens, Texas oilman and wind-power booster T. Boone Pickens, an oilman for over 20 years said that this is ..”one problem we can’t drill our way out of.” And, he warned that “….oil could cost $300 a barrel in 10 years as supplies drop, if the nation continues to "drift" on energy policy.”)
And, if these increases come to pass we will also need, as Al Gore & his group emphasizes, to sharply increase & improve our national electricity distribution grid to get the electricity from where it’s generated to where it is being used.
Gore said that:
“The nation's electric grid is still not sufficiently developed to move solar power from sunny states out West or wind power from windy states to power-hungry markets.”
The other piece of good news is that when oil goes over $300 a barrel, it will then be cost effective to use the coal we no longer burn for electricity production to make gasoline, diesel fuel, & jet fuel. Then by adding alcohols & biodiesel from nonfood biofuels to that plus producing new cars to be electrics & plug in hybrids and retrofitting existing vehicles to operate as plug-in hybrids, we can also totally stop using oil to run our cars, trucks, & buses.
(This will also give today’s coal producers and coal producing regions an economic role in the transition instead of simply bankrupting them by using no coal at all.
Oil companies have lots of money now & still have time to invest in owning some of the new energy producing companies plus it will take more than 20 years to wean the whole world away from using oil. So they have plenty of cushion now, IF they act in time.)
The bad news is that NOT doing this over the next 20 years guarantees gasoline will hit $20 a gallon, food prices will also triple, & fires, floods, and droughts will get even worse world wide. We may even have our coastal cities begin to need to invest in dikes or relocate to higher ground. This will be caused by burning the coal, natural gas, & coal NOT converting to carbon free sources will add to the CO2 that is already in the process of causing these exact climate changes.
The other piece of bad news is that neither the man on the moon analogy that Gore used in his speech nor the Manhattan project analogy New York Times columnist Tom Friedman uses are as large in scope or scale as Gore’s challenge or the very real problem it aims to solve.
To get the job done will require massive action by almost everyone in the United States over the initial 5 or 10 years to adequately get this huge change into place.
The only historical precedent of comparable size is the effort the entire United States made to win World War II. Virtually everyone in the country was involved and made strong and focused efforts to get the job done and did so over a several year time period.
The other thing that will be necessary, according to Jim Owen, a spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities that produce 70 percent of the nation's electricity. He said this.
"We cannot do the job with renewables and energy efficiency alone," he said. "We have …. to include nuclear. And we frankly think that nuclear should be increased."
I agree with Al Gore that we can get to his goal of using renewables only. But it may well take longer than 20 years. And to begin to approach replacing all coal, oil, & natural gas for generating electricity in 20 years, let alone in 10 years, I suspect Jim Owen is correct. It will be necessary to produce the speed of this change we look to desperately need, to at least double our generation of nuclear power over the next 20 years.
John McCain looks to plan to carry on the other policies of the Bush administration that helped get us into this mess. So I plan to vote for his opponent. But I think his nuclear policy is a good idea. I hope Obama adopts it in addition to doing his best to make exactly the changes Gore suggests.
Can we make all these changes in 10 years?
I personally suspect it will take 20 years if we do an excellent job with all the national effort we can muster.
But that’s the WRONG question. Since it’s desperately needed and clearly the right thing to do, we need to ask instead:
1. Presuming making these changes IS doable within 10 years, what are some of the ways we might get it done?
(Gore pointed out that the United States gets more than enough solar energy to the job alone & the mid-Western United States gets enough wind to do it with wind alone. So it is doable in theory at least.)
2. How can we make as much progress right away as we can?
We’re 30 years too late in starting; & the results of that are beginning to hurt us economically. So we need a FAST start.
3. And, if we cannot get there in 10 years, how can we get it done in as close to 10 years as possible?
By the way, gasoline in the United States will very likely go to nine or ten dollars a gallon as this transition happens.
The key thing to remember is that this transition will cause the price of gasoline to go DOWN once that happens and to provide alternatives that cost LESS than gasoline to power cars and trucks.
If we don’t do as Gore suggests, twenty dollar a gallon gasoline plus rationing plus gas lines will result. And, world wide economic depression or collapse is possible.
(Drilling for more oil would mean $18 or $19 dollars a gallon instead of $20.)
