YOU: Fix the US Energy Crisis

[berkeman]

Thread re-opened after cleanup of a PMM discussion.

 

[CWatters]

Cost of offshore wind falling dramatically in the UK. Now requires less subsidy than nuclear..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41220948

Two firms said they were willing to build offshore wind farms for a subsidy of £57.50 per megawatt hour for 2022-23.

This compares with the new Hinkley Point C nuclear plant securing subsidies of £92.50 per megawatt hour.

 

[mfb]

And if the wind doesn't blow, we switch off all lights.
Comparing the cost of a power plant you can regulate to the cost of wind-dependent power plants 1:1 just doesn't help.

 

[Clark Magnuson]

We built a super insulated solar home in 1982, tried to recycle everything privately, and tried to raise all our own food organically.
I did power conversion [designed power supplies and battery chargers] for a living for 30 years.
After so much of my hobby time went into "alternative energy", now I see much of it is common practice or turned out to not be cost effective.
My peers in high school in the 1960s modified their V8 cars to be faster in the quarter mile.
My peers in engineering in the 1980 designed their dream homes to be energy efficient and bought 4 cylinder cars, and in some cases made Mother Earth hybrid cars.
But the scare in college was that by the year 2000, most people would by dying of pollution. I think we averted that.

 

[rootone]

Right now there is a large anticyclone sitting in the North Atlantic,
Minimal wind is expected for several days in most of Europe.

 

[mfb]

But the scare in college was that by the year 2000, most people would by dying of pollution. I think we averted that.

More than one million people per year die from pollution from coal power plants alone. That is not "most", but it is a notable fraction (~2-3%) of all deaths, and one we could avoid quite easily.
Cars and various other industries contribute to pollution-related deaths as well.

 

[mheslep]

Right now there is a large anticyclone sitting in the North Atlantic,
Minimal wind is expected for several days in most of Europe.

Checking live generation (2pm EST), percent CF wind:
UK 29%
Spain 18%
Germany 34%
Denmark 29%

November is usually a high wind month in those areas (relative to summer lows), so perhaps those are low CF figures. I dunno.

 

[OCR]

More than one million people per year die from pollution from coal power plants alone.

Where did you find those statistics ?

I looked... HERE and HERE .

 

[Clark Magnuson]

My brother in Montana lives across the street from an old folks home that has a coal fired boiler.
When you smell the exhaust, if it does not kill you, it will make you wish you were dead:(

 

[mfb]

Where did you find those statistics ?

I think I linked it a few times in this thread already:
100,000 deaths per trillion kWh * http://www.keepeek.com/Digital-Asset-Management/oecd/economics/oecd-factbook-2015-2016/world-electricity-generation-by-source-of-energy_factbook-2015-graph86-en#.WiY0-rNujak is 960,000 in 2013, I didn't find accurate more recent estimates for electricity production from coal right now. Call it 1 million if you think "more than 1 million" is too high.

If the whole world would change their coal power plants to US standards, this number would go down by a factor of 10, to 100,000 deaths per year. If all these coal power plants would be replaced by nuclear power plants with the historic average death toll, the number would go down to 900 per year, and if we use US standards everywhere it goes down to 1 per year. Providing 100% instead of 40% of the electricity that way would increase this number to 2.5 deaths per year.

 

[OCR]

Ah, OK... thank you.

I think I linked it a few times in this thread already:

Oh, no... the question wasn't intended as a rebuttal...

Call it 1 million if you think "more than 1 million" is too high.

 

[jack action]

More than one million people per year die from pollution from coal power plants alone. That is not "most", but it is a notable fraction (~2-3%) of all deaths, and one we could avoid quite easily.

It always makes me smile when someone states «It would be easy». If it were, it would be done already.

If all these coal power plants would be replaced by nuclear power plants with the historic average death toll, the number would go down to 900 per year, and if we use US standards everywhere it goes down to 1 per year.

It seems that other people look at other factors than death toll, which is probably why it's not such an easy decision:

• Why Nuclear Energy May Not Be Our Best Alternative Option To Fossil Fuel
• Why (or why not) nuclear energy?
• Why America abandoned nuclear power (and what we can learn from South Korea)

What I take from those articles:

• Nuclear cost might be low over time, but it must be mostly paid in advance (construction); That is the worst kind of spending because if you make a mistake, you loose a lot;
• The best way to use nuclear cost-effectively is to choose one standard, one method, one technology and stick to it: Which one should we choose? That will never be an easy decision to make, especially if we think globally;
• The more money we invest in nuclear now, the less there is for renewable energy solutions (or even energy efficiency);
• Nuclear cannot be turned off if the demand is low;
• Nuclear waste facilitate building nuclear weapons;
• You need a diversity of energy sources to guarantee a stable grid (cannot be all nuclear).

