America Is Getting More Power from Renewables than From Nuclear

[n2doc]

Despite the economic slowdown and the absence of any groundbreaking climate policy, renewable energy had a good year in the United States in 2011. According to the latest report from the Energy Information Administration, the government’s keeper of all energy-related facts, renewables grew at a record pace and squeaked out of last place in the country’s energy generation standings. In the first nine months of the year, renewables accounted for 11.95 percent of domestic energy production, pulling ahead of nuclear power, which contributed only 10.62 percent.

When you look at the electricity sector alone, renewables shine even brighter. Nuclear’s share of electricity generation dropped by 2.8 percent compared to the first nine months of 2010, while coal’s share dropped by 4.2 percent. In the same period, renewables’ share of electricity generation grew almost 25 percent.

Renewables’ big bump comes is attributable in part to its relatively small share of electricity generation overall. But the continuing success of renewable energy also points to its dynamism compared to energy sources like nuclear plants—which take years to build, require heavy investments at the beginning of their lifetime, and often face strong community opposition. While the price per unit of renewable energy has been dropping steadily, the price per unit nuclear energy has been sneaking upward.

Some supporters of renewables do see a role for nuclear energy in a low-carbon future. It is, after all, clean energy, and it poses little risk to human life and health compared to coal power. The nuclear industry is looking for different ways to build plants—new designs use nuclear waste for fuel, for instance, and plans for "mini-reactors" could make nuclear power a less-intimidating investment.

more
http://www.good.is/post/america-is-getting-more-power-from-renewables-than-from-nuclear/

[hunter]

1. All the big dams have already been built.

I'd like to tear a lot of them down.

[Nederland]

2. Once upon a time

...the environmentalist movement in the US viewed nuclear power as a clean way of getting rid of all our dams.

[wtmusic]

3. We're including ethanol added to gasoline as "renewable power", are we?

And cherry-picking the first nine months of the year (including summer, the busiest driving season of the year)?

Some statistical sleight-of-hand going on here - not to mention the ugly cousins renewables bring to the party (ethanol -> gasoline, wind -> natural gas as backup, biomass -> pollution, etc).

If we look at electricity generation, or what most people think of when one uses the word "power", for the whole year of 2010 - we see nuclear contributing 20% vs. renewables at 14%. They generously use "renewables" to include burning old-growth timber, railroad ties, utility poles, sludge waste, municipal solid waste - and makes nary a mention of the crap that ends up in the air that never started off there to begin with.

Wind, provided by pretty windmills like the one in the picture, makes up a whopping 2.3%, with solar bringing in a dismal .03%.

http://www.eia.gov/electricity/data.cfm

[Kolesar]

4. Nukes and ethanol both have externalized social costs and require huge public subsidies

I expect that when we recompile this data in a few years, solar and wind will pull the renewables section way above the nuclear output.

[wtmusic]

12. Wind subsidies/tax credits, as a proportion of the actual product they deliver

blow nuclear out of the water. Not even close.

Wind would have to increase by a factor of 9, and solar by a factor of 666. It's never, ever going to happen.

[kristopher]

6. Let me show you how to support your claims

You wrote, "We're including ethanol added to gasoline as "renewable power", are we?"
Where did you get that? Since your link basically goes to the entire database at EIA, it is actually pretty rude to not be more specific.

Let me show you how it's done. Here is a graphic presentation of primary energy production for 2010 showing nuclear producing fractionally more than renewables.



And the data for the graph is here:
http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/showtext.cfm?t=ptb0102

The notes tell us that yes, ethanol is included.
10 Wood and wood-derived fuels, biomass waste, and total biomass inputs to the production of fuel
ethanol and biodiesel.

Perhaps you'd be courteous enough to provide that kind of support for your statements in the future?

Now two questions: the first is why you think it is somehow inappropriate to include the full range of renewable resources in the tally? Every other discussion includes all of the renewable resources, so why do you think biomass and hydro should be excluded now that the total eclipses nuclear?

Second, did you know that centralized thermal, including nuclear, requires a lot spinning reserves? When a large nuclear plant goes down suddenly it goes down completely and stays down for a prolonged period of time. Renewables "go down" in that unexpected and total fashion far less often.

Here is a specific amount that was included in Citigroup's analysis on "European Nuclear Generation" from 2 December 2008:
The UK has already provided some cost budgeting work, with National Grid estimating that should all existing nuclear power plants be replaced, an extra £1.4b of spend would be required to reinforce the transmission network. Additional spinning reserve costs would have to be considered with PB Power quoted as saying that for every new EPR build in the UK an additional 260MW of spinning reserve would be required at £1.3-2.1/MWh.

