Climate Race: Wind Rabbit & Nuclear Tortoise
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 04. 8.06
We have some more wind power myths to tend to below the fold. But we'd like to frame them, first, with the increased plausibility of an oncoming climate emergency. Here are the future drivers for the single scenario we'll look at. Per capita power consumption is increasing in many nations, but especially in US with high levels of immigration, homes full of appliances, and all things digital. To mitigate a coming climate crisis, we have a decade or less in which to begin a serious transition to lifestyles which are less carbon intensive. What mix of new electricity generation capacities will we build and why?
A new nuclear plant needs around a decade to get up and running, from concept to completion. Possibly less time would be needed if all goes well; or more if the public hearings get dicey or if government runs out of incentive money. A majority of the US population senses that dramatic climate changes are underway; yet, only a small minority believes that cultural sources are the primary cause. We don't think a responsive and aware majority will arise in time to get a large number of new nuclear generation plants under construction withing the next 10 years. See where this is heading?
Nuclear is not going to satisfy the growing demand in the near term. What else can? A wind farm takes 1 or 2 years to complete from the get-go. Again, some will drag on, such as the Cape Wind Project, and others will pop up like mushrooms on a rainy August night. On the average, lets go with 3 years.
Kind of a "no brainer" as we US folk like to say. Wind fills the short term demand growth. And Generation II nuclear plants complete with "dirty coal" for the long term Federal subsidies. As existing baseline plants reach end of design life new nuclear and/or new coal plants will go in to balance the supply. If the needed cultural changes come, then to total new capacity investments can be lowered.
In areas where new nuclear capacity is not provided, for whatever reason, traditions can change to make survival more fun. What say you we abandon the concept of the weekend off work and substitute windless days off work?
Hear Ye All Climate Skeptics: the scenario described above would work just as nicely even if the "climate crisis" does not materialize. A decision that works under multiple scenarios is the best kind, we think.
As for the myths that most need to be demolished, here they are:
- Wind Turbines are a Nuisance
- Turbine Lighting is Excessive
- Nearby Residences Will be Affected by Shadow Flicker
- Turbines Interfere with Television and Other Communications Signals
- Turbines are Ugly
- Wind Turbines Do Not Benefit Local Communities
- Wind Projects Depress Tourism
- Wind Projects Don't Contribute to the Local Tax Base
- Wind Turbines aren't Safe
- Blades Cause Dangerous Ice Throw
- Turbines May Throw Blades or Collapse
- Wind Turbines are Expensive and Unreliable
For the de-mythologizing pdf please look here.
I don't much care for nuclear as a long term solution to energy problems until we can get this whole nulcear waste thing eliminated, but I agree that energy demand is rising fast and immediate short term solutions are needed until longer range options come online.
I'm no energy expert, but I seriously doubt energy demand and the cultures fueling it will change - both in high income and rising lower and middle income countries. Climate change debates are not going to get people to conserve power, the link between energy/oil and carbon just isn't getting through - so let's hope we can debunk as many wind power myths as possible to make it a viable solution NOW.
I work in the recycling and waste management industry and I spend a lot of time in industrial areas throughout southern Ontario. There are two predominant characteristics of the physical landscape that I notice on a daily basis:
1) There are a lot of large empty lots for sale in industrial areas.
2) It is consistently windy.
Is it naive to think that the owners of these lots could get more financial benefit out of an empty lot, if they were to put in place a wind turbine that could realistically provide energy to the surrounding industry.
With the growth of distributive generation in the province, I think that land owners in these situations would gain a lot more immediate(1-10years) value from their land by turning it into an energy producing site.
If as you say, it takes 1-2 years to put something like this in place, then what are we waiting.
I think that the framing of the long term energy solution as primarily nuclear is terribly misleading. If you look at the world wide amount of carbon-based energy the ultimately needs to be replaced by renewables (~12 TeraWatts), it is clear that nuclear simply does not have the ability to make a significant dent in it alone. While many renewable technologies will need to be brought to bear on the problem, only solar can ultimately provide enough capacity to replace the carbon economy. Wind, biomass and nuclear will certainly be components of that, but none of them will be the primary component.
for further reading: http://nsl.caltech.edu/energy.html
I think you will find that 10 year estimates based on public backlash are closely linked with energy availability and price. Brown-outs can have a tremendous motivating effect on new plant production.
There, of course, is a similar situation in Hybrid vehicle adoption with $60 barrels of oil.
The real question is the total lead time from where a project is likely stalled (after initial planning) to energy production. Certainly this lead time is still greater than what is possible for wind power, however one must also consider the sheer volume of wind farms that must be produced to match the scale of the nuclear plant. Given the 1 year observation time for proposed wind sites followed by their own manufacture time (which might be further delayed by their own rapid global growth and limited manufacturers). I think you'll find that any arguments that lead to wind power because of time to market are really aruguements leading to the same solution as all others, mixed power sources.
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Your well reasoned reply is appreciated. It seems however that I did not communicate clearly in the original post. My scenario involves wind capacity additions meeting overall demand GROWTH. I did not intened at all to imply that wind could compete head to head with nuclear for bavseline capacity replacement.
Unfortunately, in the USA the more likely candidate for short-term power is coal. A smallish 1 gigawatt coal plant can be thrown up pretty fast and we have plenty of coal to run it, assuming we aren't going to get serious about fossil greenhouse gases.
A typical small commercial wind turbine is 600 kW with an average power output in average wind locations 1/5 that, about 120 kW.
So it would take 10,000 commercial wind turbines to replace a coal-fired generation facility.
Sorry for the late reply.
I probably didn't read close enough to notice that this was only for growth, but other problems exist in that instance.
Assuming for the minute that we are talking about a balanced system, what is generally needed is to increased total capacity. I'm starting from the premise that the current grid is already running at high level capacity. Windfarms suffer from unpredicatable energy production (over the short term) and are best paired with other facilities that can ramp up production quickly. For the time being that would either be Hydro or Fossil Fuel. If we already have a balanced system running at full capacity then you are going to need to account for production variances in your 'new' construction. Continued production of Windfarms might either be self balancing (depending on location) or will exhasterbate the problem if you are talking about a localized grid.
Perhaps building windfarms in combination with newer (cleaner) coal plants is better than having no windfarms at all, but I actually would prefer a new nuclear plant than new coal plants. Just personal preference I guess.
Of course if we are really changing the world, then I'd take windfarms and regulated energy use at peak production times for several time independent industries. But that is a lot of change from our current practice, and I'm not sure it's likely at this time. Small steps.
I did enjoy the article by the way, and look foward to reading more about alternative energy sources including windfarms.
One more thing since the first post mentioned Nuclear Power,
I once had a physics professor tell me that nuclear power plants should be an enviornmentalist best friend. I know that seems counter intutive to anyone that has ever attended a Sierra Club meeting, but the fact remains. Take away our countries stuborn refusal to build breeder plants (like the rest of the world) and I think you'll find that the cost benifit analysis of a nuclear plant from an enviornmental perspective is actually very positive. Even with our relatively high waste producing process now, we are talking about only a very small fraction (less than 1%) of all highly toxic industrial waste being produced. And unlike highly toxic chemical industrial waste, radioactive waste actually gets cleaner over time. Plus the cost of fuel aquisition and waste removal is small in comparison to the overall cost of production (similar to Wind or Hydro power). Meaning that more can easily be spent in those areas and the energy would still be economical.