Study: Wind and Solar Are More Economical Than Coal and Nuclear

[Liberation Angel]

Total Cost-Benefit Accounting for Electric Energy
Wind and Solar Are More Economical Than Coal and Nuclear

"Support for coal and nuclear power retards the growth of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind. The costs of
misguided energy decisions have been calculated and it they are substantial. Continued reliance on outdated, polluting
facilities such as coal-fired and nuclear power plants has real costs borne by all citizens. Any true cost-benefit analyses of
electric power must include environmental effects on forests, agriculture and species diversity, climate change including
global warming, direct and indirect government subsidies, impacts on jobs and the economy, and adverse health impacts
from pollution. Ratepayers and taxpayers should insist on policies which promote the accelerated growth of wind and
solar power. Renewable energy production can and should reach a minimum of 20% of the total U.S. electric supply by
2020."

I found this at the UN website: http://unjobs.org/authors/olav-hohmeyer

full article here:

http://www.bredl.org/pdf/RPS041117.pdf


Because Nuclear subsidies and loan guarantees are in the current energy bill and MAY BE supported by top dems (even Obama) this info is critically important.

Bot only are renewables POSSIBLE but subsidies for coal and nuclear are economically detrimental in general AND they delay or reduce investment in critical renewable energy development which can provide 100% of our energy by 2050 if we make THAT, and not nukes or coal, our goal.

But we need to inform ourselves and our representatives if this is to happen.

Obama is right now considering supporting MORE nuclear subsidies (loan guarantees for the nuke industry)

[Laelth]

1. Wind power is economical? Of that claim I am very suspicious.

Wind Power BLOWS.

See the following:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/08/25/wind-turbine-bats.html
http://www.keepersoftheblueridge.com/faqs.html
http://www.nortexwind.org/index.htm
http://www.stopillwind.org/index.php
http://windconcernsontario.wordpress.com/
http://www.savewesternny.org/
http://www.wind-watch.org/
http://www.epaw.org/
http://www.windturbinesyndrome.com/?p=166
http://www.rivercitymalone.com/?p=654
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/04/21/the-unbearable-lightness-of-wi
http://notesfromotherside.blogspot.com/2009/04/more-on-renewable-energy.html
http://www.pest-03.org/ (Power Engineers Supporting Truth)

Or just watch this series of videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNxvkrgoPLo&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_utFV2ukOtU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOd5tSZF3A4&feature=related

There's more, but you get the idea. :)

The United States is a LIBERAL Country.

:dem:

-Laelth

[bananas]

6. It's true, wind is more economical than nuclear.

Wind is competitive with natural gas, nuclear doesn't come close.
That's why so many wind farms are going up, and so few nuclear plants:

NIRS Statement on Cancellation of Idaho Nuclear Reactor

TAKOMA PARK, MARYLAND - January 28 - Today, MidAmerican Nuclear Energy Company announced that it is cancelling its plans to build a new nuclear reactor in Payette County, Idaho.

The company cited the poor economics of nuclear power for its decision, saying that its “due diligence process has led to the conclusion that it does not make economic sense to pursue the project at this time.”

MidAmerican was planning on Warren Buffett’s Berkshire/Hathaway company to provide major financing for the project. Buffett is a major owner of MidAmerican.

Which leads NIRS to the obvious conclusion: if Warren Buffett cannot figure out how to make money from a new nuclear reactor, who can?

“This cancellation is the first of the new nuclear era,” said Michael Mariotte, executive director of Nuclear Information and Resource Service, “but it won’t be the last. Even before any new nuclear construction has begun in the U.S., cost estimates have skyrocketed and are now 300-400% higher than the industry was saying just two or three years ago.”

“The extraordinary costs of nuclear power, coupled with its irresolvable safety and radioactive waste problems, killed the first generation of reactors, and are going to end this second generation as well. But it would be tragedy if the U.S. wasted any money on new reactors, when resources are so desperately needed to implement the safer, cheaper, faster, and sustainable energy sources needed to address the climate crisis,” Mariotte added.

[bananas]

7. Cost of new energy

Nuclear power’s new debate: cost
Issues of safety and waste make way for a focus on funding.



