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German Nuclear Decommissioning and Renewables Build-Out [23Oct11] - 0 views

  • Germany will be redirecting its economy towards renewable energy, because of the political decision to decommission its nuclear plants, triggered by the Fukushima event in Japan and subsequent public opposition to nuclear energy. Germany's decision would make achieving its 2020 CO2 emission reduction targets more difficult.   To achieve the CO2 emissions reduction targets and replace nuclear energy, renewable energy would need to scale up from 17% in 2010 to 57% of total electricity generation of 603 TWh in 2020, according to a study by The Breakthrough Institute. As electricity generation was 603 TWh in 2010, increased energy efficiency measures will be required to flat-line electricity production during the next 9 years.   Germany has 23 nuclear reactors (21.4 GW), 8 are permanently shut down (8.2 GW) and 15 (13.2 GW) will be shut down by 2022. Germany will be adding a net of 5 GW of coal plants, 5 GW of new CCGT plants and 1.4 GW of new biomass plants in future years. The CCGT plants will reduce the shortage of quick-ramping generation capacity for accommodating variable wind and solar energy to the grid.
  • Germany is planning a $14 billion build-out of transmission systems for onshore and future offshore wind energy in northern Germany and for augmented transmission with France for CO2-free hydro and nuclear energy imports to avoid any shortages.    Germany had fallen behind on transmission system construction in the north because of public opposition and is using the nuclear plant shutdown as leverage to reduce public opposition. Not only do people have to look at a multitude of 450-ft tall wind turbines, but also at thousands of 80 to 135 ft high steel structures and wires of the transmission facilities.   The $14 billion is just a minor down payment on the major grid reorganization required due to the decommissioning of the nuclear plants and the widely-dispersed build-outs of renewables. The exisitng grid is mostly large-central-plant based. 
  • This article includes the estimated capital costs of shutting down Germany's nuclear plants, reorganizing the grids of Germany and its neighbors, and building out renewables to replace the nuclear energy.    Germany’s Renewable Energy Act (EEG) in 2000, guarantees investors above-market fees for solar power for 20 years from the point of installation. In 2010, German investments in  renewables was about $41.2 billion, of which about $36.1 billion in 7,400 MW of solar systems ($4,878/kW). In 2010, German incentives for all renewables was about $17.9 billion, of which about half was for solar systems.   The average subsidy in 2010 was about ($9 billion x 1 euro/1.4 $)/12 TWh = 53.6 eurocents/kWh; no wonder solar energy is so popular in Germany. These subsidies are rolled into electric rates as fees or taxes, and will ultimately make Germany less competitive in world markets.   http://thebreakthrough.org/blog//2011/06/analysis_germanys_plan_to_phas-print.html http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-31/merkel-faces-achilles-heel-in-grids-to-unplug-german-nuclear.html http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/829664/revealed_how_your_country_compares_on_renewable_investment.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany  
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  • SUMMARY OF ESTIMATED CAPITAL AND OTHER COSTS   The estimated capital costs and other costs for decommissioning the nuclear plants, restoring the sites, building out renewables, wind and solar energy balancing plants, and reorganizing electric grids over 9 years are summarized below.    The capital cost and subsidy cost for the increased energy efficiency measures was not estimated, but will likely need to be well over $180 billion over 9 years, or $20 billion/yr, or $20 b/($3286 b in 2010) x 100% = 0.6% of GDP, or $250 per person per yr.     Decommission nuclear plants, restore sites: 23 @ $1 billion/plant = $23 billion Wind turbines, offshore: 53,300 MW @ $4,000,000/MW = $213.2 billion   Wind turbines, onshore: 27,900 MW @ $2,000,000/MW = $55.8 billion Wind feed-in tariff extra costs rolled into electric rates over 9 years: $200 billion  Solar systems: 82,000 MW @ $4,500,000/MW = $369 billion Solar feed-in tariff extra costs rolled into electric rates over 9 years = $250 billion. Wind and solar energy balancing plants: 25,000 MW of CCGTs @ $1,250,000/MW = $31.3 billion Reorganizing European elecric grids tied to German grids: $150 billion
  • RENEWABLE ENERGY AND ENERGY EFFICIENCY TARGETS   In September 2010 the German government announced the following targets:   Renewable electricity - 35% by 2020 and 80% by 2050 Renewable energy - 18% by 2020, 30% by 2030, and 60% by 2050 Energy efficiency - Reducing the national electricity consumption 50% below 2008 levels by 2050.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Germany   Germany has a target to reduce its nation-wide CO2 emissions from all sources by 40% below 1990 levels by 2020 and 80-85% below 1990 levels by 2050. That goal could be achieved, if 100% of electricity is generated by renewables, according to Mr. Flasbarth. Germany is aiming to convince the rest of Europe to follow its lead.
  • A 2009 study by EUtech, engineering consultants, concluded Germany will not achieve its nation-wide CO2 emissions target; the actual reduction will be less than 30%. The head of Germany's Federal Environment Agency (UBA), Jochen Flasbarth, is calling for the government to improve CO2 reduction programs to achieve targets. http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,644677,00.html   GERMAN RENEWABLE ENERGY TO-DATE   Germany announced it had 17% of its electrical energy from renewables in 2010; it was 6.3% in 2000. The sources were 6.2% wind, 5.5% biomass, 3.2% hydro and 2.0% solar. Electricity consumption in 2010 was 603 TWh (production) - 60 TWh (assumed losses) = 543 TWh http://www.volker-quaschning.de/datserv/ren-Strom-D/index_e.php  
  • Wind: At the end of 2010, about 27,200 MW of onshore and offshore wind turbines was installed in Germany at a capital cost of about $50 billion. Wind energy produced was 37.5 TWh, or 6.2% of total production. The excess cost of the feed-in-tariff energy bought by utilities and rolled into electricity costs of rate payers was about $50 billion during the past 11 years.   Most wind turbines are in northern Germany. When wind speeds are higher wind curtailment of 15 to 20 percent takes place because of insufficient transmission capacity and quick-ramping gas turbine plants. The onshore wind costs the Germany economy about 12 eurocent/kWh and the offshore wind about 24 eurocent/kWh. The owners of the wind turbines are compensated for lost production.   The alternative to curtailment is to “sell” the energy at European spot prices of about 5 eurocent/kWh to Norway and Sweden which have significant hydro capacity for balancing the variable wind energy; Denmark has been doing it for about 20 years.   As Germany is very marginal for onshore wind energy (nation-wide onshore wind CF 0.167) and nearly all of the best onshore wind sites have been used up, or are off-limits due to noise/visual/environmental impacts, most of the additional wind energy will have to come from OFFSHORE facilities which produce wind energy at about 2 to 3 times the cost of onshore wind energy. http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/61774/wind-energy-expensive
  • Biomass: At the end of 2010, about 5,200 MW of biomass was installed at a capital cost of about $18 billion. Biomass energy produced was 33.5 TWh, or 5.5% of production. Plans are to add 1,400 MW of biomass plants in future years which, when fully implemented, would produce about 8.6 TWh/yr.   Solar: At the end of 2010, about 17,320 MW of PV solar was installed in Germany at a capital cost of about $100 billion. PV solar energy produced was 12 TWh, or 2% of total production. The excess cost of the feed-in-tariff energy bought by utilities and rolled into the electricity costs of rate payers was about $80 billion during the past 11 years.   Most solar panels are in southern Germany (nation-wide solar CF 0.095). When skies are clear, the solar production peaks at about 7 to 10 GW. Because of insufficient capacity of transmission and quick-ramping gas turbine plants, and because curtailment is not possible, part of the solar energy, produced at a cost to the German economy of about 30 to 50 eurocent/kWh is “sold” at European spot prices of about 5 eurocent/kWh to France which has significant hydro capacity for balancing the variable solar energy. http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/46142/impact-pv-solar-feed-tariffs-germany  
  • Hydro: At the end of 2010, about 4,700 MW of hydro was installed. Hydro energy produced was 19.5 TWh, or 3.2% of production. Hydro growth has been stagnant during the past 20 years. See below website.   As it took about $150 billion of direct investment, plus about $130 billion excess energy cost during the past 11 years to achieve 8.2% of total production from solar and wind energy, and assuming hydro will continue to have little growth, as was the case during the past 20 years (almost all hydro sites have been used up), then nearly all of the renewables growth by 2020 will be mostly from wind, with the remainder from solar and biomass. http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2011/03/new-record-for-german-renewable-energy-in-2010??cmpid=WNL-Wednesday-March30-2011   Wind and Solar Energy Depend on Gas: Wind and solar energy is variable and intermittent. This requires quick-ramping gas turbine plants to operate at part-load and quickly ramp up with wind energy ebbs and quickly ramp down with wind energy surges; this happens about 100 to 200 times a day resulting in increased wear and tear. Such operation is very inefficient for gas turbines causing them to use extra fuel/kWh and emit extra CO2/kWh that mostly offset the claimed fuel and CO2 reductions due to wind energy. http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/64492/wind-energy-reduces-co2-emissions-few-percent  
  • Wind energy is often sold to the public as making a nation energy independent, but Germany will be buying gas mostly from Russia supplied via the newly constructed pipeline under the Baltic Sea from St. Petersburg to Germany, bypassing Poland.   GERMANY WITHOUT NUCLEAR ENERGY   A study performed by The Breakthrough Institute concluded to achieve the 40% CO2 emissions reduction target and the decommissioning of 21,400 MW of nuclear power plants by 2022, Germany’s electrical energy mix would have to change from 60% fossil, 23% nuclear and 17% renewables in 2010 to 43% fossil and 57% renewables by 2020. This will require a build-out of renewables, reorganization of Europe’s electric grids (Europe’s concurrence will be needed) and acceleration of energy efficiency measures.   According to The Breakthrough Institite, Germany would have to reduce its total electricity consumption by about 22% of current 2020 projections AND achieve its target for 35% electricity generated from renewables by 2020. This would require increased energy efficiency measures to effect an average annual decrease of the electricity consumption/GDP ratio of 3.92% per year, significantly greater than the 1.47% per year decrease assumed by the IEA's BAU forecasts which is based on projected German GDP growth and current German efficiency policies.
  • The Breakthrough Institute projections are based on electricity consumption of 544  and 532 TWh  in 2008 and 2020, respectively; the corresponding production is 604 TWh in 2008 and 592 TWh in 2020.   http://thebreakthrough.org/blog//2011/06/analysis_germanys_plan_to_phas-print.html http://www.iea.org/textbase/nppdf/free/2007/germany2007.pdf   Build-out of Wind Energy: If it is assumed the current wind to solar energy ratio is maintained at 3 to 1, the wind energy build-out will be 80% offshore and 20% onshore, and the electricity production will be 592 TWh, then the estimated capital cost of the offshore wind turbines will be [{0.57 (all renewables) - 0.11 (assumed biomass + hydro)} x 592 TWh x 3/4] x 0.8 offshore/(8,760 hr/yr x average CF 0.35) = 0.0533 TW offshore wind turbines @ $4 trillion/TW = $213 billion and of the onshore wind turbines will be [{0.57 (all renewables) - 0.11 (assumed biomass + hydro)} x 592 TWh x 3/4] x 0.2 onshore/(8,760 hr/yr x average CF 0.167) = 0.279 TW of wind turbines @ $2 trillion/TW = $56 billion, for a total of $272 billion. The feed in tariff subsidy for 9 years, if maintained similar to existing subsidies to attract adequate capital, will be about $150 billion offshore + $50 billion onshore, for a total of $200 billion.    
  • Note: The onshore build-out will at least double Germany’s existing onshore wind turbine capacity, plus required transmission systems; i.e., significant niose, environmental and visual impacts over large areas.   Recent studies, based on measured, real-time, 1/4-hour grid operations data sets of the Irish, Colorado and Texas grids, show wind energy does little to reduce CO2 emissions. Such data sets became available during the past 2 to 3 years. Prior studies, based on assumptions, estimates, modeling scenarios, and statistics, etc., significantly overstate CO2 reductions.  http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/64492/wind-energy-reduces-co2-emissions-few-percent   Build-out of PV Solar Energy: The estimated capital cost of the PV solar capacity will be [{0.57 (all renewables) - 0.11 (assumed biomass + hydro)} x 592 TWh x 1/4]/(8,760 hr/yr x average CF 0.095) = 0.082 TW @ $4.5 trillion/TW = $369 billion. The feed in tariff subsidy, if maintained similar to existing subsidies to attract adequate capital, will be about $250 billion.   Reorganizating Electric Grids: For GW reasons, a self-balancing grid system is needed to minimize CO2 emissions from gas-fired CCGT balancing plants. One way to implement it is to enhance the interconnections of the national grids with European-wide HVDC overlay systems (owning+O&M costs, including transmission losses), and with European-wide selective curtailment of wind energy, and with European-wide demand management and with pumped hydro storage capacity. These measures will reduce, but not eliminate, the need for balancing energy, at greater wind energy penetrations during high-windspeed weather conditions, as frequently occur in Iberia (Spain/Portugal).  
  • European-wide agreement is needed, the capital cost will be in excess of $150 billion and the adverse impacts on quality of life (noise, visuals, psychological), property values and the environment will be significant over large areas.    Other Capital Costs: The capacity of the quick-ramping CCGT balancing plants was estimated at 25,000 MW; their capital cost is about 25,000 MW x $1,250,000/MW = $31.3 billion. The capital costs of decommissioning and restoring the sites of the 23 nuclear plants will be about $23 billion.   Increased Energy Efficiency: Increased energy efficiency would be more attractive than major build-outs of renewables, because it provides the quickest and biggest "bang for the buck", AND it is invisible, AND it does not make noise, AND it has minimal environmental impact, AND it usually reduces at least 3 times the CO2 per invested dollar, AND it usually creates at least 3 times the jobs per invested dollar, AND it usually creates at least 3 times the energy reduction per invested dollar, AND it does all this without public resistance and controversy.   Rebound, i.e., people going back to old habits of wasting energy, is a concept fostered by the PR of proponents of conspicuous consumption who make money on such consumption. People with little money love their cars getting 35-40 mpg, love getting small electric and heating bills. The rebound is mostly among people who do not care about such bills.
  • A MORE RATIONAL APPROACH   Global warming is a given for many decades, because the fast-growing large economies of the non-OECD nations will have energy consumption growth far outpacing the energy consumption growth of the slow-growing economies of the OECD nations, no matter what these OECD nations do regarding reducing CO2 emissions of their economies.   It is best to PREPARE for the inevitable additional GW by requiring people to move away from flood-prone areas (unless these areas are effectively protected, as in the Netherlands), requiring new  houses and other buildings to be constructed to a standard such as the Passivhaus standard* (such buildings stay cool in summer and warm in winter and use 80 to 90 percent less energy than standard buildings), and requiring the use of new cars that get at least 50 mpg, and rearranging the world's societies for minimal energy consumption; making them walking/bicycling-friendly would be a good start.   If a nation, such as the US, does not do this, the (owning + O&M) costs of its economy will become so excessive (rising resource prices, increased damage and disruptions from weather events) that its goods and services will become less competitive and an increasing percentage of its population will not be able to afford a decent living standard in such a society.   For example: In the US, the median annual household income (inflation-adjusted) was $49,445, a decline of 7% since 2000. As the world’s population increases to about 10 billion by 2050, a triage-style rationing of resources will become more prevalent. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-09-13/census-household-income/50383882/1
  • * A 2-year-old addition to my house is built to near-Passivhaus standards; its heating system consists of a thermostatically-controlled 1 kW electric heater, set at 500 W, that cycles on/off on the coldest days for less than 100 hours/yr. The addition looks inside and out entirely like standard construction. http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/46652/reducing-energy-use-houses
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    Excellent, lengthy article , lots of data
D'coda Dcoda

