The Kyoto Gamble: Fighting Climate Change with Windmills

[russ_watters]

For someone of your education, this is an incredibly shallow remark. There may not be many people in the sahara who need it, but there are people north, south, east and west of it who might be able to benefit. The sun shines equally bright just a little outside of a desert.

Be realistic though: what is the total energy consumption of Africa compared to the US? Its not selfish to focus our efforts on the US.

You don't quote any numbers when talking about solar and wind power, and I feel it is safe to say you may not be aware of the most recent ones. It's already been shown here in the US, for example, that when you take into account the amount of money society spends on coal miners healthcare, the difference in cost between coal and wind power is negligible.

Such calculations are dubious and biased and even if true, its still not that simple: you have to weigh the short term vs long-term costs and benefits. People dying of cancer is an extremely long-term cost of coal that is difficult to reconcile with the extremely low short-term cost of the electricity. Plus, I doubt such studies consider all the costs of wind power: such as the land it requires and the real long-term cost. That has a little to do with the bias of the assumptions, but also has to do with the fact that the wind-power industry is not mature, so you have to make projections that you don't have to make regarding coal.

In any case, nuclear is as intrinsically cheap as coal (it is expensive strictly because it is over-regulated) and has none of the added long-term environmental and health costs.

Regardless of your views on global warming, the sharp rise in oil and natural gas prices may make alternative sources of energy economic more sooner than later; should we invest in them now? If we are reasonably forward thinking, we will certainly invest in their research.

The new nuclear power plants China has opened could certainly be considered "alternative," and may very well be superior to all other current types of power generation.

I don't reeally care what you call it, but if calling nuclear power "alternative" causes hippies to stop sabbotaging it, I'm all for it.

Anyhow, I see no reason why investing completely in nuclear coverage is more effective than dividing assets between several power types. I believe there are a couple of things you are not taking into account.

1) Is it safe to say you are from a country whose population is reasonbaly dense? Nuclear power is a fantastic solution to city energy supply. Nuclear power is a poor solution to rural areas energy supply. It is expensive to transport power.

Here in the US we have vast tracts of open land, and huge farm areas. In both of these, the size to effectiveness ratio is virtually meaningless; windmills placed on farmland can reduce the crop yield by tiny amounts, and increase the economic value of the farm considerably. It still isn't economic to do this on large scales, but we are getting close to reaching a time when it will be.

I don't want to speak for Andre (I've been accused of focusing too much on nuclear power before), but keep some perspective: You gave two excellent examples, but what is the size-ratio of those examples? Ie, if we built windmills on farms and used nuclear power for our cities, what would the ratio be? 99% nuclear? I wouldn't suggest putting all of our eggs in the nuclear basket, but it is perfectly appropriate to put the vast majority (90%+) of our efforts into nuclear power.

2) I believe you are only considering a single use for these alternative energy sources - that of electricity. Solar power especially has direct uses that do not require electricity, but save electricity and other recources. Wind qualifies too, but less so and in different ways. Take solar water heaters for instance; it has been shown they pay for themselves in warm areas, and are beginning to be sold regularly in the US. Why shouldn't we invest in them?

That's fine too, but the same caveat applies: how much of your electric (gas) usage goes to your water heater? My argument has always been to go after the big fish. A dozen successful alternates would not even begin to compare to the effect of a single successful nuclear program.

If you have a hard time imagining what the 250,000 nomadic people of Western Sahara would do with a lightbulb (which you shouldn't), maybe you can think of some use for a solar water purifier that can purify any water in a short time (even urine and many types of polluted water).

Be realistic: with what is a Western-Saharan nomad going to pay for solar-powered water purifier and how much impact would selling it to him have on the global energy/pollution situation?

If renewable sources are so poor choices, then answer this: why has Japan seen a huge increase in solar power sales even as government funding has been phased to a fraction of what it once was? Why have solar cells seen huge increases in sales worldwide over the past decade?

Simple: when sales of such things are so microscopic, a doubling of sales is pretty easy to achieve and equally meaningless. Such numbers are trumpeted by environmentalists all the time regarding wind power. But how about a reality check: http://www.greenenergyohio.org/page.cfm?pageId=93

New wind industry investment was worth $9 billion in 2003, up from $7 billion in 2002. The total capacity of 39,294 MW [that's global] provides enough electricity to power the equivalent of 9 million average American homes...