<snip>

No new nuclear plants have been ordered in the US since 1978. This is not because of protestors, but because of a lack of investor funding and Wall Street remembering the ghosts of nuclear power’s past – massive construction cost overruns, utility defaults, and bankruptcies.

<snip>

ALTOGETHER, NUCLEAR-INDUSTRY BAILOUTS in the 1970s and ’80s cost taxpayers and ratepayers in excess of $300 billion in 2006 dollars, according to three independent studies cited in a new nuclear-cost study by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

<snip>

“You want to talk about bailouts – the next generation of new nuclear power would be Fannie Mae in spades,” says Mark Cooper, senior fellow at Vermont Law School’s Institute for Energy and the Environment.

<snip>

The multitrillion-dollar cost eclipses most energy sources, such as wind power, which also has a sizable up-front capital cost. But wind’s lifetime cost is roughly one-third less than current estimates for nuclear, Cooper’s and others studies show. So who would want to invest in such costly electricity? Not Wall Street – at least not without loan guarantees.

<snip>

[Statistical]

16. While no new sites have started 5 new sites are in final permit process with construction in 2010...

Lots of mothballed and abandoned plants are being spun up. Watts Bar is one example of a plant that halted construction in 1988 and construction has resumed. Should be operation in 2013 generating 1180MW.

This is just in the US. Worldwide about 80 plants are in permit process or under construction.
The IEAE estimate for nuclear power is 150 new reactors online by 2030, a 40% increase.

Anti-nukers drove the constructions time from 4 years (in 1964) to 12 years (in 1972) for nuclear power plant. When you have $6B loan collecting interest going an extra 8 years with no income increases the lifetime interest cost by 400%. Interest is the largest component of the lifecycle cost of nuclear.

Nuclear power plant built in 4 years = profitable.
Nuclear power plant built in 12 years = unprofitable.

It wasn't only the fault of anti-nukers. The NRC and DOE had very bad procedures that allowed changes to be made during construction. Changes that had to be remodeled and retested further delaying and increasing construction cost. The whole while that $6B loan is capitalizing interest.

NRC has streamlined procedures where
1) The plant is certified before construction. The AP1000 is an example. Every single part of the plant is certified, from bolts to switches. Every single AP1000 in the world will look exactly the same down to the location of doors, switches, valves etc.

2) Third generation plants are much less complex reducing the overnight capital costs and construction time.

3) Once plant is certified the NRC will not require any changes during construction as long as the plant is built exactly to the certified specs.

The goal is to get build time down to <4 years. This has already happened in China & Japan. If the five plants under permit right now can be built ontime and on-budget it will be the catalyst for an explosion in nuclear power plant construction.

[Tom Rinaldo]

17. I was one of those "anti-nukers".

And yes we did "drive the construction time", in my case at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. During that extended construction time PG&E (the utility company) was forced to reveal a then hidden memo that discussed the discovery of a previously unknown earthquake fault that ran directly below the construction site for the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. That led to new earthquake safety construction measures being mandated for Diablo Canyon - and "construction delays".

But no, we didn't stop driving the construction time then either. Finally, in 1981 I think it was - well past the 4 year build time you cite as "profitable", an engineer at the plant revealed DURING a massive civil disobedience action called to stop Diablo from going radioactive within days, that the company totally screwed up the blueprints, and installed all of the NRC mandated earthquake protection fixes backward (they did the fixes for unit A on unit B, and the fixes for unit B on unit A). It took PG&E another few years to fix that little problem. But hey, there hasn't been an earthquake there yet, so maybe we all should have let them just build Diablo Canyon without real scrutiny in four years the way they originally wanted it.

[Statistical]

2. Even if it is more economical (and there are many studies to disprove that)....

you still have the issue of variable output.

The power demand is already variable if you add an output that is variable it becomes impossible to manage. What happens when power demand exceeds supply? Brownouts? Blackouts? What happens when supply exceeds demand? Wasted power? Damage to the grid?

Notice the author is pushing for 20% variable sources by 2020 (a goal I agree with) but what about the other 80%.

For baseline generation you can have:

nuclear - medium cost per kwh, no emissions
coal - low cost per kwh, extreme emissions
natural gas - high cost per kwh, medium emissions

take you pick?