I'm not saying I'm against nuclear, I'm just saying I don't believe it is «easy».

 

[mheslep]

cannot be all nuclear).

Need not be, but why not? France has been 80% nuclear. Another 20% load following nuclear is possible, if inefficient.

 

[mheslep]

would be done already.

High national shares of clean power have been done already, multiple times. France, Switzerland, Ontario. These are the only non hydro examples of large decarbonized power grids. Nothing else comes anywhere close.

 

[mheslep]

Germany has been spending heavily to install solar and wind for the last couple decades, while closing half its nuclear fleet since 2011. Some outcomes:

ABC News:

A court in western http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/germany.htm says an ancient forest near the Belgian border can be chopped down to make way for a coal strip mine

 

[russ_watters]

It always makes me smile when someone states «It would be easy». If it were, it would be done already.

It seems that other people look at other factors than death toll, which is probably why it's not such an easy decision:...
I'm not saying I'm against nuclear, I'm just saying I don't believe it is «easy».

So, right, it depends on what one means by "easy". It is easy from an economic and technical perspective (considering the fact that it has been done, by France), which is what matters to me. It is extremely difficult from a political will perspective.

What annoys me most is that the most of the same people who oppose nuclear are supposedly environmentally conscious, yet their plans do not contain a pathway to a clean grid. So no matter how hard one thinks nuclear is, it is much easier than other options that are in essence impossible.

 

[mheslep]

What annoys me most is that the most of the same people who oppose nuclear are supposedly environmentally conscious, yet their plans do not contain a pathway to a clean grid. So no matter how hard one thinks nuclear is, it is much easier than other options that are in essence impossible

Unfortunately many media outlets and journalists encourage the notion, that sporadic RE does provide a path.

Clean Break: The Story of Germany's Energy Transformation and What Americans Can Learn from It

 

[russ_watters]

Unfortunately many media outlets and journalists encourage the notion, that sporadic RE does provide a path.

I'm working on a reboot of this thread, and while doing it I fantasized about writing a book on the subject. So I looked into what was already out there. Most is of course advocacy driven, not problem/solution driven. But I did find a great one: "Energy for Future Presidents":
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393345106/?tag=pfamazon01-20

It presents as a science based explanation of the issues, with an explicitly stated and clear differentiation between the factual content and his opinion (which he presents at the end of each chapter). The intro starts with bullet-point summary and his facts and opinions match pretty well what a handful of us have been saying in this thread and related threads. The new thread will slightly re-focus to be about state, trend and policy, along the lines of how the book discusses it. The "crisis" in this thread's title now seems odd...

But anyway, yes, I agree that the media has culpability and responsibility here. Anyone with a strong opinion should MAKE themselves well informed, but the more casual observers are going to be highly succeptible to the volume/tone of what they hear from prominent public sources.

Oh, and for that book you referenced; yes, you and I understand it was fantasy when published in 2012. Fantasies are cheap when you just start out. But I wonder what the author would say today given that by now we have data that shows the progress and as a result German officials are publicly acknowledging that they are not on that fantasized path.

 

[mheslep]

The author, Muller, is a physicist who has been teaching a course at Berkeley for years by the same name. There are several you tube videos posted. Muller produced his a global temperature series, and was a technical advisor in Iraq looking for nuclear WMD material.

 

[jack action]

First, I just want to state that I'm not taking side in a debate, but I'm merely playing devil's advocate; Maybe trying to learn a thing or two in the process as I'm no expert in that domain.

Need not be, but why not? France has been 80% nuclear. Another 20% load following nuclear is possible, if inefficient.

If it's such a good a example, how come it's the only one? There must be something missing if there are not that many followers. China is developing at an incredible rate and tries to show they're the best by using the latest technologies all the time, how come nuclear power will be only 4% by 2020 of the total electricity production in China while renewables will be 16%? (Again, these are questions, not arguments.)

Some insight from the links of my previous post:

France built expensive follow-the-load nuclear which basically wastes all of the generated heat without generating electricity. As France’s new President Macron has said, he used to run that ministry and even he doesn’t know how much they spent on nuclear or how much it costs.

To be fair, France hasn't totally solved the cost problem. Areva's newest generation of massive EPR reactors have recently been plagued by delays and budget overruns in France, Finland, and Britain. And some French politicians are now calling for a partial shift away from nuclear.

So no matter how hard one thinks nuclear is, it is much easier than other options that are in essence impossible.