If anything, I think Gore UNDERSTATED the problems that will occur if we fail to do as he suggests.
Former Rep. Bob Barr, Libertarian presidential candidate: "None of us can walk away from this issue without agreeing with him that we do have a very serious problem, and it's only going to get worse unless we do something about it. ... I hope to be a part of that, and I would like to see the free market take the lead, not the government."
Gore believes in the entrepreneurial businesses we have to rise to this challenge. And, I think he knows that many already are. But he understated how important it is to have government support and speed this process as a part of the solutions he recommends.
Businesses CAN help do the job. But they respond much more and dramatically faster to incentives for doing the right thing than they do from penalties for doing the wrong thing. So, to get the job done, I think we need to dramatically boost the incentive side more than Gore suggested.
One good effect of the recent run up in gasoline prices is that they begin to make it cost effective to put the changes Gore recommends in place.
Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash.: Gore “…. pointed out that the only way we have a chance to drive down oil prices is if we become free of the slavery of oil. If we can give Americans choices of electrical cars or ... biodiesel cars, then and only then do we have a chance of dealing with this cost issue. That is why $4-a-gallon gas is not an enemy of action, it's an ally of action."
The other thing that Gore said that I like is that if we do this in the United States and take the lead in it, it will have two very desirable effects.
It will at least partly restore the United States in the eyes of people in other countries to being thought of as a country that takes the lead in making good things happen.
And, as the methods we use and the positive economic effects of these changes happen and begin to be copied and emulated, we will also help solve these problems world wide.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
How can China use less Coal?....
Today’s post: Weds, 5-14-2008
There is a lot of good news about China.
Their ability to develop a huge manufacturing industry that so far has been able to manufacture goods & consumer goods at lower cost than in most developed countries has benefited the economies of the other countries in the world including the United States.
It has benefited many corporations in the United States & increased the value of their stock.
And, this has been one of the key causes of the relatively low inflation rate in the United States over the last 20 years.
In addition, they have done this with an enthusiastic can-do attitude aimed at progress much like the United States did as it became an economic power. As someone who lives in the Silicon Valley, I personally like their entrepreneurial style, their focus on progress on purpose, & their energy.
And, this cash coming into China has influenced China in the direction of becoming somewhat more peaceful & tolerant in its international relations. They now have a lot to lose if that cash were to stop arriving.
Unfortunately, they have increasingly relied on coal & new coal burning plants to power this manufacturing.
That has produced incredibly bad air pollution in China itself. Some of that air pollution is even making it across the Pacific to the United States. AND it has made China one of the biggest sources of CO2 on the planet. They are or shortly will be the country that generates the most CO2 each year in all the world.
That means that the people in China now have a lower quality of life and poorer health than they would if this energy could be produced without burning coal as they have been.
And, it means that we CANNOT solve CO2 driven global warming without China switching to cleaner energy sources that do not release CO2.
So, how can China use less coal? And, what can the United States & other developed countries do to make that happen better & faster?
Here are some thoughts.
1. It would DEFINITELY help if we dramatically reduced the coal WE burn for energy in the United States. China will be much more likely to do this also if we walk the talk. Further, the technology & practices we use to do this can be shared with China.
Similarly, it would help if we only allowed coal to be burned for energy if & ONLY IF absolutely all pollutants generated by burning the coal were removed from the air AND as fast as we learn how & get the equipment installed we sequester all of the CO2 generated.
If that was phased in over 10 years at existing coal burning facilities & no new coal burning plants were built, that would help solve global warming; it would gradually make coal generated electricity more expensive; & it would improve the competitiveness of nuclear, solar, & wind generated electricity which will help develop new technologies and increase our electricity generated from cleaner sources than coal.
2. Similarly, it would help if we did everything we could to pass on information to China on rolling out solar and wind power generation. This could range from licensing technology at discounted rates to export incentives to solar and wind power companies to export their products to China.
It helps that China is already developing its own solar companies.
3. Since China is already a member of the so called “nuclear club” in the world it also might make sense to work with them to build more nuclear plants to generate electricity in exchange for asking for commitments to high levels of safety, security, and safe disposal & storage.