To move beyond about 20% variable sources will require building peaking generators to compensate for variable output. To move beyond about 50% variable sources will require some yet undiscovered method of storing terrawatts of power.

I would love to see 20% solar & wind, another 20% natural gas (can be adjusted quickly) and 60% nuclear and no coal or oil by 2030.

Those advocating no nuclear are advocating burning coal/oil or living in a fantasy world.

[AdHocSolver]

4. Development and adoption of more energy efficient technologies and better conservation ...

...will negate the necessity of building more power plants and make renewable energy sources sufficient to satisfy future energy requirements.

Just as widespread adoption of electric and hybrid-electric vehicles, as well as adoption of rail and other mass transit systems will reduce oil consumption, conservation through the use of more energy efficient appliances and through simple techniques such as turning lights off in office buildings when they are not occupied, will eliminate the need for building more power plants.

One reason for waste is the fact that pricing for energy by heavy users is kept low by hidden taxpayer subsidies to the energy companies. The main reason that more nuclear power plants have not been built in the last twenty plus years is because, without large taxpayer subsidies, they are too damn expensive to build and operate.

Another benefit of renewables such as wind and solar energy is that you can then distribute energy sources around the country to the locations where the energy is being used. This will eliminate the wasted energy in long distance transmission lines, reduce the cost of maintaining long distance transmission lines, and reduce the risk of one area failing and bringing down the power over large areas of the country at the same time.

[Statistical]

11. Even if I accept all of that as true.

We have 600 coal plants in the US so not building new coal plants is not enough.

I want to sell all/most of those 600 replaced and replaced in the next couple decades.
You can't do that without nuclear.

Also we are building new nuclear power plants. The reason we didn't was because anti-nukers were able to delay construction. In 1960 average nuclear power plant took 4 years to build, by 1972 that was 12 years. When a plant costs billions of dollars an extra 8 years QUADRUPLES the lifetime interest cost.

Lastly transmissions power lines are very efficient. We only lose about 4% of generated power to long distance transmission lines.

[AdHocSolver]

26. Building nuclear power plants is diverting money from developing "green" technology...

...for an assumed increase in demand that is never going to happen.

The continued offshoring of manufacturing means that there will be few functioning factories left in the U.S. in the next 20 years. Fewer factories means less demand for electricity to run them. With fewer factories, there will be fewer family supporting jobs. Fewer family supporting jobs means fewer people who can afford to purchase electrical gadgets which means less demand for electricity.

The economic depression that is arriving as we speak will significantly reduce demand for electric power over the next several years. Building any kind of power plant is throwing money down a rat hole. The money will be better spent on developing renewable energy sources and distributed energy sources which will satisfy future energy needs, which are going to be far less in the new economic era that this country is about to enter.

[bananas]

5. Nuclear is expensive and we don't need it - there are many studies which show this

• U.S. can meet 2020 emissions target with efficiency and cogeneration and save $700 billion
  
• The full solution to global warming
  
• Old coal’s out, can’t wait for new nukes, so what do we do NOW?
  

[Statistical]

12. Then we will keep 600 coal plants and burn millions of tons of coal a year. n/t

[Tim01]

14. How about adding the solar and wind to the power grid?

Burn coal when it is need to pick up the slack. As the amount produced by wind and solar goes up, the amount need from coal goes down.

[Statistical]

15. coal is rarely used for peaking power.

Coal plants adjust very slowly to demand.

Natural gas turbines can be spun up and down quickly so they are usually used for peaking power.

No coal fills the same role as nuclear. Steady low cost baseline power.

Most people pay about $0.11 per kwh but that is total cost. First of all transmission is about half that. Power generation retail averages $0.06 per kwh. Even that $0.06 is a matrix of baseline, supplemental, and peaking power.

Coal plants & nuclear plants run 24/7/365. Good nuclear plant will output 95% of theoretical output. As such baseline power generators receive the lowest price per kwh. Generally that is about $0.02 to $0.03 per kwh.

Wind and solar can not compete at those price points. If you need a high cost ($0.10 per kwh) natural gas turbine to be ready on standby then that increases the cost of solar & wind.

I hope to see much more solar in wind in the next 20 years but the reality is about half our power usage comes from low cost baseline power generation which is coal & nuclear.

Without a breakthrough technology that radically changes how power can be stored and transmitted, anti-nuclear is pro coal.