Sounds great, right? The reality is quite different: first, wind power (and solar) has a horrible utilization factor. While a nuclear plant can average 90% for its lifetime, a wind plant is at the whim of the weather and more often than not, is generating a small fraction (or nothing) of its theortical capabilities. For http://library.iea.org/Textbase/stats/surveys/mes.pdf , wind power isn't even listed, but the total average production of "geothermal/other", which includes wind and solar, was about 14,000 MW. Far cry from the 39,000 MW of theoretical capacity for wind alone.

The total of all the alternate energy sources is currently 1.3% of the world's generation. Should we try to increase that by an order of magnitude(if possible)? Sure, but that still means almost 90% of the total solution can (should) be nuclear.

I think you are wrong about renewables and are also missing a huge piece of the puzzle, which is conservation.

How big and how do we do it? From the link above, global energy usage is going up by around 1% a year and fossil fuels make up about 2/3 of our total usage. Is it possible to decrease global energy usage by a meaningful fraction (say, 25%) and be able to maintain even current (much less, continue to improve) living standards? I don't think it is possible, and in any case, people won't do it on their own (despite high gas prices, SUV sales continue to increase).

 

[russ_watters]

RE: Kyoto itself:

Why not? You probably made your argument many times before, but I just saw this.

and why is Kyoto a gamble? what is there to loose?

The most obvious problems with Kyoto are that it is inequitable ("developing" countries are completely exempt, and that's a big problem: China's pollution output is exploding), its not enough, and it focuses on results instead of solutions.

But I think that's secondary to a bigger issue: while it gives the appearance of doing something, it is my opinion that doing something worthless is worse than doing nothing because it creates complacancy. Support for nuclear power in the US is growing, but so long as people think there is a viable alternate (there isn't), it'll stay on the back-burner.

Say, for example, we (the US) reduce our CO2 output by the 10% or so required through a program of improved auto emissions and retro-fitting existing fossil-fuel plants. We could do it. It wouldn't even be all that difficult. People would celebrate, slap each other on the back, etc., but what would it really accomplish? That level of output is still way too high, the developing world will have increased its emissions to cover the difference, and we'd be no better off 10 years from now than we are today: except that we'll have wasted 10 years that could have been spent building nuclear plants and our existing capacity crisis would be much, much worse.

Bush mentioned nuclear power in his state of the union address, but he missed a big opportunity. Free from the burden of being re-elected he is in a position now where he can do things that are good but unpopular. If he started a massive program to restart the nuclear industry, they could be pouring foundations by the time he left office. It would even sound good in a speech: 'We're not going to join Kyoto - it isn't enough. With our new nuclear power program (and improved auto emissions, etc.), we will decrease the US's CO2 emissions - not by a measly 10% - but by a full 90% over the next 30 years. We challenge the rest of the world to be so ambitious.'

Our next president needs to do more of that kind of leadership. Bush did some unilateral nuclear disarnament (how bizarre is that?) in the beginning of his first term, but he didn't do enough and he didn't hype it enough. With the US's current policy of militant isolationism, we need to do more unilateral actions. We could start an inverted arms race and a pollution-reduction race. Imagine France's dismay! - they wouldn't be able to oppose us in everything like they currently do, merely copy us and try to outdo us.

 

[Locrian]

Be realistic though: what is the total energy consumption of Africa compared to the US? Its not selfish to focus our efforts on the US.

And I never said it was. Thanks for turning my statement into a straw man and defending what even Andre said was an unacceptable comment. And don't try telling me I'm misinterpreting you, because Andre doesn't live in the US; you've made the implication whether you like it or not.

However, beyond that you’ve single handedly made my case for a rather bold statement I made earlier. I said to Andre that it is not strange for me to run into people here in the US who might make the statement along the lines of the one he did - "except, unlike in your case, most people are dead serious when they say it.“ So, is there really anyone out there who would mix up what someone wants and what someone afford for real? Let's take a look:

If you have a hard time imagining what the 250,000 nomadic people of Western Sahara would do with a lightbulb (which you shouldn't), maybe you can think of some use for a solar water purifier that can purify any water in a short time (even urine and many types of polluted water).