4. Only after we do all three of these things do I think we should put any kind of diplomatic pressure on China to reduce the amount of coal they burn or place a tax or tariff on their manufactured products that are sent to this country to compensate for the costs of global warming if they don’t.
That may make good sense later if it is still necessary. But I think making a massive push to make these changes here & do everything we can to speed our own move away from coal and to help them in ways they will find useful and effective is much better.
This will do three things. It will give them some of the tools & some momentum in the right direction first. And, it will allow them to see our pressure at that point as coming from a friend rather than an enemy if we still need to exert it. And, of greatest importance, we will then be doing the right things ourselves instead of asking them to do so when we haven’t bothered to do them here.
5. A related thought occurs to me. With its lower cost of manufacturing, it might make sense to help China become a major manufacturer of LED light bulbs for home & small business lighting world wide. One of the barriers to rapid deployment of this energy saving technology is the high cost of such bulbs now. Why not help put China in a position to contribute world wide to solving this problem?
An important benefit of this would also be to help China use far less electricity for lighting itself -- which would also help them stop building new coal burning plants to generate electricity.
Today’s post: Weds, 5-14-2008
There is a lot of good news about China.
Their ability to develop a huge manufacturing industry that so far has been able to manufacture goods & consumer goods at lower cost than in most developed countries has benefited the economies of the other countries in the world including the United States.
It has benefited many corporations in the United States & increased the value of their stock.
And, this has been one of the key causes of the relatively low inflation rate in the United States over the last 20 years.
In addition, they have done this with an enthusiastic can-do attitude aimed at progress much like the United States did as it became an economic power. As someone who lives in the Silicon Valley, I personally like their entrepreneurial style, their focus on progress on purpose, & their energy.
And, this cash coming into China has influenced China in the direction of becoming somewhat more peaceful & tolerant in its international relations. They now have a lot to lose if that cash were to stop arriving.
Unfortunately, they have increasingly relied on coal & new coal burning plants to power this manufacturing.
That has produced incredibly bad air pollution in China itself. Some of that air pollution is even making it across the Pacific to the United States. AND it has made China one of the biggest sources of CO2 on the planet. They are or shortly will be the country that generates the most CO2 each year in all the world.
That means that the people in China now have a lower quality of life and poorer health than they would if this energy could be produced without burning coal as they have been.
And, it means that we CANNOT solve CO2 driven global warming without China switching to cleaner energy sources that do not release CO2.
So, how can China use less coal? And, what can the United States & other developed countries do to make that happen better & faster?
Here are some thoughts.
1. It would DEFINITELY help if we dramatically reduced the coal WE burn for energy in the United States. China will be much more likely to do this also if we walk the talk. Further, the technology & practices we use to do this can be shared with China.
Similarly, it would help if we only allowed coal to be burned for energy if & ONLY IF absolutely all pollutants generated by burning the coal were removed from the air AND as fast as we learn how & get the equipment installed we sequester all of the CO2 generated.
If that was phased in over 10 years at existing coal burning facilities & no new coal burning plants were built, that would help solve global warming; it would gradually make coal generated electricity more expensive; & it would improve the competitiveness of nuclear, solar, & wind generated electricity which will help develop new technologies and increase our electricity generated from cleaner sources than coal.
2. Similarly, it would help if we did everything we could to pass on information to China on rolling out solar and wind power generation. This could range from licensing technology at discounted rates to export incentives to solar and wind power companies to export their products to China.
It helps that China is already developing its own solar companies.
3. Since China is already a member of the so called “nuclear club” in the world it also might make sense to work with them to build more nuclear plants to generate electricity in exchange for asking for commitments to high levels of safety, security, and safe disposal & storage.
4. Only after we do all three of these things do I think we should put any kind of diplomatic pressure on China to reduce the amount of coal they burn or place a tax or tariff on their manufactured products that are sent to this country to compensate for the costs of global warming if they don’t.
That may make good sense later if it is still necessary. But I think making a massive push to make these changes here & do everything we can to speed our own move away from coal and to help them in ways they will find useful and effective is much better.
This will do three things. It will give them some of the tools & some momentum in the right direction first. And, it will allow them to see our pressure at that point as coming from a friend rather than an enemy if we still need to exert it. And, of greatest importance, we will then be doing the right things ourselves instead of asking them to do so when we haven’t bothered to do them here.