What did you think about the article Why Nuclear Energy May Not Be Our Best Alternative Option To Fossil Fuel, which is pretty recent? The author is obliviously biased toward renewable energy, but some points might look pertinent.

One point the author made was:

The big kerfuffle recently about whether we can get to 100% renewables by 2050 or not was very interesting for one reason. Everyone involved agreed we could easily get to 80%. The question was how hard the last 20% would be.

Is that realistic? Because 80% renewable sounds better than 80% nuclear. If that is the case, why waste valuable resources (time and money) on nuclear? If I was a politician, I would have difficulty turning the whole country nuclear (which is cost-effective only in the long run), while just as we finished the transformation, we have to redo it again with renewable technologies. It doesn't sound like an «easy» decision to make based on the pleas that are made right now. (Again, these are questions, not arguments.)

 

[mfb]

It always makes me smile when someone states «It would be easy». If it were, it would be done already.

Not everything that is easy is done. You need someone with the will to do something.
The coal power plant operators? Clearly not.
The governments? Typically not, because nuclear power is very unpopular in the population of many countries.
Potential nuclear power plant operators? They can't without government approval.

Nuclear cost might be low over time, but it must be mostly paid in advance (construction)

That is true for all renewables as well, construction and installation are the largest part of the cost.

The best way to use nuclear cost-effectively is to choose one standard, one method, one technology and stick to it: Which one should we choose? That will never be an easy decision to make, especially if we think globally;

A great luxury problem to have.

• The more money we invest in nuclear now, the less there is for renewable energy solutions (or even energy efficiency);

You don't actively have to invest money into nuclear power. Unlike renewable energies, which need hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to be installed at more than a few selected places.

Nuclear power is hard to turn off, but even if you waste that energy (heat the environment) it is still competitive. You can't switch off solar cells either and while you can switch off wind turbines that just means you throw away potential power generation.
All nuclear power can give a stable grid. Unlike all renewables, unless you have gigantic storage capacity.

• Nuclear waste facilitate building nuclear weapons;

It is checked what happens with the material.
You can use electricity from wind to produce chemical weapons. Is that an argument against wind?

Everyone involved agreed we could easily get to 80%.

This is a different "easy" here, because it would come with significantly increased cost.

I have posted these numbers before, but they are worth repeating them: Germany pays three times the market electricity price a subsidy for new rooftop photovoltaics installations, and up to 10 times the market price for older installations. In addition to that you often get some money or tax breaks from local programs. Despite getting a factor four advantage in terms of cost, the installation rate is nearly zero.
If you buy electricity in Germany, 6.8 cent/kWh are used to subsidize renewable energies, mainly for photovoltaics. With the subsidies alone that renewable power gets (to produce ~15% of the electricity) you could power the whole country with nuclear power. And instead of decreasing (as the technology would mature?), the subsidies are increasing over time.

Total direct subsidies for renewables in Germany are 150 billion Euros already, and the estimate for the next 10 years are additional 370 billions. Here is an article (in German). That is more than half a trillion for something that produces quite a small fraction of the electricity.

 

[mheslep]

If it's such a good a example, how come it's the only one?

There are others, Ontario, Switzerland, Sweden, though I agree nuclear is not expanding quickly. Since the existence of high share nuclear shows it *can* be done, I contend the most likely reason it is not done more often is political opposition. The two largest opponents, IMO, are fossil fuel groups and several of the more misanthropic environmental groups.

Nuclear has some particular weeknesses to political attack: i) low cost nuclear seems to require a large pipeline of reactor builds, so that stopping the pipeline for a time spikes the cost per unit, ii) nuclear necessarily requires government regulation, controlled by politicians susceptible to special interest groups.

 

[Rive]

Nuclear cost might be low over time, but it must be mostly paid in advance (construction); That is the worst kind of spending because if you make a mistake, you loose a lot;

Cough cough.

Quite like education.

 

[gmax137]

What did you think about the article Why Nuclear Energy May Not Be Our Best Alternative Option To Fossil Fuel, which is pretty recent?

Well the point about nuclear being expensive is undeniable at least in the US. I think he takes it too far, though, when he says the nuclear units are uneconomic at anything less than 90% capacity factor. The economics gets tricky I think, for units that may run for 80 years.

Why it is so expensive is not addressed in the link. There is plenty of blame to go around for the shameful expense of the new plants, among both the pro- and anti-sides.

...The author is obliviously biased...

Freudian slip?

 

[mfb]

I think he takes it too far, though, when he says the nuclear units are uneconomic at anything less than 90% capacity factor.