[PamW]

9. ERROR!! ERROR!! ERROR!!!

When a large nuclear plant goes down suddenly it goes down completely and stays down for a prolonged period of time.
========================

Depends on why the plant goes down. If it is going down from refueling, which is done about every 18 months; then it doesn't go down "suddenly" or unexpectedly. The utility knows when it is going to take the plant offline for a refueling outage and makes provisions for it. For example, Commonwealth Edison of Northern Illinois has the bulk of its energy production as nuclear. The outage of one nuclear unit is covered by other nuclear units.

If a nuclear unit goes down suddenly, it all depends on why it went down. Depending on the cause; it may be back up within a day.

Overly broad generalizations are not useful, and usually self-serving.

PamW

[Maslo55]

5. classic move

include high density proven reliable source such as hydropower in the "renewables" package along with the "new" renewables, and sell it to the ignorant public as wind and solar power success. Fail to mention that these "new" renewables only make a small fraction of the package, and far less if you look at their whole year capacity factors, not nameplate power.

This is also where all those incredible "20%" claims about Germany renewable energy sector come from.

Of course, hydropower shares all the claimed negatives of nuclear power (high capital long term investment, NIMBYism, danger), and far more, such as lack of suitable sites and environmental damage. Not really a solution at all.

[kristopher]

7. That makes no sense at all.

If you are going to talk about reality, you need to check in with it every once and a while.

Why shouldn't all renewable sources be included? Should we exclude all Gen I & II reactors from the nuclear tally? Or perhaps we should only include the nuclear plants that have never gone bankrupt or that were completed on time and on budget?

Yes those are absurd suggestions - as was yours.

And I don't know what you are talking about with capacity factors. The discussion is delivered power and capacity factor isn't even part of the picture.

That applies to Germany also. the 20%+ was DELIVERED POWER.

[PamW]

10. This old saw

Should we exclude all Gen I & II reactors from the nuclear tally?
=============================

This again?

Kris wants to include Gen I nuclear power plants ( that are now shutdown and dismantled ) in the calculation of capacity factor for nuclear power plants. Of course, since these plants are shutdown, they contribute a ZERO to the average capacity factor. This is a way of making the capacity factor for nuclear look smaller than it really is.

It's the equivalent of including the old airliners that are in the airliner "boneyard" in Arizona as part of an airline's "on time departure" statistics.

Since these old UNUSED airliners are no longer flying; they, by definition, didn't "depart" on time. ( They went no where ). Hence the stattistics for an airline with a lot of old planes that it has junked will be dragged down by this type of dishonest accounting.

PamW

[Maslo55]

28. ...

Hydropower is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT technology from solar/wind. Gen III reactors are just an upgrade of Gen I and II reactors, the principle, power source and general potentials/limitiaitons is the same.

You can include hydropower in renewables. But then dont argue that solar/wind are proven to be able to supply a substantial part of electricity of a modern country, because when you substract hydropower from the renewables category, its still never more than few % at best.

Including hydropower is not correct because it does not have a future in combating CO2 - we have already dammed most of the dammable locations. It cannot provide significantly more power than it provides now. It also damages the environment.

When environmentalists speak about building new renewable power plants, they dont speak about hydropower, but still never fail to include it in their showoff of renewable success (and it always makes majority of the power).
From the article and based purely on the numbers, the conclusion would be that should build more dams, not solar/wind plants.

[waddirum]

8. I frequently see wind turbine blades traveling down the highway

Wind and solar power are being installed TODAY! Projects have been approved and parts have been ordered for numerous solar and wind projects nationwide.

Conversely, there are are a small handful of new construction nuclear power plants currently being discussed in the U.S. They are all in some phase of applying for a combined construction and operations license, and are years away from beginning construction.

[PamW]

11. Compare the output power.

Conversely, there are are a small handful of new construction nuclear power plants currently being discussed in the U.S.
================================

Yes there are wind and solar plants being built. But there are no multi-gigawatt wind turbines nor multi-gigawatt solar panels.

Yes - you only have a few nuclear plants being constructed. However, when they do come online; they will be multi-gigawatt and swamp the meager output from all those wind and solar plants.

PamW

[OKIsItJustMe]

13. Hmmm…

http://energy.gov/articles/president-obama-announces-loan-guarantees-construct-new-nuclear-power-reactors-georgia

[font face=Times, Serif][font size=5]President Obama Announces Loan Guarantees to Construct New Nuclear Power Reactors in Georgia[/font]

February 16, 2010 - 12:00am

[font size=3]Washington D.C. --- Underscoring his Administration's commitment to jumpstarting the nation's nuclear power industry, President Obama today announced that the Department of Energy has offered conditional commitments for a total of $8.33 billion in loan guarantees for the construction and operation of two new nuclear reactors at a plant in Burke, Georgia. The project is scheduled to be the first U.S. nuclear power plant to break ground in nearly three decades.

