Carolyn Heising, a professor of industrial, mechanical and nuclear engineering at Iowa State University, wrote an editorial last week in The Des Moines Register calling for a truce between proponents of wind and nuclear power. She persuasively argues that if you can support one energy source, you can -- and should -- support both.
Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Environment, Energy, Politics, Technology, Economics, Wind Power
It's time for a truce. In reality, nuclear and wind are not competitive, but complementary. And beyond that, large amounts of both are essential, if we hope
to continue meeting our power needs while cutting back on the fossil-fuel emissions that are heating up the global environment.
For its part, nuclear power is the only emissions-free source of affordable, large-scale electricity that can be counted on to generate power 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This capability is crucial. Our high-tech economy, based heavily on
computers and other electronics, requires total reliability in its electric power. Even brief blips in service can cause havoc - with airline safety, financial services and thousands of other sectors of our economy that rely heavily on electronics. For cities, factories and major computer operations, it takes a major power source that works around the clock. That means nuclear power.
Wind power cannot meet this need. It's too diffuse and too dependent on the whims of the weather. But what it can do is provide electricity to meet demand at peak times of the day, reducing the need for electricity from high-priced natural gas.
Working together - with energy efficiency and other renewables as they develop - they can help us meet the great challenge of the century: to provide the energy that the world needs (both the industrialized world and rapidly developing countries) while limiting our release of global-warming gases. We know that we will be unable to completely forgo the use of fossil fuels. But to the extent possible, we need to replace them with emission-free sources. That means recognizing that with the population of the United States topping 300 million people, adding the equivalent of one California every 10 years, the renewal of nuclear power and the further expansion of renewables are essential.
Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Environment, Energy, Politics, Technology, Economics, Wind Power
Comments
First, windpower supporters generally have nothing good to say about nuclear power, or the people who support nuclear power. Fans of piddle power (renewable energy, whatever that means) will go out of their way to denigrate nuclear power. The appropriate response is not to coddle these people, but to reiterate to them that they are wrong, and the sooner they accept it, the better off we will all be.
But what's more important is that windpower is not complimentary to nuclear power; it is inferior to nuclear power. Nuclear power has no weakness where windpower has a strength. Windpower reliability and capacity factor are awful by way comparison with nuclear power; it's not as if you can resort to windpower when a reactor is shut down for refueling. Quite the contrary. For windpower to work at all, you need a rock-solid baseload of 90% coal-fired or nuclear plants.
Windpower is not cleaner or safer, per unit energy (e.g, externe study), so why would we even bother with the small contribution that windpower might provide?
A few Machiavellian advantages to wind power for nuclear supporters:
1. (Roughly) same life-cycle energy inputs as nuclear, tied at lowest - "nuclear is as green as wind"
2. Great contrast for land-use footprint and visual intrusiveness - nuclear power stations are tiny compared to wind "farms" and - well - any other powergen really.
3. Good aircraft deflectors. Put 10 big windturbines round your nuclear power plant and all those terrorist aircraft (where? where?) will get nowhere near it.
4. Useful comparison on capacity factors. I've seend values from 25% to an optimistic 41% for wind power generation. I'm sure the nuclear industry will continue to regard 90% as normal operating target and expect to beat that regularly.
Speaking as a wind opponent, our activities embrace nuclear supporters and nuclear opponents, so we therefore separate the issues to avoid splintering our anti-wind efforts.
One issue at a time.
Wind is a farce and no real threat to nuclear.
Matthew B
It's a mirage. Every state could do what California did--ban new nuclear power plants, make it practically impossible to build new coal plants, encourage wind and solar, and ignore gas. Theoretically, it should be possible to drastically expand offshore drilling, buy LNG from Iran, build a pipeline to Siberia, and begin generating load-following electricity from coal gas, allowing a 70% gas/30% wind balance. The resulting coke could be used as a motor fuel feedstock. That would be good enough to last a couple of generations (i.e., pushing off hard decisions on the grandkids). When the supply starts running low and the rolling blackouts begin, they can just blame all those big corporations. Practically nobody in the general public sees California as a failure of wind/gas. It's seen as corporate greed, even though that doesn't make any sense (it doesn't have to in PopulistWorld).
If I were a wind/gas supporter (and I'm not), I would work as hard as possible, starting immediately, to stack the boards of the Southeast utility regulators with no-nukes-kooks. Protests and obstructionist lawsuits would give them enough time. Once they do, the local government doesn't cooperate with the evacuation plan and the stacked regulator allows the cost of the plant to be passed on only if the plant is never operated. Sound familiar?
The end result: burning foreign gas. Wind doesn't solve the problem of dependence on gas; it requires gas backup. Wind with gas backup uses less gas than running the gas plants 100% of the time, but it still means 70% gas as opposed to 18.7% today. For some reason, the windmill people don't understand this. I think we pro-nuclear people can do a little better.