5. A related thought occurs to me. With its lower cost of manufacturing, it might make sense to help China become a major manufacturer of LED light bulbs for home & small business lighting world wide. One of the barriers to rapid deployment of this energy saving technology is the high cost of such bulbs now. Why not help put China in a position to contribute world wide to solving this problem?
An important benefit of this would also be to help China use far less electricity for lighting itself -- which would also help them stop building new coal burning plants to generate electricity.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Nuclear as a transition energy source? New information....
Today’s post: Weds, 3-26-2008
Nuclear power plants using uranium are NOT a renewable energy source. (The amount of uranium that can be mined & used is finite & can be all used up.) And, nuclear power plants have serious problems or potential problems with safety in operation, security risks, & waste disposal.
And, even without the political challenges stemming from those problems, they have long lead times to build & take very large capital outlays.
In addition, they may not help global warming all that much since they produce power by using heat that they create directly that was not present in the locations where they are installed before the nuclear plant at each location was installed there.
However, they do have some legitimate advantages & there might be a relatively safe way to deploy some of them as a way to accelerate the transition to renewable energy & away from fossil fuels. The two most important points supporting this were not known to me until very recently. And, most people do not now know them as yet.
Nuclear power plants do NOT produce any CO2. If run properly, they produce very reliable power that is unaffected by lack of sunshine or wind.
In the United States, nuclear plants can produce power that does NOT depend on imports of either petroleum or natural gas -- or on burning coal with its CO2 & air pollution problems.
I’ve known those things for quite a while.
And, since I believe solar & wind power and other renewable sources will grow to provide all the energy we need & have been aware of the risks, particularly the security risks, of producing materials that can be used to release radioactivity or build nuclear weapons by terrorists or comparable governments, I have been mostly against considering more nuclear power plants as a way to turn off our reliance on fossil fuels.
I think & continue to think that our major efforts need to be aimed at increasing renewable energy sources, making our economy dramatically more energy-efficient, & creating disincentives for use of fossil fuels
Recently however, I’ve learned something that gives me a sound reason to think nuclear power plants might be worth considering as a transitional energy and power source. And, & I’ve learned something that might be used to make using them considerably safer than it otherwise might be.
For me, these two points definitely re-open the discussion on something I considered a dead issue.
1. Adding new nuclear power plants has a significant advantage a physicist who is both very knowledgeable & a bit of a fan of nuclear power told me about that I did not know before.:
While solar power & biofuels are just now beginning to have any kind of reasonable positive payback time in terms of the ENERGY needed to build them, the payback time for the energy required to build nuclear reactors is less than 3 months.
He said that at today’s state of the art, it takes more like 20 years or more for solar cells & that’s if they are in ideal locations.
And, we are just beginning to learn how to create biofuels that give us more energy than it costs to produce them so there even IS any positive payback time for the energy used to create them.
This suggests that using the energy from nuclear reactors to provide the new energy needed to produce very large amounts of solar cells & biofuels might make doing so more doable & happen sooner.
And, building new nuclear power plants would help reduce our reliance on fossil fuels & on fossil fuels imported from outside the United States.
2. Here’s the other point I learned about recently that has the potential to make creating & running new nuclear power plants both faster AND safer & more secure.
I’ve known that since 50 years ago, the United States Navy has had nuclear powered submarines.
What I did not know or was just barely aware of until just a few weeks ago is that the United States Navy uses nuclear power plants to power an increasing majority of ALL its ships. Further, it has done so with an extremely good safety record. The ex Navy man who spoke up an a discussion on energy issues I attended recently said that in addition, there are large numbers of men who leave the United States Navy each year who have been properly & adequately trained to operate these nuclear reactors who would be delighted to have good paying jobs using those skills.
This suggests a potential solution of how new nuclear power plant might be used with some degree of safety.
We could make all nuclear power plants a three way joint venture between the United States government as a financing catalyst, which would dramatically shorten the time lag in bringing these plants online reliably; the United States Navy & other armed forces onsite at every nuclear power plant to provide 24 hour a day, seven day a week security, & private companies to handle the management & the sales of the energy produced.
The United States Navy has proven that it can operate nuclear power plants safely; & the contractors that serve it know how to build nuclear power plants that can be run safely.