The myth of renewable energy | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists - 0 views

  • "Clean." "Green." What do those words mean? When President Obama talks about "clean energy," some people think of "clean coal" and low-carbon nuclear power, while others envision shiny solar panels and wind turbines. And when politicians tout "green jobs," they might just as easily be talking about employment at General Motors as at Greenpeace. "Clean" and "green" are wide open to interpretation and misappropriation; that's why they're so often mentioned in quotation marks. Not so for renewable energy, however.
  • people across the entire enviro-political spectrum seem to have reached a tacit, near-unanimous agreement about what renewable means: It's an energy category that includes solar, wind, water, biomass, and geothermal power.
  • Renewable energy sounds so much more natural and believable than a perpetual-motion machine, but there's one big problem: Unless you're planning to live without electricity and motorized transportation, you need more than just wind, water, sunlight, and plants for energy. You need raw materials, real estate, and other things that will run out one day. You need stuff that has to be mined, drilled, transported, and bulldozed -- not simply harvested or farmed. You need non-renewable resources:
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  • Solar power. While sunlight is renewable -- for at least another four billion years -- photovoltaic panels are not. Nor is desert groundwater, used in steam turbines at some solar-thermal installations. Even after being redesigned to use air-cooled condensers that will reduce its water consumption by 90 percent, California's Blythe Solar Power Project, which will be the world's largest when it opens in 2013, will require an estimated 600 acre-feet of groundwater annually for washing mirrors, replenishing feedwater, and cooling auxiliary equipment.
  • Geothermal power. These projects also depend on groundwater -- replenished by rain, yes, but not as quickly as it boils off in turbines. At the world's largest geothermal power plant, the Geysers in California, for example, production peaked in the late 1980s and then the project literally began running out of steam.
  • Wind power. According to the American Wind Energy Association, the 5,700 turbines installed in the United States in 2009 required approximately 36,000 miles of steel rebar and 1.7 million cubic yards of concrete (enough to pave a four-foot-wide, 7,630-mile-long sidewalk). The gearbox of a two-megawatt wind turbine contains about 800 pounds of neodymium and 130 pounds of dysprosium -- rare earth metals that are rare because they're found in scattered deposits, rather than in concentrated ores, and are difficult to extract.
  • Biomass.
  • t expanding energy crops will mean less land for food production, recreation, and wildlife habitat. In many parts of the world where biomass is already used extensively to heat homes and cook meals, this renewable energy is responsible for severe deforestation and air pollution
  • Hydropower.
  • hydroelectric power from dams is a proved technology. It already supplies about 16 percent of the world's electricity, far more than all other renewable sources combined.
  • The amount of concrete and steel in a wind-tower foundation is nothing compared with Grand Coulee or Three Gorges, and dams have an unfortunate habit of hoarding sediment and making fish, well, non-renewable.
  • All of these technologies also require electricity transmission from rural areas to population centers. Wilderness is not renewable once roads and power-line corridors fragment it
  • the life expectancy of a solar panel or wind turbine is actually shorter than that of a conventional power plant.
  • meeting the world's total energy demands in 2030 with renewable energy alone would take an estimated 3.8 million wind turbines (each with twice the capacity of today's largest machines), 720,000 wave devices, 5,350 geothermal plants, 900 hydroelectric plants, 490,000 tidal turbines, 1.7 billion rooftop photovoltaic systems, 40,000 solar photovoltaic plants, and 49,000 concentrated solar power systems. That's a heckuva lot of neodymium.
  • "renewable energy" is a meaningless term with no established standards.
  • None of our current energy technologies are truly renewable, at least not in the way they are currently being deployed. We haven't discovered any form of energy that is completely clean and recyclable, and the notion that such an energy source can ever be found is a mirage.
  • Long did the math for California and discovered that even if the state replaced or retrofitted every building to very high efficiency standards, ran almost all of its cars on electricity, and doubled its electricity-generation capacity while simultaneously replacing it with emissions-free energy sources, California could only reduce emissions by perhaps 60 percent below 1990 levels -- far less than its 80 percent target. Long says reaching that target "will take new technology."
  • it will also take a new honesty about the limitations of technology
D'coda Dcoda