That is an oddly specific number. At 80% they just cost 12% more, at 70% just 28% more, small differences compared to the range of costs discussed.
Sure, for island solutions the backup capacity gets more problematic with lower capacity factor, but that is only a small fraction of the power generation.

 

[Rive]

The economics gets tricky I think, for units that may run for 80 years.

I think it's safe to say that the actual 'practical economics' can't really handle any matter which has a relevant timespan above 20-30 years.

 

[jack action]

Freudian slip?

Just an objective observation after checking out how the author also answered other questions on Quora. Who is answering and the words chosen are good indicators of the quality of the response. That is why I get suspicious when someone uses words such as «It's easy». Doesn't mean they're wrong, but such comments need to be challenged.

About me, I live in Québec, Canada. As I said in an earlier post, here it is over 90% Hydro-electricity, it is nationalized, all the dams are up north in no-man's land and we have an incredibly reliable grid (I read here on PF, a comment from a person who stated experiencing power failure regularly every few months. Here, it is more like every few years and nothing major). Since it is government owned, when the company wants to do something, usually - in the end - it does whatever it wishes, no matter how many people would oppose the project. Thus, basically, nobody cares about power generation around here. There was one nuclear facility and it was closed a few years ago when it was time to renovate it at 2G$. It was basically just a way of diversifying the power sources for the company, exploring other avenues, and since it was close to an urban area, it was not a very popular site (like all nuclear plants), so the decision was easy to make.

Although reading about nuclear here on PF, I'm more incline of accepting it, the only thing I cannot get my head around are the nuclear wastes, even though everybody seems to say it's not a problem. Not an expert on the subject, but I cannot believe that disposing safely of a waste that can be dangerous to life for centuries is easy. I can't imagine that in a few hundred years, everyone will know where are all of those sites. I can't imagine that we understand fully the long time effect of those sites. Just based on the «regular» dump sites experience, we still find old sites that nobody really knew existed and they are less than a 100 year-old. Or we are building over old sites than we thought safe and we have now health issues in those neighborhoods. 50-100 years ago, it was all figured out that burying our household waste was the appropriate method and that by now, it would all of cleaned up by itself (composting). It did not happen as expected and - surprise, surprise - we are now trying to completely eliminate those sites by recycling. So how are we predicting so easily hundred of years in advance?

How I see the energy crisis? I think it is a beast that feeds itself. The more you try to resolve the problem, the more you dig the hole. You create machines that are more fuel efficient and less polluting, yet the fuel consumption and the pollution level increase anyway. A recent study still expects oil consumption to rise by 2040, despite a wider adoption in electric vehicles. I'm pretty sure developing countries are not the only ones to blame for this.

From my experience, you give people a machine that consumes or pollute less and they think: «Hey I can do more with it; It won't be worst than before.» What they don't realize is: 1) It was already too much before and 2) They often use it so much more that they do more damage than they were before.

That is why I don't like how some present solutions as «magically» being zero-emission. It's not that I don't like the machines, but when we're told they are all zero-emission and no drawbacks can come from them, I think it is just encouraging people to waste resources without thinking (urban sprawl and leisure traveling comes to mind). And by resources, it's often more than just the amount of fuel used, it is also the urbanization of the land. The funny thing is that I think they even care less today, thinking that it will be so easy later that everything will balance itself.

The problem is over-consumption. You have to consume less, not by using more efficient machines, but by ... consuming less. It has a lot more to do with self-discipline than with a technical difficulty.

Let someone drive a US car from the 60's for a week, I can assure you that he begins to think a lot more about the necessity of all his travels once he starts filing that gas tank. Let him drive a full-electric car and he doesn't realize that it is actually powered by a internal combustion engine miles away and just brags how good and kind he is to the Earth. Even if it is more efficient, it is far from being zero-emission. If the electricity was produced by, say, hydro-power, still the more you use the car, the more it wears and that requires more resources to build new ones.

You cannot let yourself get into a spiral of consumption.

 

[mfb]

Not an expert on the subject, but I cannot believe that disposing safely of a waste that can be dangerous to life for centuries is easy. I can't imagine that in a few hundred years, everyone will know where are all of those sites. I can't imagine that we understand fully the long time effect of those sites

The uranium ore has been dangerous for hundreds of millions to billions of years, and it stayed where it was for that time with very low leakage rates (otherwise it would be gone by now). We know where uranium ores are, even without previous written records. And we understand the long-term behavior of these sites.
We could dump nuclear waste in uranium mines with basically zero environmental impact. We don't do it because we look for places that are even better. That is a really high standard.