There are still huge costs involved & serious risks with nuclear power plants. But I wanted to pass on that there are two reasons not generally known by most people to at least consider building new nuclear power plants as a transitional energy source to help create renewable energy & energy independence in the United States.
Today’s post: Weds, 3-26-2008
Nuclear power plants using uranium are NOT a renewable energy source. (The amount of uranium that can be mined & used is finite & can be all used up.) And, nuclear power plants have serious problems or potential problems with safety in operation, security risks, & waste disposal.
And, even without the political challenges stemming from those problems, they have long lead times to build & take very large capital outlays.
In addition, they may not help global warming all that much since they produce power by using heat that they create directly that was not present in the locations where they are installed before the nuclear plant at each location was installed there.
However, they do have some legitimate advantages & there might be a relatively safe way to deploy some of them as a way to accelerate the transition to renewable energy & away from fossil fuels. The two most important points supporting this were not known to me until very recently. And, most people do not now know them as yet.
Nuclear power plants do NOT produce any CO2. If run properly, they produce very reliable power that is unaffected by lack of sunshine or wind.
In the United States, nuclear plants can produce power that does NOT depend on imports of either petroleum or natural gas -- or on burning coal with its CO2 & air pollution problems.
I’ve known those things for quite a while.
And, since I believe solar & wind power and other renewable sources will grow to provide all the energy we need & have been aware of the risks, particularly the security risks, of producing materials that can be used to release radioactivity or build nuclear weapons by terrorists or comparable governments, I have been mostly against considering more nuclear power plants as a way to turn off our reliance on fossil fuels.
I think & continue to think that our major efforts need to be aimed at increasing renewable energy sources, making our economy dramatically more energy-efficient, & creating disincentives for use of fossil fuels
Recently however, I’ve learned something that gives me a sound reason to think nuclear power plants might be worth considering as a transitional energy and power source. And, & I’ve learned something that might be used to make using them considerably safer than it otherwise might be.
For me, these two points definitely re-open the discussion on something I considered a dead issue.
1. Adding new nuclear power plants has a significant advantage a physicist who is both very knowledgeable & a bit of a fan of nuclear power told me about that I did not know before.:
While solar power & biofuels are just now beginning to have any kind of reasonable positive payback time in terms of the ENERGY needed to build them, the payback time for the energy required to build nuclear reactors is less than 3 months.
He said that at today’s state of the art, it takes more like 20 years or more for solar cells & that’s if they are in ideal locations.
And, we are just beginning to learn how to create biofuels that give us more energy than it costs to produce them so there even IS any positive payback time for the energy used to create them.
This suggests that using the energy from nuclear reactors to provide the new energy needed to produce very large amounts of solar cells & biofuels might make doing so more doable & happen sooner.
And, building new nuclear power plants would help reduce our reliance on fossil fuels & on fossil fuels imported from outside the United States.
2. Here’s the other point I learned about recently that has the potential to make creating & running new nuclear power plants both faster AND safer & more secure.
I’ve known that since 50 years ago, the United States Navy has had nuclear powered submarines.
What I did not know or was just barely aware of until just a few weeks ago is that the United States Navy uses nuclear power plants to power an increasing majority of ALL its ships. Further, it has done so with an extremely good safety record. The ex Navy man who spoke up an a discussion on energy issues I attended recently said that in addition, there are large numbers of men who leave the United States Navy each year who have been properly & adequately trained to operate these nuclear reactors who would be delighted to have good paying jobs using those skills.
This suggests a potential solution of how new nuclear power plant might be used with some degree of safety.
We could make all nuclear power plants a three way joint venture between the United States government as a financing catalyst, which would dramatically shorten the time lag in bringing these plants online reliably; the United States Navy & other armed forces onsite at every nuclear power plant to provide 24 hour a day, seven day a week security, & private companies to handle the management & the sales of the energy produced.
The United States Navy has proven that it can operate nuclear power plants safely; & the contractors that serve it know how to build nuclear power plants that can be run safely.
There are still huge costs involved & serious risks with nuclear power plants. But I wanted to pass on that there are two reasons not generally known by most people to at least consider building new nuclear power plants as a transitional energy source to help create renewable energy & energy independence in the United States.
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