Renewable Energy Consumption Tops Nuclear for First Time [16Aug11] - 0 views

  • According to a new report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the consumption of energy from renewable sources recently topped both the current and the historical consumption levels for nuclear energy. The shift was immediately caused by nuclear outages that coincided with the high-water season for hydropower generation. But there’s a long-term upward trend in renewables which can be seen here, too, thanks to the increased consumption of biofuels and wind capacity additions.
  • In the short-term, the switch from nuclear to renewables was influenced by U.S. weather trends. The Western U.S. saw record-breaking snowfall this year, which led to hydroelectric plants running at maximum capacity and for longer than usual. This occurred while many nuclear facilities were shut down for regular maintenance and refueling, as is typical for this time of year. (Nuclear plants shut down twice per year, once in the spring, once in the winter).
  • However, the charts provided by the EIA show a long-term shift towards renewables is underway as well, indicating that this was not a fluke occurrence caused by coincidental timing of weather and plant shutdowns. To compare the various sources, the energy consumed is measured in BTUs (British thermal units). In January, renewable energy consumption was at 724 trillion BTUs, while nuclear consumption was at 761 trillion BTUs. By March, renewables had reached 795 trillion BTUs compared with 687 trillion BTUs for nuclear. And by April, it was 798 trillion BTUs for renewables vs. 571 trillion BTUs for nuclear.
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  • Renewable energy doesn’t just mean sun, wind, water and geothermal sources, the EIA reminds us. It also includes biofuels, like ethanol and biodisel, and biomass, like wood and wood wastes. This shift in energy consumption doesn’t mean that renewables are now our main source of electricity, however. Outside of electricity generation, the generated energy is also used for transportation, heating and industrial steam production. Below, you can see that renewable energy is still slightly below that of nuclear for now. But assuming these trends continue, renewables should pass nuclear here, too, sometime in the next few years.
D'coda Dcoda

Early Fossil Fuel & Nuclear Energy Subsidies Crush Early Renewable Energy Subsidies [28... - 0 views

  • [T]he federal commitment to [oil & gas] was five times greater than the federal commitment to renewables during the first 15 years of each subsidies’ life, and it was more than 10 times greater for nuclear.
  • The political reaction to the Solyndra scandal has been laughably devoid of both short-term and long-term historical perspective. In an attempt to exploit a political opportunity, many House Republicans are railing against government investments in the renewable energy sector. However, those same politicians requested millions of dollars for cleantech projects in their own states just a year or two before.This bad case of amnesia stretches far beyond the last two years. Apparently, many in Congress have forgotten about the last 100 years of government investments in oil, gas and nuclear — all of which have far outpaced investments in renewable energy like solar PV, solar thermal, geothermal and wind.
  • A new study with terrific charts, “What Would Jefferson Do? The Historical Role of Federal Subsidies inShaping America’s ERnergy Future,” released by the venture capital firm DBL Investors, attempts to quantify and contrast those government investments. The researchers looked at the vast array of federal incentives — tax credits, land grants, tariffs, R&D, and direct investments — and found that renewables have received far less support than any other sector:
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  • As a percentage of inflation-adjusted federal spending, nuclear subsidies accounted for more than 1% of the federal budget over their first 15 years, and oil and gas subsidies made up half a percent of the total budget, while renewables have constituted only about a tenth of a percent. [See graph above.]
  • The researchers are somewhat selective about which subsidies they factor in. In order to come to directly-comparable figures, they outline four criteria for evaluating subsidies: The subsidy is designed to increase production of the targeted resource; all the data for the subsidy is available; the subsidy existed during the early stages of of domestic production; the inclusion of the subsidy allows for meaningful comparison across different sectors.When adding them all up over time, the report’s authors found that on an average yearly basis, renewables represent a small fraction of the total government investments in the energy sector.  Here are two great charts that make that clear:
  • Note:  The above chart is average annual support.  The cumulative spending numbers are thus even more disparate:
  • I have some issues with this report, however. Firstly, the authors stop tracking the numbers in 2009 and leave out the billions invested through the stimulus package. They claim to do this because of the temporary nature of the stimulus package. While it’s true that many of those programs are already phased out or will be gone by next year, the stimulus is still a very important piece of early-stage investments in the sector. Why leave it out?The researchers also neglect to include the short burst of federal renewable energy investment in the late 1970s. While those tax credits and R&D programs lasted only a short while, they still contribute to the overall figures.
  • Finally, in an attempt to make clear distinctions between the renewable fuel and electricity sectors, the report separates biofuels from the renewables category (wind, solar, geothermal). That separation also changes the numbers and makes the renewables subsidy figures much lower than they otherwise would be.
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    charts on site
Dan R.D.

Renewable energy tops nuclear power in the US [09Jul11] - 0 views

  • A report produced on behalf of Bloomberg says that investments in renewable energy have gone up by roughly a third over the last year, to $211 billion. Led by China's renewable push, the world is now on a trajectory that will see its investments in renewable electricity surpass those in fossil fuels within a year or two. As a result of these investments, the US is now producing more renewable energy than nuclear power.
  • Any way you look at things, the numbers make it clear just how significant renewables have become. Excluding hydropower, renewables made up about 35 percent of the power capacity added worldwide last year, and produced over five percent of the total power. Investments directed toward this new capacity (excluding things like mergers) hit $187 billion, and are closing in fast on the spending on fossil fuel power plants, cutting the gap in spending to $31 billion, down from $74 billion. At that pace, we'll be investing more in renewables either this year or next.
  • Part of the reason is cost. Although wind turbines are very mature technology now, their cost per MW still fell by 18 percent over the last two years; photovoltaics have dropped a staggering 60 percent in that time.
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  • That will be a major transition, but another one took place already this past year: more financing went to utility-scale projects in the developing economies than in the industrialized ones. That change is driven by China, where investments were up by about 30 percent, reaching $49 billion.
  • The US, despite seeing a jump of 60 percent, still trailed far behind, with only about $25 billion in these investments.
  • Renewables are also becoming a major factor outside of the BrIC countries (Brazil, India, China). Latin American investments tripled to clear $6 billion, and other Asian nations saw 30 percent growth to $4 billion. But the big story is Africa, led by Egypt and Kenya, where investments were up nearly five-fold, reaching $3.6 billion.
  • Electricity generated by nuclear plants has held steady at about 8,400 quadrillion BTUs for the last several years, while renewables have experienced strong growth, reaching just over 8,000 Quads last year.
Dan R.D.

Power Generation from Renewables Surpasses Nuclear [08Jul11] - 0 views

shared by Dan R.D. on 10 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • The latest issue of the Monthly Energy Review published by the US Energy Information Administration, electric power generation from renewable sources has surpassed production from nuclear sources, and is now "closing in on oil," says Ken Bossong Executive Director of the Sun Day Campaign.
  • In the first quarter of 2011 renewable energy sources accounted for 11.73 percent of US domestic energy production. Renewable sources include solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, biomass/biofuel. As of the first quarter of 2011, energy production from these sources was 5.65 percent more than production from nuclear.
  • As Bossing further explains from the report, renewable sources are closing the gap with generation from oil-fired sources, with renewable source equal to 77.15 percent of total oil based generation.
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  • For all sectors, including transportation, thermal, and electrical generation, renewable energy production grew just over 15 percent in the first quarter of 2011 compared to the first quarter of 2010, and fully 25 percent over first quarter 2009. In a break-down of renewable sources, biomass/biofuel accounted for a bit more than 48 percent, hydro for 35.41 percent, wind for nearly 13 percent, geothermal 2.45 percent, and solar at 1.16 percent.
  • Looking at just the electrical generation sector, renewable sources, including hydro, accounted for nearly 13 percent of net US electrical generation in the first quarter of 2011, up from 10.31 percent for the same quarter last year. Non-hydro renewable sources accounted for 4.74 percent of net US production.
D'coda Dcoda