Anyway, I'm a fan of transmutation, ideally accelerator-driven. It gets rid of most of the waste and produces some energy as well.

 

[anorlunda]

Anyway, I'm a fan of transmutation, ideally accelerator-driven.

Great idea. Get the loading dock at CERN ready to start receiving tomorrow. Just kidding.

BTW salt mines also share the property that they had to be stable for hundreds of millions of years or they would no longer exist.
It is entirely reasonable to assume that the salt mining industry will operate continuously for centuries. Technology can not replace salt.

 

[mfb]

In Europe we have salt mines that are centuries or even millenia old.

Wieliczka salt mine - in operation from the 13th century to 2007.
http://www.edelweisstours.at/hallstatt-and-the-oldest-salt-mine-in-the-world.html - 7000 years of mining history. At the time the mining started there the first Egyptian pyramids were still 2000 years in the future.

 

[gmax137]

Just an objective observation

I was just making a little joke. You said

The author is obliviously biased

A typo, you said "obliviously" where I think you mean "obviously."

"Obliviously biased" would mean biased without realizing it... Which describes the author of the study you linked to.

 

[jack action]

I was just making a little joke. You saidA typo, you said "obliviously" where I think you mean "obviously."

"Obliviously biased" would mean biased without realizing it... Which describes the author of the study you linked to.

I didn't get that at all as spell-checking did not caught it (That is a pair of similar words that I did not know existed). Thanks for bringing it up.

That's what you get for using a second language that you learned by mostly watching TV.

 

[gmax137]

In one of your recent posts you said you were from Quebec so I thought maybe English is your second language. I hadn't realized that before from other posts so it seems your English is quite good!

 

[jim hardy]

You cannot let yourself get into a spiral of consumption.

Amen.

 

[NTL2009]

... How I see the energy crisis? I think it is a beast that feeds itself. The more you try to resolve the problem, the more you dig the hole. ...
From my experience, you give people a machine that consumes or pollute less and they think: «Hey I can do more with it; It won't be worst than before.» What they don't realize is: 1) It was already too much before and 2) They often use it so much more that they do more damage than they were before.

... The problem is over-consumption. You have to consume less, not by using more efficient machines, but by ... consuming less. It has a lot more to do with self-discipline than with a technical difficulty.

... You cannot let yourself get into a spiral of consumption.

I agree with the premise to a point, but I don't think it is as bad as you make it out to be, and I don't think it is realistic to expect that "problem" to be solved. But we still want to make progress, so we need to find a way, maybe including self-discipline as part of the solution.

Few of us have any interest in lowering our standard of living, it's just not human nature. You will fail if you approach the battle from that angle (rightly or wrongly). And some efficiencies are offset by more usage, but not always and often not 100%. There are many reasons I limit my driving, and I certainly don't decide to drive 30% more miles this year because the car I bought gets 30% higher mpg than the one I replaced. On the contrary, since we have two cars in the family, I may decide to use the new one for a trip I would take anyhow, and it gets better mpg than either the replacement or our now 'second car'.

LEDs use so much less energy than the filament bulb, and I will admit to not being as OCD about turning off a light whenever I leave a room with an LED as I was with filament bulbs. But at ~ 4x the savings, a few extra % of on time is not negating the advancement.

Same with my new HVAC. Yes, I've started being a little less frugal with the temperature settings, but I'm still using far less fuel/electricity than with my older units.

... That is why I don't like how some present solutions as «magically» being zero-emission. It's not that I don't like the machines, but when we're told they are all zero-emission and no drawbacks can come from them, I think it is just encouraging people to waste resources without thinking (urban sprawl and leisure traveling comes to mind).

... Let him drive a full-electric car and he doesn't realize that it is actually powered by a internal combustion engine miles away and just brags how good and kind he is to the Earth. Even if it is more efficient, it is far from being zero-emission. If the electricity was produced by, say, hydro-power, still the more you use the car, the more it wears and that requires more resources to build new ones.
...

Agree with that (again, not all EV owners think their cars are zero-pollution, but there is a lot of that talk going on, I bet a survey would show a significant % of the public believe it to be true), but I'd also like to emphasize something on the hydro, or RE front:

EVs place additional demand on the grid. In general, a grid operator is going to maximize the use of hydro/solar/wind, as the 'fuel' is free. So at the end of a given time period, there is rarely any extra RE available. So when a fleet of EVs plug into charge, additional power must be provided, most likely from fossil fuel. Some grids occasionally have an excess of wind and/or solar, but there isn't regularly enough of it to make up a significant % of energy available to power a fleet of EVs - that's coming (mostly) from fossil fuel.