NEI Nuclear Notes

Even though VPIRG is considered a research group, based on the coalition’s critique of their report , looks like much research wasn’t done at all on how to supposedly power VT without VY. Meredith Angwin from Yes Vermont Yankee sums it up : I belong to a group, Coalition for Energy Solutions . We are all local energy professionals : one physicist, one chemist (me), and four engineers. Some of us have active careers and companies, some are semi-retired. At any rate, we felt that this VPIRG report [pdf] overstated the ease of replacing Vermont Yankee with renewables, and understated the costs. (Actually, they didn't state the costs.) We began doing research for a report on the costs and engineering feasibility of their recommendations. It has been a long road, in which we evaluated the capacity factors of wind farms in Maine, called foresters to assess the sustainable yield of our northern forests, and tried to assess the costs and reliability of cow power . And of course, ...

Via the Green Inc blog : Worried that an important loan-guarantee program has ground to a standstill, renewable energy industry associations sent a letter Wednesday to President Obama urging him to speed the program along. The signers represented virtually every type of clean energy — wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, nuclear, combined heat and power, and biomass — and reflected the industry’s concern that a loan guarantee program for clean energy projects approved in the stimulus package was stuck in the federal bureaucracy, as has been a similar loan program that predates the stimulus. The letter, seen by Green Inc, cited “disagreements” between the Department of Energy and the Office of Management and Budget over regulations to carry out the loan guarantees. Three months have gone by since the stimulus packaged passed, the letter stated, “and we have little confidence that ongoing discussions between D.O.E. and the Office of Management and Budget over these regulations will produce a ...

Stan Jakuba at Energy Tribune wrote a piece titled " Obama’s Stumble: Wind Power " in which he explains the limits of President Obama's renewable goals and what the President should promote as well (I'm copying the whole thing because I think it's that good): I like Barack Obama but I have doubts about his presidency when I hear him saying that the US will “double the amount of energy that comes from renewable sources by the end of my first term." He should know that that’s not possible. But instead, during his State of the Union speech, he proclaimed that we’ll reach that goal in three years, not four. Most anyone who has studied the energy situation must wonder about Obama's, or his advisors', energy experience. Presented with the numbers from the table (see below) he would realize that the majority of the renewable power comes from hydro and from wood, about 154 gigawatts. Readily available data show that the 6 percent for hydro and bio is pretty m...

Jason Ribeiro at Pro-Nuclear Democrats wrote an excellent, fact-based piece on why President Obama should have included nuclear energy in his not-the-State-of-the-Union speech last night . As well, Ribeiro includes some data Obama needs to see that explains the limitations of several of his proposed "innovations" on energy: The important thing to understand about this graph is the line on top is hydro energy. Wind generation would have to increase at least 5 times to start to reach the output of hydro. But with a 25% or less capacity factor we also know that such an expansion of wind power requires a 4x build redundancy for a given output, so the actual build out expansion would be over 20x for wind to approach hydro. Thus, doubling from what it is today won't do much at all. In addition, adding the needed power transmission lines to and from windy areas to population centers will cost a bundle. The lower green line is solar, but since it has a lower capacity factor and...

This is my final post (and the longest) in the series that discredits Amory Lovins’ and the Rocky Mountain Institute’s “Nuclear Illusion” paper (pdf). Hopefully this series has opened many eyes to the flaws and inconsistencies of RMI’s claims. Let me briefly summarize the previous posts. Part One found that “micropower” is primarily made up of decentralized coal and gas plants, the generation from “non-biomass decentralized co-generation plants” (RMI’s main plants for “micropower”) was grossly exaggerated, and the “stunning performance” of nuclear’s “true competitors” was not backed up by RMI’s own sources. Part Two showed that RMI’s “micropower” data don’t fit their own definition of “micropower”. Not only that, small plants aren’t the only way to go especially since bigger power plants in general yield greater efficiencies and economies of scale. Part Three explained that energy efficiency and “negawatts” will not necessarily reduce demand and in fact strong evidence suggests it ...

Visit the Greenby Blog .

A few days ago we pointed to some of the coverage that Rockefeller University fellow Jesse Ausubel was getting for his take on how renewable sources of energy actually have the potential to harm the environment . Since then, we've seen plenty of other folks pick up on Ausubel's conclusions. Here's Steven Miloy at Fox News : In a time when those who question the Green agenda are scurrilously defamed and routinely intimidated — just for the sin of expressing contrary opinions — the Green Ausubel should be applauded for having the courage to stand up and speak the truth: that renewable energy wasn’t, isn’t and ought not ever be. For more, see Investor's Business Daily .

Jesse Ausubel of Rockefeller University seems to think so : Writ­ing in a schol­arly jour­nal, Jes­se Au­subel, di­rec­tor of the un­ivers­ity’s Pro­gram for the Hu­man En­vi­ron­ment, has now is­sued a scath­ing re­as­sess­ment of the “re­new­able” en­er­gy sources that are sup­posed to save hu­man­ity from pol­lu­tion and glob­al warm­ing. The cli­mate change is be­lieved to be caused by emis­sions of heat-trapping gas­es from use of tra­di­tional en­er­gy sources. Meet­ing glob­al en­er­gy de­mands through so-called re­new­able sources—build­ing enough wind farms, dam­ming enough riv­ers, and grow­ing enough bi­o­mass—will wreck the en­vi­ron­ment, Au­su­bel ar­gues. Bi­o­mass con­sists of plants and an­i­mal wastes used as fu­el. The so­lu­tion? “If we want to min­i­mize new struc­tures and the rape of na­ture, nu­clear en­er­gy is the best op­tion,” Au­su­bel said. I can hear the howls already. This story has been impacting all over the Web in a big way all day long. There...

In conjunction with the release of its World Energy Review , BP has also released an energy charting tool and conversion calculator that allow you to manipulate the data in some very interesting ways. I played with it to create this chart about U.S. consumption of nuclear energy between 1965 and 2006: Kudos to BP for doing such a great job. Applications like these really help advance public understanding of energy issues. And it doesn't hurt that they're fun to use too. Dive in, there's no reason for me to have all the fun.