German Village; 100% Energy Independent & Renewable [24Aug12] - 0 views

  • The village of Feldheim 60km from Berlin has become an unusual tourist attraction. The village’s independent energy grid and 100% renewable energy sources has gained international attention. The village has its own energy grid and generates power from wind, biogas and solar. The model of Feldheim extinguishes the myth of needing nuclear or fossil fuel for baseload power and the assumption that big utility companies are required for electricity.
  • The transformation in Feldheim began in 1995 with a few wind turbines. Now the village has more wind turbines than homes. in 2008 the village added a biogas heat plant that runs off of corn waste and pig manure with a back up furnace that runs on lumber waste. In 2008 Feldheim decided they wanted their own energy grid. E,on refused to sell the existing grid to the city so they partnered with Energiequelle and built their own smart grid. Each villager paid in $3,972 for the grid installation but get a 31% savings on electricity and 10% savings on heat. It also created 30 permanent jobs for the town. Energiequelle is not building an electricity storage facility that will hold two days worth of electricity.
  • Feldheim did all of this while fighting the big utility companies and Germanies regulatory system that was not friendly to the drastic change Feldheim made.
D'coda Dcoda

The Latte Fallacy: German Switch to Renewables Likely to Be Expensive [28Jul11] - 0 views

  • Chancellor Angela Merkel's government insists that electricity bills will only grow modestly as a result of the nuclear energy phase-out. Experts, however, disagree, with many pointing to Berlin's massive subsidies for solar power as the culprit.
  • A pioneering spirit has taken hold in Germany, thanks to the government's radical reworking of the country's energy policies. Hardly a week goes by without the foundation being laid someplace in the country for a new solar farm, yet another biogas plant or an even bigger wind turbine. Fesseldorf, the town in northern Bavaria which just hosted Seehofer, will soon be home to one of the largest photovoltaic plants in the state.
  • The German government's plan calls for increasing the share of renewables in the country's energy mix to 35 percent by 2020. It is an ambitious goal in every respect. Not only will the current renewable energy share have to be doubled within a few years, the grid expanded and new power storage facilities installed. But Chancellor Angela Merkel's government is also somehow expecting the entire energy revolution to cost virtually nothing.
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  • "According to our calculations, the cost of a kilowatt hour of electricity will go up by only one cent," says Economics Minister Philipp Rösler, head of Merkel's junior coalition partner, the Free Democrats (FDP). For an average household, this would correspond to the price of only one latte a month, says Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen, of Merkel's Christian Democrats. Germany is rapidly switching to green energy and at almost no additional cost to consumers. What conservative politician would have thought such a thing possible just a few months ago?
  • In reality, though, the official calculations have little connection to reality. According to an assessment by the Rhenish-Westphalian Institute for Economic Research (RWI), the politicians' estimate of the costs of expanding renewable sources of energy is far too low, while the environmental benefits have been systematically overstated.
  • RWI experts estimate that the cost of electricity could increase by as much as five times the government's estimate of one cent per kilowatt hour. In an internal prognosis, the semi-governmental German Energy Agency anticipates an increase of four to five cents. According to the Federation of German Consumer Organizations, the additional cost could easily amount to "five cents or more per kilowatt hour."
  • An internal estimate making the rounds at the Economics Ministry also exceeds the official announcements. It concludes that an average three-person household will pay an additional 0.5 to 1.5 cents per kilowatt hour, and up to five cents more in the mid-term. This would come to an additional cost of €175 ($250) a year. "Not exactly the price of a latte," says Manuel Frondel of the RWI.
  • The problem is the federal government's outlandish subsidies policy. Electricity customers are already paying more than €13 billion this year to subsidize renewable energy. The largest subsidies go to solar plants, which contribute relatively little to overall power generation, as well as offshore wind farms in the north, which are far away from the countries largest electricity consumers in Germany's deep south.
  • German citizens will be able to see the consequences of solar subsidization on their next electricity bill. Since the beginning of the year, consumers have been assessed a renewable energy surcharge of 3.5 cents per kilowatt hour of electricity, up from about 2 cents last year. And the cost is only going up. Since the first nuclear power plant was shut down, the price of electricity on the European Energy Exchange in Leipzig has increased by about 12 percent. Germany has gone from being a net exporter to a net importer of electricity.
  • For economic and environmental reasons, therefore, it would be best to drastically reduce solar subsidies and spend the money elsewhere, such as for a subsidy system that is not tied to any given technology. For example, wind turbines built on land are significantly more effective than solar power. They receive about the same amount of subsidy money, and yet they are already feeding about five times as much electricity into the grid. In the case of hydroelectric power plants, the relationship between subsidies and electricity generation is six times better. Biomass provides a return on subsidies that is three times as high as solar.
  • "We are dumping billions into the least effective technology," says Fritz Vahrenholt, the former environment minister for the city-state of Hamburg and now the head of utility RWE's renewable electricity subsidy Innogy.
  • "From the standpoint of the climate, every solar plant is a bad investment," says Joachim Weimann, an environmental economist at the University of Magdeburg. He has calculated that it costs about €500 to save a ton of CO2 emissions with solar power. In the case of wind energy, it costs only €150. In combination with building upgrades, the cost plummets to only €15 per ton of CO2 emissions savings.
  • Photovoltaics, in particular, is now seen as an enormous waste of money. The technology receives almost half all renewable energy subsidies, even though it makes up less than one 10th of total green electricity production. And it is unreliable -- one never knows if and when the sun will be shining
  • According to the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSOE) in Brussels, Germany now imports several million kilowatt hours of electricity from abroad every day.
  • In displays on ENTSOE computers in Brussels, countries that produce slightly more electricity than they consume are identified in yellow on the monitors, while countries dependent on imports are blue. Germany used to be one of the yellow countries, but now that seven nuclear reactors have been shut down, blue is the dominant color. The electricity that was once generated by those German nuclear power plants now comes primarily from the Czech Republic and France -- and is, of course, more expensive. The demand for electricity is expected to increase in the coming years, particularly with growing numbers of electric cars being connected to the grid as they charge their batteries.
  • Solar panels only achieve their maximum capacity in the laboratory and at optimal exposure to the sun (1,000 watts per square meter), an ideal angle of incidence (48.2 degrees) and a standardized module temperature (25 degrees Celsius, or 77 degrees Fahrenheit). Such values are rare outside the laboratory. All photovoltaic systems are inactive at night, and they also generate little electricity on winter days
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Let's go forward, the future will catch up later [12Oct11] - 0 views

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 12 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • That slogan in the title above is posted at the headquarters building of Enel in Rome. Enel is one of the leading European energy companies, and European Energy Review has just published an interview with CEO Fulvio Conti where he mentioned that particular fact. I like that slogan. Conti also said that investments in the energy sector need to look ahead for a long time. It can take ten years from decision to realization of some project, which will be operating for another 40 years, so in the planning stage you need to be able to look 50 years ahead.
  • Enel has a total production capacity of 97 GW, of which 34 GW are renewable energy. Only 22 percent of the revenue from renewable is from subsidies. As Conti said:
  • In renewables, we go where the natural resources offer the best returns, e.g. in Brazil or Mexico for solar and wind power. Subsidies will come and go. Our investments are for the long term. We need to be able to get a return on our investments without subsidies. With our renewable power portfolio, only 22% of our revenues came from subsidies last year. But we are moving through difficult times, with slower growth. I wonder how the natural resources of Mongolia compare to Brazil or Mexico. There seems to be some major untapped potential in the Gobi.
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  • And if you are looking fifty years ahead, fossil fuel will only become more expensive. Competing against oil is much more fun with prices at over $100 a barrel right now than at the $17 to 19 in 2008 dollars a barrel cost in 1960, when OPEC was founded.
  • The business case for solar and wind energy will always include the fact that fuel is free. The importance of that fact varies with the cost of fossil fuels, even when not factoring in the costs of global warming. Another quote from the interview:
  • The target of the EU is to see the electricity sector almost completely decarbonised by 2050. Is that achievable? 2050 is a good time span, assuming that technology will continue to improve. Today we at Enel deliver 48% of our power carbon-free. We need technological development to do away with the other 52%. This could be through renewables, but also carbon capture and storage. There will be countries that will still depend on coal and gas, so we cannot rule out CCS. We are working on CCS, it’s there, but you have to prove you can do it economically. We have 40 years for the whole development towards carbon-free electricity generation. We undertook that commitment and I am sticking to it.
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U.S. Army Embarks On $7 billion Renewable Energy Overhaul [06Oct11] - 0 views

  • The U.S. Army has embarked on an ambitious $7 billion series of utility-scale renewable energy projects. The new program involves building twenty utility-scale renewable energy installations that rely on a mix of solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass power. The installations will be constructed on land owned by the Department of Defense, at Army bases throughout the U.S. The program calls for the Army to use its land as equity to leverage about $7 billion in private investment for the twenty projects.
  • The Army’s goal is to provide its bases with reliable energy sources that are insulated from price spikes, shortages and grid disruptions. Aside from these energy security issues, reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions are key goals. Rather than paying up front for the installations, the Army plans to attract companies that would build the renewable energy installations in exchange for a commitment from the Army to purchase the energy. This type of arrangement, called a Power Purchase Agreement, is common in the solar industry.
  • Since many base commanders do not have the resources to initiate or manage utility-scale energy construction projects (defined as about 10 megawatts or more), the Army has formed a new Energy Initiatives Task Force (EITF) composed of a small staff of experts who will assess projects, vet renewable energy companies, develop new technologies and streamline the approval process. EITF was organized over the summer and officially announced that it was open for business on September 15.
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  • At a recent roundtable discussion held for bloggers and reporters, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment Katherine Hammack described EITF’s mission as “unprecedented” in terms of size, and in terms of expanding the Army’s established acquisition procedures into new areas. “We’ve got the land and we’ve got the demand,” said Hammack.
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The nuclear power plans that have survived Fukushima [28Sep11] - 0 views