Be realistic: with what is a Western-Saharan nomad going to pay for solar-powered water purifier

Be realistic. In a discussion about what someone wants, and what they could make use of, Russ pops into let us know that, in fact, people in Western Sahara are poor. What does that have to do with what they might want? The economic issues are an entirely different subject - and yes, what people want is important, as discussing the economics of a product is rather rediculous if there is no demand. This is exactly what Andre was implying, and is, by proxy, a statement Russ is defending.

Be realistic. What a snide phrase to come from someone who didn't read closely enough to be on the same subject. Russ, be realistic. People in the Sahara want electricity and clean power. How these issues of "want" and "afford" can be so terribly confused is beyond me. They are extremely aggrevating though. I'm too irritated to respond to the rest of the post, which I guess I'll get to later.

 

[Locrian]

Such calculations are dubious and biased and even if true,

Dubious, biased, and true! Such interesting language for peer reviewed journal articles. Science, Vol 293, Issue 5534, 1438 , 24 August 2001. Give us your opinion on which you think it is - dubious, biased, true or any combination of the above. Make sure to take into account efficiency changes since they published it. Personally, I'd use the word "incorrect" at the time. But their failure to show that wind can replace 50% of coal power only occurs after they show it is not necessarily more expensive than coal.

I wouldn't suggest putting all of our eggs in the nuclear basket, but it is perfectly appropriate to put the vast majority (90%+) of our efforts into nuclear power.

Did I say anywhere we should not do that? Who are you talking to, exactly? I'm beginning to think you've lumped me into a group I don't actually agree with. I wonder what assumptions are being made here?

how much of your electric (gas) usage goes to your water heater?

After heating and cooling, water heaters usually (depending on the type) are the number one users of electricity. Depending on the area and it's climate control needs, older water heaters can be the number of all electric users in a household.

What would be even more interesting is to see what that has to do with my point. If it is economically beneficial to use a solar powered water heater, it won't matter what percentage of electricty it uses. Whether it actually is economically beneficial is a more interesting question. I wonder if we'll get to it?

Such numbers are trumpeted by environmentalists all the time regarding wind power.

I wasn't talking about wind power when you stated this. Your response is noted, but the numbers for solar power are not the same as wind power.

Would a summary help?

In Andre's list of things we should not do he includes investing in renewable energies. Because renewable energy sources are approaching cost effectiveness in several situations, it is difficult to support this suggestion. The only factor that should determine whether renewables are invested in is their economic and potential economic returns; greenhouse gases, the kyoto protocol, cloudy northern european states and the economic condition of people in northwestern africa should not be considered.

Nuclear power should be considered only so much as it impacts the economic choice of power supplies. Complaining that nuclear power is made more expensive due to government regulations has all the value of complaining renewables are more expensive because they are a new technology - namely very little.

PS: In your response, don't assume I'm an environmentalist, don't assume I'm against nuclear power, don't assume that supporting investment in renewable energies means only investing in renewable energies, and don't assume that I'm not realistic. For better or worse, assuming that I'm wrong is par for the course.

 

[Andre]

Well seeing all of this, I regret the subjective trends here. Why is nuclear taboo for so many people? The unknown perhaps? Let's try to make sense again of the problems with renewables versus nuclear energy.

Both forms have an carbon emission level of zero. Nowadays, nuclear plants can be highly cost effective. The problem with investing in renewables versus nuclear powerr plants is the acceptance that the contraption won't work if the energy source is temporarely unavaible. And then, we did not even start to talk about failures and maintenance as is usual for whatever technique. You accept a thing that's intrinsic unreliable.

Consequently. even if you have the transport problem of energy, there is still the requirement to do so when the source is not available. So against the background of the availability of massive nuclear energy, the question is what good would it do to invest in renewables? Perhaps the transport problem can be solved differently? What about fuel cells for instance, with the hydrogen produced in the nuclear power plant? Would that be a form of acceptable renewals?

But of course if you were a farmer in the middle of nowhere, you would be quite happy with that windmill and those solar panels; there is no doubt about that. However if you were to be the provider of the energy with the obligation to guarantee delivery of energy, you would think quite differently.

 

[Andre]

How about the effectiveness of Kyoto?

http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Kyoto_Count_Up.htm is a calculation about that.: