Without nuclear, clean energy takes on Goldbergian complexity

[wtmusic]

[div style="float: left; padding-right: 12px;"]"Larry Beahan is conservation chairman of the Sierra Club Niagara Group, so he likely has some tart things to say about nuclear energy. But that’s not his direct goal in his op-ed in the Buffalo News. His purpose is to synopsize and endorse a plan by Cornell Professor Robert Howarth to completely move New York state from fossil fuels and nuclear energy to renewable energy. Professor Howarth’s paper, published in the journal Energy Policy, is clearly a serious work. It has practical guidance as to how New York might proceed with his ideas, but is largely intended, I think, as an explication of its efficacy.

I was amused by a table he created of “plants or devices” needed to achieve his goal – about 16,000 windmills and almost 5 million residential PV systems all told. That’s a lot of windmills that all have moving parts to keep in order. And a lot of buy-in will be required to induce people too install PV systems on their roofs.

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The real fun comes in how to deal with the intermittency of renewable energy, because it sounds like Rube Goldberg gone berserk. There is no real way to stow significant levels of electricity, which sends Beahan (and Howarth) skittering across the possibilities."

http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2013/05/without-nuclear-rube-goldberg-energy.html

[kristopher]

1. I'm sorry, that is simply low IQ crapola.

The lapse is that the author can't comprehend the idea of a distributed generation system. It is no more complex than what we now use; it is just different - and better.

[ret5hd]

2. It's his job...every one has to eat.

[kristopher]

3. Meh. Another Voice: New York can replace fossil, nuclear energy by 2030

The nuclear notes write is a nuclear acolyte that has the same problem perverting the scientific acumen of creationist - everything is filtered through a prism of religious dogma. For the creationist everything starts with a young earth. For the nuclear acolyte everything starts with the requirement that nuclear MUST be Chosen.

Here is the original article:

Another Voice: New York can replace fossil, nuclear energy by 2030
on May 16, 2013 - 12:01 AM
By Larry Beahan

Professor Robert Howarth has done the numbers. His plan to have New York State off fossil fuels and powered totally by renewable ones is published in the peer-reviewed journal Energy Policy. Read it at www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/NewYork WWSEnPolicy.pdf.

He shows that by 2030, New York State could supply itself with energy entirely from wind, water and sun. He calls for the total replacement of fossil and nuclear energy with electricity from these renewables.

Conversion to all-electric would improve the efficiency of power-consuming devices by 37 percent. In his plan, energy sources would be 50 percent onshore and offshore windmills and 38 percent concentrated and dispersed solar panels, with the rest a mix of wave devices, tidal turbines, hydroelectric and geothermal plants.

He deals with the problem of variability of wind and sun by building over-capacity and storing the excess energy. It would be stored both where it is produced and where it is used, in batteries, thermal media, pumped water, compressed air, fly wheels, in the batteries of our new fleet of all electric vehicles and in the form of hydrogen for burning where high temperatures are needed.

Howarth’s peer-reviewed numbers...

http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130516/OPINION/130519387/1074

Bringing the power generation closer to and under the control of the end user is NOT adding complexity. Redundancy yes. Complexity no.

[madokie]

5. How better to expain this

Every study studied, every paper written isn't necessarily only about the subject, sometimes its about the money.

[RobertEarl]

4. Progress, what a concept

Some folks are stuck in the 50's, still. Hooked up to a nuke plant that has proven to be both too dangerous and in the end - talking decades of cleanup - too expensive. They love their nukes. Right to the bloody end.

While hooked up with nukes, which are a technology way beyond their control or knowledge, they refuse to embrace new tech using safe common man control and knowledge. It is as if they want to have something big and dangerous hanging over their heads.

The rest of the world seeks energy sources that can be lived with. Hey! How about the sun? We can live with that right? And the wind. Earth stuff like geothermal and flowing water. All energy sources that with progress can supply our energy needs, long as the sun shines and the winds blow.

Quit fighting it nukers. Let go of nukes and embrace tomorrow's progressive tech and enjoy a cleaner, more pollution free future.