  • SciDev.Net reporters from around the world tell us which countries are set on developing nuclear energy despite the Fukushima accident. The quest for energy independence, rising power needs and a desire for political weight all mean that few developing countries with nuclear ambitions have abandoned them in the light of the Fukushima accident. Jordan's planned nuclear plant is part of a strategy to deal with acute water and energy shortages.
  • The Jordan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) wants Jordan to get 60 per cent of its energy from nuclear by 2035. Currently, obtaining energy from neighbouring Arab countries costs Jordan about a fifth of its gross domestic product. The country is also one of the world's most water-poor nations. Jordan plans to desalinate sea water from the Gulf of Aqaba to the south, then pump it to population centres in Amman, Irbid, and Zarqa, using its nuclear-derived energy. After the Fukushima disaster, Jordan started re-evaluating safety procedures for its nuclear reactor, scheduled to begin construction in 2013. The country also considered more safety procedures for construction and in ongoing geological and environmental investigations.
  • The government would not reverse its decision to build nuclear reactors in Jordan because of the Fukushima disaster," says Abdel-Halim Wreikat, vice Chairman of the JAEC. "Our plant type is a third-generation pressurised water reactor, and it is safer than the Fukushima boiling water reactor." Wreikat argues that "the nuclear option for Jordan at the moment is better than renewable energy options such as solar and wind, as they are still of high cost." But some Jordanian researchers disagree. "The cost of electricity generated from solar plants comes down each year by about five per cent, while the cost of producing electricity from nuclear power is rising year after year," says Ahmed Al-Salaymeh, director of the Energy Centre at the University of Jordan. He called for more economic feasibility studies of the nuclear option.
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  • And Ahmad Al-Malabeh, a professor in the Earth and Environmental Sciences department of Hashemite University, adds: "Jordan is rich not only in solar and wind resources, but also in oil shale rock, from which we can extract oil that can cover Jordan's energy needs in the coming years, starting between 2016 and 2017 ... this could give us more time to have more economically feasible renewable energy."
  • Finance, rather than Fukushima, may delay South Africa's nuclear plans, which were approved just five days after the Japanese disaster. South Africa remains resolute in its plans to build six new nuclear reactors by 2030. Katse Maphoto, the director of Nuclear Safety, Liabilities and Emergency Management at the Department of Energy, says that the government conducted a safety review of its two nuclear reactors in Cape Town, following the Fukushima event.
  • The Ninh Thuan nuclear plant would sit 80 to 100 kilometres from a fault line on the Vietnamese coast, potentially exposing it to tsunamis, according to state media. But Vuong Huu Tan, president of the state-owned Vietnam Atomic Energy Commission, told state media in March, however, that lessons from the Fukushima accident will help Vietnam develop safe technologies. And John Morris, an Australia-based energy consultant who has worked as a geologist in Vietnam, says the seismic risk for nuclear power plants in the country would not be "a major issue" as long as the plants were built properly. Japan's nuclear plants are "a lot more earthquake prone" than Vietnam's would be, he adds.
  • Larkin says nuclear energy is the only alternative to coal for generating adequate electricity. "What other alternative do we have? Renewables are barely going to do anything," he said. He argues that nuclear is capable of supplying 85 per cent of the base load, or constantly needed, power supply, while solar energy can only produce between 17 and 25 per cent. But, despite government confidence, Larkin says that a shortage of money may delay the country's nuclear plans.
  • The government has said yes but hasn't said how it will pay for it. This is going to end up delaying by 15 years any plans to build a nuclear station."
  • Vietnam's nuclear energy targets remain ambitious despite scientists' warning of a tsunami risk. Vietnam's plan to power 10 per cent of its electricity grid with nuclear energy within 20 years is the most ambitious nuclear energy plan in South-East Asia. The country's first nuclear plant, Ninh Thuan, is to be built with support from a state-owned Russian energy company and completed by 2020. Le Huy Minh, director of the Earthquake and Tsunami Warning Centre at Vietnam's Institute of Geophysics, has warned that Vietnam's coast would be affected by tsunamis in the adjacent South China Sea.
  • Undeterred by Fukushima, Nigeria is forging ahead with nuclear collaborations. There is no need to panic because of the Fukushima accident, says Shamsideen Elegba, chair of the Forum of Nuclear Regulatory Bodies in Africa. Nigeria has the necessary regulatory system to keep nuclear activities safe. "The Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority [NNRA] has established itself as a credible organisation for regulatory oversight on all uses of ionising radiation, nuclear materials and radioactive sources," says Elegba who was, until recently, the NNRA's director general.
  • Vietnam is unlikely to experience much in the way of anti-nuclear protests, unlike neighbouring Indonesia and the Philippines, where civil society groups have had more influence, says Kevin Punzalan, an energy expert at De La Salle University in the Philippines. Warnings from the Vietnamese scientific community may force the country's ruling communist party to choose alternative locations for nuclear reactors, or to modify reactor designs, but probably will not cause extreme shifts in the one-party state's nuclear energy strategy, Punzalan tells SciDev.Net.
  • But the government adopted its Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) for 2010-2030 five days after the Fukushima accident. Elliot Mulane, communications manager for the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation, (NECSA) a public company established under the 1999 Nuclear Energy Act that promotes nuclear research, said the timing of the decision indicated "the confidence that the government has in nuclear technologies". And Dipuo Peters, energy minister, reiterated the commitment in her budget announcement earlier this year (26 May), saying: "We are still convinced that nuclear power is a necessary part of our strategy that seeks to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions through a diversified portfolio, comprising some fossil-based, renewable and energy efficiency technologies". James Larkin, director of the Radiation and Health Physics Unit at the University of the Witwatersrand, believes South Africa is likely to go for the relatively cheap, South Korean generation three reactor.
  • In the meantime, the government is trying to build capacity. The country lacks, for example, the technical expertise. Carmencita Bariso, assistant director of the Department of Energy's planning bureau, says that, despite the Fukushima accident, her organisation has continued with a study on the viability, safety and social acceptability of nuclear energy. Bariso says the study would include a proposal for "a way forward" for the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, the first nuclear reactor in South East Asia at the time of its completion in 1985. The $2.3-billion Westinghouse light water reactor, about 60 miles north of the capital, Manila, was never used, though it has the potential to generate 621 megawatts of power. President Benigno Aquino III, whose mother, President Corazon Aquino, halted work on the facility in 1986 because of corruption and safety issues, has said it will never be used as a nuclear reactor but could be privatised and redeveloped as a conventional power plant.
  • But Mark Cojuangco, former lawmaker, authored a bill in 2008 seeking to start commercial nuclear operations at the Bataan reactor. His bill was not passed before Congress adjourned last year and he acknowledges that the Fukushima accident has made his struggle more difficult. "To go nuclear is still the right thing to do," he says. "But this requires a societal decision. We are going to spark public debates with a vengeance as soon as the reports from Fukushima are out." Amended bills seeking both to restart the reactor, and to close the issue by allowing either conversion or permanent closure, are pending in both the House and the Senate. Greenpeace, which campaigns against nuclear power, believes the Fukushima accident has dimmed the chances of commissioning the Bataan plant because of "increased awareness of what radioactivity can do to a place". Many parts of the country are prone to earthquakes and other natural disasters, which critics say makes it unsuitable both for the siting of nuclear power stations and the disposal of radioactive waste.
  • In Kenya, nuclear proponents argue for a geothermal – nuclear mix In the same month as the Fukushima accident, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency approved Kenya's application for its first nuclear power station (31 March), a 35,000 megawatt facility to be built at a cost of Sh950 billion (US$9.8 billion) on a 200-acre plot on the Athi Plains, about 50km from Nairobi
  • The plant, with construction driven by Kenya's Nuclear Electricity Project Committee, should be commissioned in 2022. The government claims it could satisfy all of Kenya's energy needs until 2040. The demand for electricity is overwhelming in Kenya. Less than half of residents in the capital, Nairobi, have grid electricity, while the rural rate is two per cent. James Rege, Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Energy, Communication and Information, takes a broader view than the official government line, saying that geothermal energy, from the Rift Valley project is the most promising option. It has a high production cost but remains the country's "best hope". Nuclear should be included as "backup". "We are viewing nuclear energy as an alternative source of power. The cost of fossil fuel keeps escalating and ordinary Kenyans can't afford it," Rege tells SciDev.Net.
  • Hydropower is limited by rivers running dry, he says. And switching the country's arable land to biofuel production would threaten food supplies. David Otwoma, secretary to the Energy Ministry's Nuclear Electricity Development Project, agrees that Kenya will not be able to industrialise without diversifying its energy mix to include more geothermal, nuclear and coal. Otwoma believes the expense of generating nuclear energy could one day be met through shared regional projects but, until then, Kenya has to move forward on its own. According to Rege, much as the nuclear energy alternative is promising, it is extremely important to take into consideration the Fukushima accident. "Data is available and it must be one step at a time without rushing things," he says. Otwoma says the new nuclear Kenya can develop a good nuclear safety culture from the outset, "but to do this we need to be willing to learn all the lessons and embrace them, not forget them and assume that won't happen to us".
  • Will the Philippines' plans to rehabilitate a never-used nuclear power plant survive the Fukushima accident? The Philippines is under a 25-year moratorium on the use of nuclear energy which expires in 2022. The government says it remains open to harnessing nuclear energy as a long-term solution to growing electricity demand, and its Department of Science and Technology has been making public pronouncements in favour of pursuing nuclear energy since the Fukushima accident. Privately, however, DOST officials acknowledge that the accident has put back their job of winning the public over to nuclear by four or five years.
  • It is not only that we say so: an international audit came here in 2006 to assess our procedure and processes and confirmed the same. Elegba is firmly of the view that blame for the Fukushima accident should be allocated to nature rather than human error. "Japan is one of the leaders not only in that industry, but in terms of regulatory oversight. They have a very rigorous system of licensing. We have to make a distinction between a natural event, or series of natural events and engineering infrastructure, regulatory infrastructure, and safety oversight." Erepamo Osaisai, Director General of the Nigeria Atomic Energy Commission (NAEC), has said there is "no going back" on Nigeria's nuclear energy project after Fukushima.
  • Nigeria is likely to recruit the Russian State Corporation for Atomic Energy, ROSATOM, to build its first proposed nuclear plant. A delegation visited Nigeria (26- 28 July) and a bilateral document is to be finalised before December. Nikolay Spassy, director general of the corporation, said during the visit: "The peaceful use of nuclear power is the bedrock of development, and achieving [Nigeria's] goal of being one of the twenty most developed countries by the year 2020 would depend heavily on developing nuclear power plants." ROSATOM points out that the International Atomic Energy Agency monitors and regulates power plant construction in previously non-nuclear countries. But Nnimmo Bassey, executive director of the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN), said "We cannot see the logic behind the government's support for a technology that former promoters in Europe, and other technologically advanced nations, are now applying brakes to. "What Nigeria needs now is investment in safe alternatives that will not harm the environment and the people. We cannot accept the nuclear option."
  • Thirsty for electricity, and desirous of political clout, Egypt is determined that neither Fukushima ― nor revolution ― will derail its nuclear plans. Egypt was the first country in the Middle East and North Africa to own a nuclear programme, launching a research reactor in 1961. In 2007 Egypt 'unfroze' a nuclear programme that had stalled in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster. After the Egyptian uprising in early 2011, and the Fukushima accident, the government postponed an international tender for the construction of its first plant.
  • Yassin Ibrahim, chairman of the Nuclear Power Plants Authority, told SciDev.Net: "We put additional procedures in place to avoid any states of emergency but, because of the uprising, the tender will be postponed until we have political stability after the presidential and parliamentary election at the end of 2011". Ibrahim denies the nuclear programme could be cancelled, saying: "The design specifications for the Egyptian nuclear plant take into account resistance to earthquakes and tsunamis, including those greater in magnitude than any that have happened in the region for the last four thousand years. "The reactor type is of the third generation of pressurised water reactors, which have not resulted in any adverse effects to the environment since they began operation in the early sixties."
  • Ibrahim El-Osery, a consultant in nuclear affairs and energy at the country's Nuclear Power Plants Authority, points out that Egypt's limited resources of oil and natural gas will run out in 20 years. "Then we will have to import electricity, and we can't rely on renewable energy as it is still not economic yet — Egypt in 2010 produced only two per cent of its needs through it." But there are other motives for going nuclear, says Nadia Sharara, professor of mineralogy at Assiut University. "Owning nuclear plants is a political decision in the first place, especially in our region. And any state that has acquired nuclear technology has political weight in the international community," she says. "Egypt has the potential to own this power as Egypt's Nuclear Materials Authority estimates there are 15,000 tons of untapped uranium in Egypt." And she points out it is about staying ahead with technology too. "If Egypt freezes its programme now because of the Fukushima nuclear disaster it will fall behind in many science research fields for at least the next 50 years," she warned.
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UN study shows renewables can provide 80% of energy needs [10May11] - 0 views