I don't expect a utility trade association to trash coal or wind, and I don't expect to have any effect on what anybody at NEI thinks or says. However, it might be possible to stay on message a little bit more, unless this is the NEI message. In any event, frankly, I don't agree with this policy of bringing the competition to the table.
It makes sense to me to argue that wind power costs should be evaluated more sensibly: compare the cost of wind plus natural gas to the cost of natural gas alone. But natural gas plants have been built in many sites, and it might be cheaper to build windmills to go with them. Especially considering the cost of natural gas pollution and climate change. Additionally, many people my age advocate research into and subsidies of possible/likely future technologies, because it lowers our future electricity bill. Technologies don't have to be cost competitive today in order to make economic sense over my lifetime.
We are seeing climate change today, and in my lifetime, and in the lifetime of my younger friends, we may see catastrophic climate change. To that end, I hope that we invest in all technologies that reduce the dangers.
I do not find convincing arguments against wind power because some (or many) wind or/and solar power proponents oppose nuclear power.
You see, this kind of dogmatism is ridiculous. Each needs to be assessed on its own.
I can understand being frustrated by distortions about nuclear power that are produced by other industries, as well as distortions about their own products. I personally was very tired of the assertion that solar prices had dropped 200% (we now pay you!) that was out and about a decade ago.
I can understand being skeptical that wind power will be as useful as the most fervent supporters hope. My optimism on wind power has declined over the last decade. Some for reasons cited on this blog, others never mentioned.
But there is industry (and my own experience with the nuclear industry has been that facts are more often facts--in part because of more experience, in part because the facts are not as rapidly changing as in newer industries, in part because the industry is more watched). There are policy specialists. And there are policy people synthesizing ideas coming from policy specialists, judging both the information and the size of the error bars.
Those policy generalists still advocate increases in wind power. It is from policy generalists that I get most of my information, depending on the others only when the information and interpretations overlap well.
Whatever grumbling you do in private, I don't want to see it. If you have facts, let me see them. If you have comparisons, let me see them. But not the grumbling.
I know that anti-nuclear feelings are strongest in countries with a large coal or/and hydro base. That's fair to mention.
Re wind -- CA has problems with wind because it blows more at night, and our windmills often lie on bird migration routes. But to the extent wind can replace daytime power, it can replace hydroelectric power -- also a backup for wind. Since hydro is problematic in the dry west, and there is a good chance that hydro will become even more problematic with the loss of snowpack, wind may turn out to be a small blessing locally. I don't know how good wind will turn out to be, or fusion power, but I hope that both are investigated energetically.
When deciding between energy sources, you may not be aware that people in policy are discussing 80% reductions in GHG emissions by 2050, more would be better. Even with these kinds of reductions, there is still a risk, maybe 10 - 20%, of triggering catastrophic climate change.
Those of you who fly and drive may want to consider finding ways to reduce GHG emissions, ditto for those with other large energy uses. We absolutely want to shift to more nuclear power. We absolutely want to investigate energy sources for today and the future, including those more expensive today, both as an investment in lower electricity and fuel prices tomorrow and because of environmental and health effects of fossil fuels. For these reasons, I support policy people in their support, for example, of large subsidies into research on, and use of, PV panels. Those of you who study energy security know that a mix of energy sources is more secure.
Occasionally I read on pro-nuclear blogs that energy sources should be compared on a level playing field. We can't do that when some industries are new and some are mature. Additionally, the cost to society from failing to address climate change will be substantially more than unfair subsidies to some industries. If you win the fairness battle, you will definitely lose your shirt. Or people my age and younger will.
It is my future, and the future of younger people, the majority, that gets mixed into legitimate grievances when you grumble.
Keep posting the facts. Trust people in policy to shift with the facts, and people like me who blog on policy to do likewise. If wind power is an expensive solution that won't work, that information will get out.
Sorry for the longish comments! I wouldn't have said anything if I didn't consider this blog and NEI excellent sources of information.
Both wind and solar fall into the former category. The primary energy source is diffuse. That means you have to work harder to collect the energy and concentrate it in amounts that are useful from an economic standpoint. That means large areas covered by solar collectors, or big windmills spread out over square miles of territory.
They are variable sources. They depend on natural phenomena that by nature have some time variability. That either limits the utility of the energy source (i.e., it may not be there when you need it), or you need to solve the energy storage issue.
Now, unlike nuclear opponents, I will not attribute any moral shortcomings to these energy sources. That is, they are not "bad", or "evil", or assert that the people who work with them are greedy and destructive and have only ill will towards their fellow man. It is simply the way they are. Those energy sources are by nature variable in output, intermittent in availability, and require somewhat large engineering effort to gather and supply in useful quantities.