"To meet our growing energy needs and prevent the worst consequences of climate change, we need to increase our supply of nuclear power and today's announcement helps to move us down that path. But energy leaders and experts recognize that as long as producing carbon pollution carries no cost, traditional plants that use fossil fuels will be more cost-effective than plants that use nuclear fuel. That is why we need comprehensive energy and climate legislation to create a system of incentives to make clean energy profitable," said President Obama. "What I hope this announcement underscores is both our commitment to meeting the energy challenge - and our willingness to look at this challenge not as a partisan issue, but as a matter far more important than politics."

The two new 1,100 megawatt Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactors at the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant will supplement the two existing reactor units at the facility. According to industry projections, the project will create approximately 3,500 onsite construction jobs. Once the nuclear reactors become operational, the project will create 800 permanent jobs.

"This is a significant step by the Obama Administration to restart our domestic nuclear industry, helping to create valuable long-term jobs and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions," Energy Secretary Steven Chu said.

…[/font][/font]

http://energy.gov/articles/caithness-shephards-flat-largest-wind-farm-project-world

[font face=Times, Serif][font size=5]Caithness Shephards Flat: The Largest Wind Farm Project in the World[/font]

October 12, 2010 - 5:04pm

[font size=3]“One step at a time”

This is a mantra that has been used in countless situations – trying to express the scale of a great challenge that may lie ahead, but emphasizing that hope will prevail if we make the right decisions right now, and we don’t lose our constitution. Building a clean energy economy is one of those great challenges, maybe the greatest, that’s facing our nation today. And on Friday, we took a giant leap forward as Secretary Chu announced a conditional commitment to provide a partial guarantee for a $1.3 billion loan in support of the world’s largest wind farm to date.

The Caithness Shepherds Flat wind project, constructed on private property in eastern Oregon, will deploy a total of 338 wind turbines supplied by General Electric (GE). Projected to employ over 400 people in construction phase and provide 845 megawatt wind-powered electrical generation, the Caithness Shepherds Flat wind project will produce enough wind energy to supply 235,000 homes and set a high bar for future wind energy projects. By doing this, we will directly avoid 1,215,991 tons of carbon dioxide per year – roughly equivalent to the annual greenhouse gas emissions from 212,141 passenger vehicles. 100% of the wind power generated through these turbines at the Caithness Shepherds Flat project will be sold to Southern California Edison via fixed price power purchase agreements lasting 20 years.

How is this possible? Wind energy is a form of solar energy, taking the power of wind to turn blades, setting off a chain of events that connect to a generator and creates electricity. (To learn more about how wind turbines work, check out this wind turbine animation). The Department of Energy, through game changing investments like this one, has increased the technical viability of wind systems and helped to introduce bring more wind power to the marketplace.

…[/font][/font]

[wtmusic]

14. Do you know the difference between a loan guarantee and a loan?

Have you taken into account wind's capacity factor of 30% vs. nuclear's, at 70%?

How much natural gas will be required to back up Cathness Shepherds Flat (wind guarantees future reliance on natural gas, nuclear doesn't).

The devil is in the details.

[OKIsItJustMe]

15. It appears that these two projects are about the same order of magnitude

The claim was made that nuclear plants would, “swamp the meager output from all those wind and solar plants.”

[FBaggins]

16. A bit of a stretch.

If anything, it's the exception that proves the rule.

This is proposed to become the largest such installation in the world and your point is that it isn't less than 1/10th that of a single nuclear project?

[OKIsItJustMe]

17. This is one project

There are many projects.

For wind alone, at the end of 2010:
http://www.wwindea.org/home/images/stories/pdfs/worldwindenergyreport2010_s.pdf

[font face=Times, Serif][font size=3]Worldwide capacity reached 196,630 Megawatt, out of which 37,642 Megawatt were added in 2010, slightly less than in 2009.[/font][/font]

Worldwide, at the end of 2009, there were 433 nuclear plants totaling 366,555 MW
http://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclopedia/n/nuclear-power-plant-world-wide.htm

[FBaggins]

18. What's the next-largest in the US?

In fact... Why not go down the list of those actually under construction and tell us how far down you get before the total expected generation per year equals that single nuke project.