  • Close to 80 percent of the world‘s energy supply could be met by renewables by mid-century if backed by the right enabling public policies, according to a new report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released on May 9. The report noted that it is the absence of political will, not renewable resources, that can hinder progress: "it is not the availability of the resource, but the public policies that will either expand or constrain renewable energy development over the coming decades," according to Ramon Pichs, Co-Chair of the Working Group III. The 1,000+-page study looked at direct wind energy, solar energy;bioenergy, geothermal, hydropower and ocean energy and ran more than 164 different scenarios. It ruled out nuclear energy as cheaper way of cutting greenhouse gases stating that "renewables will contribute more to a low carbon energy supply by 2050 than nuclear power or fossil fuels using carbon capture and storage. Read the press release and the full report.
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The True Cost of Nuclear Energy | Greenpeace Africa [04Aug11] - 0 views

  • In our new report “True Cost of Nuclear Power in South Africa”, presented to the Department of Energy today, we expose the significant social and economic impacts of the country’s nuclear program in the past, and highlight the benefits of a nuclear-free future. At the same time we also made a submission to the Environmental Impact Assessment on the proposed Nuclear-1 power station to the DoE.
  • Greenpeace urges the Minister of Energy to reconsider the role of nuclear energy in South Africa and put a moratorium on any new nuclear reactors at least until the safety implications of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan have been fully evaluated. Rather than investing in dangerous energy technologies, our country should opt for clean energy options. The True Cost of Nuclear report outlines South Africa’s costly nuclear history, its failure to learn from past mistakes, and how the country could leave dirty and dangerous energy behind by investing in renewables. To achieve a nuclear-free South Africa, whilst still reducing the country’s dependency on coal, the electricity sector needs to be the pioneer of renewable energy utilisation. According to our Advanced Energy [R]evolution, 49% of electricity can be produced from renewable sources by 2030, increasing to 94% by 2050. “Nuclear energy is a dangerous distraction from the clean energy development needed to prevent catastrophic climate change. Nuclear power simply delivers too little, too late, and at too high a price for the environment,” said Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director of Greenpeace International.
  • As host of the international climate negotiations COP17 in Durban this year, South Africa should play a leading role both in terms of its domestic energy choices, and by debunking false energy solutions to catastrophic climate change, such as nuclear. Greenpeace Africa is calling for decisive action and the political leadership required to secure the brighter future South Africans deserve. A future that is free of the threats posed by nuclear energy. “We need an Energy [R]evolution driven by the creation of green jobs. With the political will and South Africa’s abundance of renewable energy resources, the country could and should become a renewable energy leader in Africa,” said Ferrial Adam, Greenpeace Africa campaigner.
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What to hate about nuclear energy [14Sep11] - 0 views

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 14 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • Reconsidering my support for nuclear energy I have found that it is only based in a desire to use it as a tool in the rather important fight against global warming and global meltdown. That in turn makes it possible to say “I hate nuclear energy. I just hate global warming more. So I support using it exactly until that problem is solved.” I said as much in my post yesterday with the nice title “Shut down those filthy nuclear reactors”.
  • So, what is there to hate about nuclear energy? Imagine you are a supporter of nuclear energy that is pushed by a silly reason like anger over being insulted by some random stranger on the Internet to actively look for anything that might be a problem with your former position. That is exactly what I have done. As a result, I have found basically two problems with it. One, which is the more important point, is the fact that the pro-nuclear position has lost in Germany, the only country where I actually have a vote. There is no German party I could vote for that supports building new nuclear reactors.
  • The victory of German anti-nuclear forces was quite decisive. That means as far as Germany is concerned, nuclear is just not a realistic option any more. Pro-nuclear advocacy is a waste of time, and a fringe minority position. Japan, the other country I might have some influence, is not quite as hopeless. Still advocating for a large increase in nuclear energy there does not seem a promising strategy.
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  • The other thing I hate about nuclear energy is that most of pro-nuclear advocates are against renewable energy. That is not compatible with my point of view, making this a very efficient wedge issue for the anti-nuclear forces to exploit. Since most of the pro-nuclear advocates insist on bashing renewable energy, that point puts me out of the pro-nuclear advocacy business. For example, I regard the “Atomic Insights” blog by Rod Adams as hostile territory right now, and I am done writing any comments there for the time being.
  • So where does that leave me? I don’t exactly know yet. There are a couple of things that are clear already, however. One is that if anybody asks me to choose between nuclear and renewable, I will always choose the latter. That makes any form of pro-nuclear advocacy based on bashing renewable energy quite unacceptable to me. The other is that I am not quite joining the anti-nuclear advocates yet. I still think nuclear is needed as the most effective tool in the box against global warming. But my enthusiasm for advocating for that particular solution went down a couple of notches, so I will probably just focus more on discussing renewable energy issues.
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The Dispatch Queue - An Alternative Means of Accounting for External Costs? [28Sep11] - 0 views

  • Without much going on recently that hasn’t been covered by other blog posts, I’d like to explore a topic not specifically tied to nuclear power or to activities currently going on in Washington, D.C. It involves an idea I have about a possible alternative means of having the electricity market account for the public health and environmental costs of various energy sources, and encouraging the development and use of cleaner sources (including nuclear) without requiring legislation. Given the failure of Congress to take action on global warming, as well as environmental issues in general, non-legislative approaches to accomplishing environmental goals may be necessary. The Problem
  • One may say that the best response would be to significantly tighten pollution regulations, perhaps to the point where no sources have significant external costs. There are problems with this approach, however, above and beyond the fact that the energy industry has (and will?) successfully blocked the legislation that would be required. Significant tightening of regulations raises issues such as how expensive compliance will be, and whether or not viable alternative (cleaner) sources would be available. The beauty of simply placing a cost (or tax) on pollution that reflects its costs to public health and the environment is that those issues need not be addressed. The market just decides between sources based on the true, overall cost of each, resulting in the minimum overall (economic + environmental) cost-generation portfolio
  • The above reasoning is what led to policies like cap-and-trade or a CO2 emissions tax being proposed as a solution for the global warming problem. This has not flown politically, however. Policies that attempt to have external costs included in the market cost of energy have been labeled a “tax increase.” This is particularly true given that the associated pollution taxes (or emissions credit costs) would have largely gone to the government.
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  • Well, if we can’t tax pollution, how about encouraging the use of clean sources by giving them subsidies? This has proved to be more popular so far, but this idea has also recently run into trouble, given the current situation with the budget deficit and national debt. Events like the Solyndra bankruptcy have put government clean energy subsidies even more on the defensive. Thus, it seems that neither policies involving money flowing to the government nor policies involving money flowing from the government are politically viable at this point.
  • One final idea, which does not involve money going to or from government, is simply requiring that cleaner sources provide a certain fraction of our overall power generation. The many state Renewable Portfolio Standards (that do not include nuclear) and the Clean Energy Standard being considered by Congress and the Obama administration (which does include nuclear) are examples of this policy. While better than nothing, such policies are not ideal in that they are crude, and don’t involve a quantitative incentive based on real external costs. An energy source is either defined as “clean,” or it is not. Note that the definition of “clean” would be decided politically, as opposed to objectively based on tangible external costs determined by scientific studies (nuclear’s exclusion from state Renewable Portfolio Standards policies being one outrageous example). Finally, there is the fact that any such policy would require legislation.
  • All of the above begs the question whether there is a policy available that will encourage the use of cleaner energy sources that is revenue-neutral (i.e., does not involve money flowing to or from the government), does not involve the outright (political) selection of certain energy sources over others, and does not require legislation. Enter the Dispatch Queue
  • There must be enough power plants in a given region to meet the maximum load (or demand) expected to occur. In fact, total generation capacity must exceed maximum demand by a specified “reserve margin,” to address the possibility of a plant going offline, or other possible considerations. Due to the fact that demand varies significantly with time, a significant fraction of the generation capacity remains offline, some or most of the time. The dispatch queue is a means by which utilities, or independent regional grid operators, decide which power plants will operate in order to meet demand at any given instant. A good discussion of dispatch queues and how they operate can be found in this Department of Energy report.
  • The general goal of the methodology used to set the dispatch queue order is to minimize overall generation cost, while staying in compliance with all federal or state laws (environmental rules, etc.). This is done by placing the power plants with the lowest “variable” cost first in the queue. Plants with the highest “variable” cost are placed last. The “variable” cost of a plant represents how much more it costs to operate the plant than it costs to leave it idle (i.e., it includes the fuel cost and maintenance costs that arise from operation, but does not include the plant capital cost, personnel costs, or any fixed maintenance costs). Thus, one starts with the least expensive plants, and moves up (in cost) until generation meets demand. The remaining, more expensive plants are not fired up. This ensures that the lowest-operating-cost set of plants is used to meet demand at any given time
  • As far as who makes the decisions is concerned, in many cases the local utility itself runs the dispatch for its own service territory. In most of the United States, however, there is a large regional grid (covering several utilities) that is operated by an Independent System Operator (ISO) or Regional Transmission Organization (RTO), and those organizations, which are independent of the utilities, set the dispatch queue for the region. The Idea
  • As discussed above, a plant’s place in the dispatch queue is based upon variable cost, with the lowest variable cost plants being first in the queue. As discussed in the DOE report, all the dispatch queues in the country base the dispatch order almost entirely on variable cost, with the only possible exceptions being issues related to maximizing grid reliability. What if the plant dispatch methodology were revised so that environmental costs were also considered? Ideally, the public health and environmental costs would be objectively and scientifically determined and cast in terms of an equivalent economic cost (as has been done in many scientific studies such as the ExternE study referenced earlier). The calculated external cost would be added to a plant’s variable cost, and its place in the dispatch queue would be adjusted accordingly. The net effect would be that dirtier plants would be run much less often, resulting in greatly reduced pollution.
  • This could have a huge impact in the United States, especially at the current time. Currently, natural gas prices are so low that the variable costs of combine-cycle natural gas plants are not much higher than those of coal plants, even without considering environmental impacts. Also, there is a large amount of natural gas generation capacity sitting idle.
  • More specifically, if dispatch queue ordering methods were revised to even place a small (economic) weight on environmental costs, there would be a large switch from coal to gas generation, with coal plants (especially the older, dirtier ones) moving to the back of the dispatch queue, and only running very rarely (at times of very high demand). The specific idea of putting gas plants ahead of coal plants in the dispatch queue is being discussed by others.
  • The beauty of this idea is that it does not involve any type of tax or government subsidy. It is revenue neutral. Also, depending on the specifics of how it’s implemented, it can be quantitative in nature, with environmental costs of various power plants being objectively weighed, as opposed certain sources simply being chosen, by government/political fiat, over others. It also may not require legislation (see below). Finally, dispatch queues and their policies and methods are a rather arcane subject and are generally below the political radar (many folks haven’t even heard of them). Thus, this approach may allow the nation’s environmental goals to be (quietly) met without causing a political uproar. It could allow policy makers to do the right thing without paying too high of a political cost.
  • Questions/Issues The DOE report does mention some examples of dispatch queue methods factoring in issues other than just the variable cost. It is fairly common for issues of grid reliability to be considered. Also, compliance with federal or state environmental requirements can have some impacts. Examples of such laws include limits on the hours of operation for certain polluting facilities, or state requirements that a “renewable” facility generate a certain amount of power over the year. The report also discusses the possibility of favoring more fuel efficient gas plants over less efficient ones in the queue, even if using the less efficient plants at that moment would have cost less, in order to save natural gas. Thus, the report does discuss deviations from the pure cost model, to consider things like environmental impact and resource conservation.
  • I could not ascertain from the DOE report, however, what legal authorities govern the entities that make the plant dispatch decisions (i.e., the ISOs and RTOs), and what types of action would be required in order to change the dispatch methodology (e.g., whether legislation would be required). The DOE report was a study that was called for by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which implies that its conclusions would be considered in future congressional legislation. I could not tell from reading the report if the lowest cost (only) method of dispatch is actually enshrined somewhere in state or federal law. If so, the changes I’m proposing would require legislation, of course.
  • The DOE report states that in some regions the local utility runs the dispatch queue itself. In the case of the larger grids run by the ISOs and RTOs (which cover most of the country), the report implies that those entities are heavily influenced, if not governed, by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which is part of the executive branch of the federal government. In the case of utility-run dispatch queues, it seems that nothing short of new regulations (on pollution limits, or direct guidance on dispatch queue ordering) would result in a change in dispatch policy. Whereas reducing cost and maximizing grid reliability would be directly in the utility’s interest, favoring cleaner generation sources in the queue would not, unless it is driven by regulations. Thus, in this case, legislation would probably be necessary, although it’s conceivable that the EPA could act (like it’s about to on CO2).
  • In the case of the large grids run by ISOs and RTOs, it’s possible that such a change in dispatch methodology could be made by the federal executive branch, if indeed the FERC has the power to mandate such a change
  • Effect on Nuclear With respect to the impacts of including environmental costs in plant dispatch order determination, I’ve mainly discussed the effects on gas vs. coal. Indeed, a switch from coal to gas would be the main impact of such a policy change. As for nuclear, as well as renewables, the direct/immediate impact would be minimal. That is because both nuclear and renewable sources have high capital costs but very low variable costs. They also have very low environmental impacts; much lower than those of coal or gas. Thus, they will remain at the front of the dispatch queue, ahead of both coal and gas.
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Even France to prioritize renewable over nuclear energy [11Jul11] - 0 views

  • French ecology minister, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, has announced plans for France to step up its investments in renewable energy, throwing into doubt future nuclear power expansion in the country. France gets 80% of its electricity from its 58 reactors. "Our objective is to rebalance the energy mix in favour of renewables,” Kosciusko-Morizet told the Financial Times.  Regarding the future of nuclear, she told the FT: "We are investing in [nuclear] safety, not in growth objectives as we are doing in renewables." France is launching a bid for five new offshore wind farms
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Drinking the Radioactive Kool-Aid: Countries Switching From Coal to Nuclear [02Dec11] - 0 views