[OKIsItJustMe]

19. Why does this matter?

The claim was that nuclear plants would, “swamp the meager output from all those wind and solar plants.” Currently, all of the nuclear plants in the world do not swamp the output of all of the wind turbines in the world, and there’s no particular reason to assume that they will in the future.

I don’t know about you, but I’m more comfortable with the idea of rooftop solar than I am with the idea of rooftop fission.

[FBaggins]

20. Because it's the relevant comparison.

The claim was that nuclear plants would, “swamp the meager output from all those wind and solar plants.

"All those" was in the context of "being built". So I asked you to provide the list of the largest being built so that we could compare the top however-many to a single nuclear project.

Currently, all of the nuclear plants in the world do not swamp the output of all of the wind turbines in the world

Actually... they most certainly do. See your own cited figures.

[OKIsItJustMe]

23. I guess we need a more precise definition of “swamp” and “meager”

That’s why I referenced, “order of magnitude.”

Comparing project to project is not terribly helpful. For example, a small town may erect a wind turbine or 2 (how many small towns will erect a nuclear plant?) Does that mean that nuclear is swamping wind? Or does it mean that wind is swamping nuclear?



http://www.awea.org/newsroom/pressreleases/Top-10_for_2011.cfm

[font face=Times, Serif]FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 27, 2011

[font size=5]Top 10 for 2011: Wind power achieves many milestones this year[/font]

[font size=4]Industry gears up for an important coming year with a look back at the newsmaking events of 2011[/font]

[font size=3]…

1 – Iowa, South Dakota reach 20 percent wind penetration overall. U.S. wind industry observers no longer need look to Europe for examples of huge wind power penetrations. Both Iowa and South Dakota reached the important milestone of 20 percent of their electricity coming from wind power, a first for the U.S.And more projects are coming.

2 - Xcel Energy shatters wind barrier with 50 percent at one time. While Iowa and South Dakota lead the nation with their 20 percent wind penetration overall benchmark, a utility system in Colorado made some noise on the integration front as well. Investor-owned utility Xcel Energy set a wind power world record on the morning of October 6, when subsidiary Public Service Co. of Colorado got 55.6 percent of the electricity on its system at one time from wind power, as reported in the Denver Post. The leading utility for wind power on its wires, Xcel Energy is proving once again that large amounts of wind can be successfully integrated onto the grid.

3 - Cost drop: Wind power gets leaner and meaner. Wind turbine prices have dropped sharply in recent years, and a government report released in 2011 highlights that trend with some telling numbers. According to the latest edition of the U.S. Department of Energy's "Wind Technologies Market Report," turbine prices decreased by as much as 33 percent or more between late 2008 and 2010. As discussed in AWEA's most recent industry Annual Report, more efficient U.S.-based manufacturing is saving on transportation, and technology improvements are making turbines better and more efficient.

4 - One-third renewables: California establishes landmark RES. In April, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law legislation that ups the state's renewable electricity standard from an already strong 20 percent to an historic 33 percent by 2020. The renewables standard includes near-term and incremental targets (20 percent by the end of 2013 and 25 percent by the end of 2016), an approach that the wind industry considers to be an important component of RES legislation because it allows the industry to begin ramping up and generating economic development immediately.

…[/font][/font]

[FBaggins]

24. Roughly 4-5 times as much is "swamping" in my estimation

I'm pretty sure that it fits most uses. If I have three times as much work as normal... I'm pretty "swamped". No?

Nuclear has spend three decades in gradual decline while wind power is growing more rapidly than ever (ignoring short-term fluctuations).

Comparing project to project is not terribly helpful. For example, a small town may erect a wind turbine or 2 (how many small towns will erect a nuclear plant?) Does that mean that nuclear is swamping wind? Or does it mean that wind is swamping nuclear?

Pointing out that this single nuclear expansion (two units), when operational, will produce about as much electricity annually as the current ten largest wind plants in the world (many covering tens of thousands of acres) is certainly relevant... and there could easily be three or four such projects starting up in the next two or three years.

What I don't see is why one or the other has to be "winning"... so long as coal starts losing. Nothing would make me happier than to see this competition ramp up tenfold in the coming years.

[kristopher]

25. This demonstrates your false reasoning

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11273553#post21

You can try to spin it by claiming that manufacturing a turbine isn't actually manufacturing a turbine (head-spinnning nuclear logic at its best), but the fact is that the exercise demonstrates the value of being able to bring projects on line rapidly vs it taking an 11 plus year commitment of resources before generation commences. You can't make up the deficit.

[FBaggins]

26. What percentage of the average wind turbine is produced at that plant?

What percentage of the time involved in constructing a wind farm does the manufacturing of the nacelle and switch cabinet represent?

It's as ridiculous as a nuclear supporter estimating how many steam generators a particular plant can produce in a year and then crediting the world with that number of new reactors.

The "exercise" has no relevance whatsoever.

[kristopher]

27. Two problems with your take on this.

First is your characterization of the example. It is an excellent presentation of how the cumulative numbers for rapidly built, small-scale renewable projects end up "swamping" nuclear power. 54 reactor years worth of power before the nuclear plant comes online, Baggins. That is very significant.


Then we have your false claims about the through-put of the plant in the example:
There are 4 basic components
The nacelle and its interior components is considered "the turbine"; that is what the factory in the example produces.
The tower.
The base.
The rotor.

To analogize it to an automobile the nacelle is the body and drivetrain; the tower equals the wheels; the base is similar to the tires and the rotor is the gasoline tank.

If you think that negates the significance of the cumulative nature of renewables vs the wait, wait, wait and wait some more nature of
nuclear then we'll just have to agree to disagree.

[Maslo55]

29. Nope

The wind power project is 845 MW, and the nuclear power plant is 2200 MW (two 1,1 GW reactors).

And I doubt it is an output after factoring in the capacity factors (70-80% for nuclear and cca 30% for wind). I think they refer to nameplate capacity. If you include in average capacity factors, it would be 280 MW for wind and 1650 MW for nuclear plant. Now thats entirely different picture.

[bananas]

30. Nuclear Loan Guarantees Aren’t Just Guarantees: They are Actual Taxpayer Loans

http://democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x231521

[wtmusic]

31. No, they aren't.

Have a real link?

[FBaggins]

32. Actually... they are. But why is that a bad thing?

With a normal guarantee, some bank makes the profit and if the loan goes bad we end up paying for it. This way we still end up paying for it if the loan goes bad... but the government agency makes the profit.

[wtmusic]

33. IF the loan goes bad.

Like Shoreham, for example. Where anti-nuke activists ran up the tab by reading complete magazine articles at public hearings as a stalling tactic. Costing Long Island Lighting Co. $1 million every day. Which Long Island residents are still paying for with a surcharge on every utility bill.

[kristopher]

21. I love when nuclear proponents use that foolish claim

A factory manufacturing wind turbines can put out 2.5GW of wind turbines per year. http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2011/10/automation-speeds-up-turbine-production?cmpid=WindNL-Wednesday-October19-2011

At the end of ten years this single plant should be responsible for manufacturing about 25 GW of wind turbines.

What's the total amount of electricity produced as the turbines come online over time during that period?
Since the wind doesn't blow all the time, the actual output was calculated using a recognized average that assumes they will produce 33% of their maximum capacity.

At the end of 5 years they would have deployed 5000 wind turbines. By the end of ten years that would be 10,000 turbines and they would have provided a cumulative total of approximately 389.7 terrawatt hours (TWh).

I selected 10 years because it is just under the 11 year average time it takes to plan and build one nuclear plant project, if it doesn't suffer delays - and they are almost behind schedule and over-budget.

At the international average 80% capacity factor, one (on the high-side-of-medium) nuclear plant of one gigawatt size actually produces about 7 TWh each year.

So devoting approximately the same resources to each technology gives us, at the end of 10 years:

10,000 wind turbines producing 72 TWhs of electricity per year

or

one nuclear plant that might be ready to begin to producing 7TWh per year.

Given the standard 20 year life span for the turbines and assuming the plant continued production of the same product, this factory will max out it's contribution to growth of wind power at 50GW when it hits the 20 year/20 20,000 turbine mark and starts to build replacements for those wearing out.

That 50GW of turbines should actually produce approximately 144 TWh of electricity every year and by this time the steadily mounting number of installed turbines will have produced a cumulative total of about 390TWh of electricity, or to put it another way, the total output of our one nuclear plant (at 7TWh/year) for 54 years!

50GW faceplate capacity X .33 capacity factor = 16.5GW of average continuous production. That 16.5GW equals approximately twenty (20) 1GW nuclear reactors operating at the international average capacity factor of about 80%, plus the 54 years worth of production from the nuclear plant that the wind turbines have already cranked out.

That's one factory making what is now a rather small 2.5MW wind turbine...

[FBaggins]

22. Lol! And you're still spinning that nonsense.

After multiple corrections no less.

As if the factory producing a couple parts of a turbine is all that you need to look at when making the comparison. Who cares aboout the rest of the equation, right?

The factory making break pads for Citicar 1000 can produce five million sets of pads per year... therefore there will be 50 million Citicars on the road in a decade. Right?

What utter nonsense... and how ironic that you begin the post with "foolish claim".