  • South Africa, the host of U.N. global climate talks, is faced with a conundrum -- it wants to wean itself off of coal-powered plants seen as primate culprits of greenhouse gas emissions and find a cleaner energy source.It is turning to nuclear power, despite the catastrophic environmental degradation the world witnessed after Japan's Fukushima plant disaster this year.
  • The global climate talks that opened earlier this week in Durban are seeing a widening division on nuclear power, with many advanced economies moving away from it after Fukushima and emerging states heavily reliant on fossil fuels embracing it as a cleaner way to power their development. "If you want to be part of the climate change race and mitigation you basically have renewables and nuclear. Renewables are intermittent and you need a firm and reliable baseload technology. Renewables are not in a position to provide this yet," said H. Holger Rogner, section head of the International Atomic Energy Agency's planning and economic studies section. South Africa, among the world's top 20 emitters per capita of carbon dioxide, and many other emerging countries, see nuclear power as a way to ensure energy security for the coming years and as a bridge to a time when they are rich enough to afford adding more renewables to their power mix.
  • The Fukushima disaster changed the economics of the nuclear industry by drying up markets in developed countries such as Japan and increasing competition among the few global conglomerates who can build nuclear power plants.
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Post-Nuke Reconstruction Plan for Fukushima Prefecture: World-Class Radiation Medicine,... - 0 views

  • When the governor of Fukushima started to say "post-nuke", I thought "OK, he must have found a new way to benefit from the close ties with the national government, other than nuke, or in addition to nuke."According to Yomiuri Shinbun, the latest and final version of the Kan administration's plan for recovery and reconstruction after the March 11 earthquake/tsunami for Fukushima Prefecture will include a host of government research institutions going to Fukushima, with the related industries - heavy electric, utilities, pharmaceutical, etc. - tagging along.
  • Dr. Shunichi "100 millisieverts are no problem" Yamashita is already in Fukushima, salivating at the unique, world-first opportunity to study the long-term effect of radiation on children. Also, Fukushima University and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, of Monju fame, have signed an agreement to cooperate in research and development of the world-class decontamination technology, among others. (Links are in Japanese.)That the government research institutions rushing to Fukushima makes me wonder if the whole plan is one gigantic experiment using the land, water, air, people, animals, crops, forests and mountains in Fukushima to develop world-class technologies in radiation medicine and decontamination, and renewable energy that the government and the industries can later capitalize on.
  • Yomiuri Shinbun (3:03AM JST 7/27/2011)
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  • The final version of the recovery and reconstruction plan that the government was to submit by the end of this month was revealed on July 26.
  • The plan will include the research and development centers for health care and renewable energy in Fukushima Prefecture, which suffers damages from the nuclear plant accident. The government will support the recovery by sending the government research institutions to Fukushima. For residents who cannot rebuild their homes easily, the government will provide the "disaster public housing". The government will set up the headquarters for recovery and reconstruction on July 29, and formally decide on the plan.
  • In the final version of the plan, it is clearly stated that "the national government will be responsible" in recovery and reconstruction from a nuclear disaster. As to the decontamination of the soil and the disposal of disaster debris, the plan says [the government] will "take necessary measures". It also mentions the creation of facilities for the "world-class pharmaceutical and medical equipment research and development" and the "world-class renewable energy research" in Fukushima Prefecture, which are to attract the related industries. For the residents who have lost their homes, the government will provide the "disaster public housing", which will be sold later to those who want to purchase the homes under the scheme.So here's one answer to the question posed by a resident in the youtube video below that captured the confrontation between the Fukushima residents and the national government officials over evacuation:
  • "People in Fukushima have a right to avoid the radiation and live a healthy life, too. Don't you think so?"Well, the government needs them inside Fukushima for all these grand projects. Besides, the government doesn't care about that right for anyone outside Fukushima either.
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Renewable Bill in Japan Moves Forward [28Aug11] - 0 views

  • Reports now show that the nuclear-power industry has been hit with another huge blow. Apparently, the Prime Minister of Japan, Naoto Kan, is attempting to pass a green bill for Japan. This will help him stick to his pledge to overhaul Japan’s energy portfolio. Currently, Japan is attempting to move away from using nuclear energy. So far, the bill appears to be off to a very good start. The lower house of Japan’s parliament has already passed a new green bill aimed at promoting investment in solar and other kinds of renewable energy. This is pretty big since Japan is a country that currently uses a lot of nuclear power.
  • Now Japan just has to wait and see if upper Parliament will approve the reform. This will require utilities to buy any electricity from solar and other renewable sources for up to 20 years. If the law is passed, it will come into full force next July. Thus, this will be a very quick-moving bill. For Japan, solar is expected to be the main beneficiary of the bill. This is because it is very easy and quick to install. By 2015, the government hopes to increase its solar capacity from 40GW to 100GW. This is a pretty big increase over the next few years.
  • Of course, there are some critics who feel this bill is not the way Japan should go. They said that this bill’s impact on energy policies could be diluted. This would be caused by a failure to resolve certain key details in the bill. One of the key concerns that people are taking about is the price paid by utilities. The prices paid by utilities will not be decided until parliament meets next year. Thus, there are still a lot of questions left unanswered.
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    (Note that Kan has just stepped down, see recent post)
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The Intermittency of Fossil Fuels & Nuclear [19Aug11] - 0 views

  • You’ve likely heard this argument before: “The wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine, so we can’t rely on renewable energy.” However, a series of recent events undermine the false dichotomy that renewable energies are unreliable and that coal, nuclear and natural gas are reliable.
  • There are too many reasons to list in a single blogpost why depending on fossil and nuclear energies is dangerous, but one emerging trend is that coal, natural gas and even nuclear energy are not as reliable as they are touted to be. Take for instance the nuclear disaster still unfolding in Japan. On March 11, that country experienced a massive earthquake and the resulting tsunami knocked out several nuclear reactors on the coast. Three days later, an operator of a nearby wind farm in Japan restarted its turbines - turbines that were intentionally turned off  immediately after the earthquake. Several countries, including France and Germany, are now considering complete phase-outs of nuclear energy in favor of offshore wind energy in the aftermath of the Japanese disaster. Even China has suspended its nuclear reactor plans while more offshore wind farms are being planned off that country’s coast.
  • In another example much closer to home, here in the Southeast, some of TVA’s nuclear fleet is operating at lower levels due to extreme temperatures. When the water temperatures in the Tennessee River reach more than 90 degrees, the TVA Browns Ferry nuclear reactors cannot discharge the already-heated power plant water into the river. If water temperatures become too high in a natural body of water, like a river, the ecosystem can be damaged and fish kills may occur. This problem isn’t limited to nuclear power plants either.
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  • Texas has been experiencing a terrible heat wave this summer - along with much of the rest of the country. According to the Dallas Morning News, this heat wave has caused more than 20 power plants to shut down, including coal and natural gas plants. On the other hand, Texan wind farms have been providing a steady, significant supply of electricity during the heat wave, in part because wind farms require no water to generate electricity. The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) noted on their blog: “Wind plants are keeping the lights on and the air conditioners running for hundreds of thousands of homes in Texas.”
  • This near-threat of a blackout is not a one-time or seasonal ordeal for Texans. Earlier this year, when winter storms were hammering the Lone Star State, rolling blackouts occurred due to faltering fossil fuel plants. In February, 50 power plants failed and wind energy helped pick up the slack.
  • Although far from the steady winds of the Great Plains, Cape Wind Associates noted that if their offshore wind farm was already operational, the turbines would have been able to harness the power of the heat wave oppressing the Northeast, mostly at full capacity. Cape Wind, vying to be the nation’s first offshore wind farm, has a meteorological tower stationed off Nantucket Sound in Massachusetts. If Cape Wind had been built, it could have been using these oppressive heat waves to operate New England’s cooling air conditioners. These three examples would suggest that the reliability of fossil fuels and nuclear reactors has been overstated, as has the variability of wind.
  • So just how much electricity can wind energy realistically supply as a portion of the nation’s energy? A very thorough report completed by the U.S. Department of Energy in 2008 (completed during President George W. Bush’s tenure) presents one scenario where wind energy could provide 20% of the U.S.’s electrical power by 2030. To achieve this level, the U.S. Department of Energy estimates energy costs would increase only 50 cents per month per household. A more recent study, the Eastern Wind Integration and Transmission Study (EWITS), shows that wind could supply 30% of the Eastern Interconnect’s service area (all of the Eastern U.S. from Nebraska eastward) with the proper transmission upgrades. As wind farms become more spread out across the country, and are better connected to each other via transmission lines, the variability of wind energy further decreases. If the wind isn’t blowing in Nebraska, it may be blowing in North Carolina, or off the coast of Georgia and the electricity generated in any state can then be transported across the continent. A plan has been hatched in the European Union to acquire 50% of those member states’ electricity from wind energy by 2050 - mostly from offshore wind farms, spread around the continent and heavily connected with transmission lines.
  • With a significant amount of wind energy providing electricity in the U.S., what would happen if the wind ever stops blowing? Nothing really - the lights will stay on, refrigerators will keep running and air conditions will keep working. As it so happens, wind energy has made the U.S. electrical supply more diversified and protects us against periodic shut downs from those pesky, sometimes-unreliable fossil fuel power plants and nuclear reactors.
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    a series of recent events undermine the false dichotomy that renewable energies are unreliable and that coal, nuclear and natural gas are reliable.
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