[Liberation Angel]

3. 100% Renewables is possible by 2050 - NOT just wind and solar

Maybe the title is slightly misleading, but the artilce makes it clear that RENEWABLES are more economically sound than nukes and coal (not JUST wind and solar)


Any reasonable approach is multifaceted and includes building, design, new grids, localized grids etc.

As for the other arguments, the evidence is addressed here:
http://www.inforse.org/europe/Vision2050.htm

Wind and solar are ony PART of an overall renewables strategy that can makes us 100% renewable sufficient by 2050.

But we have to STOP the subsidies of coal and nuclear to do it.

Both coal and nuclear are deadly technologies destroying the planet with gaseous and radioactive toxic cancer causing emissions.

we need NO More and need to phase out all that we currently have

Read the studies on renewables at the site linked here:

http://www.inforse.org/europe/Vision2050.htm

It is all there

The nuclear and coal industries are right wing industries of death.

[Massacure]

8. The U.S. should kill all of its energy subsidy programs and let the market rule.

I like this sentence:

Any true cost-benefit analyses of electric power must include environmental effects on forests, agriculture and species diversity, climate change including global warming, direct and indirect government subsidies, impacts on jobs and the economy, and adverse health impacts from pollution

Nnadir posted several years back a study by the EU titled something along the lines of "The External Cost of Energy: What You Pay With Your Flesh". Below is a 28 PDF file containing the study.

http://www.externe.info/externpr.pdf

[MH1]

9. Except that "the market" as defined and accepted in this country

does not take externalities such as environmental effects into account.

If you let "the market" rule without first fixing that, then you will still have a distorted outcome where environmental degradation is rewarded.

[Massacure]

10. True.

I made my pointing with the assumption that the government was enforcing clean air, clean water, and restoration laws. Government is sometimes to encumbered or even not willing to enforce the laws effectively. That needs to be changed too.

[MH1]

18. I don't think the necessary laws are even there

to account for the environmental costs adequately.

For example, apparently there are no laws, yet, that adequately address water distribution. That is going to be a bigger and bigger problem as unsustainable cities like Las Vegas try to continue their existence and the other areas they're taking water from decide they don't want to give it up anymore.

But I also agree that existing laws often are not effectively enforced.

[NutmegYankee]

13. What about practical?

You must adjust power output throughout the day to account for load changes, and wind and solar cannot do this.

[Kaleva]

19. Rec'd. A good discussion. Bookmarked for further reading.

[Liberation Angel]

22. The Energy Bill is being debated soon and nuke subsidies are in it so this thread may help

info here to rebut those who support nuclear and coal over renewables.

[Overseas]

20. But hey, if you take atmospheric deterioration and hazardous waste off the table,

then coal and nuclear may be competitive.

Way back when we were just starting to talk more seriously about sustainable development in the late 70's, we were brushed off by folks saying solar was just too expensive. It didn't meet the cost/benefit ratios of fossil fuel designed by the producers of fossil fuel.

When sustainable development proponents factored environmental destruction/disruption into the cost/benefit scenarios, it suddenly became far less popular to use the term cost/benefit analysis.

Factor in the cost of warfare to protect access to international oil resources and the cost/benefit ratio really favors solar and wind. And conservation technologies.

When you heed the admonition of James Hansen and other climate scientists around the world that we need to be below 350 ppm in carbon in our atmosphere to hold back the most intense disruptions of our climate, and we're now around 385 ppm, then you realize a lot more needs to be done than "clean coal."

What price shall we put on the atmospheric deterioration from too much carbon in our atmosphere that has accelerated the melting of glaciers, the breaking up of polar ice caps, the heating up and acidification of our oceans, and other disruption of earth ecosystems?

When you remember Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and other leaks of nuclear material, and ask where the tons of radioactive waste can be safely stored for thousands of years-- then you get a different picture of the cost of nuclear power.

[Liberation Angel]

21. It is the planned release of mutagenic and carcinogenic radionuclides that is the danger

the cost to human life is unbearable. It increases cancers and birth defects and thus causes higher health expenses for the whole society.

And it stays in the environment for decades and accumulates in our children's tissues irradiating and damaging the for their whole lives.

But if we overlook that, its fine.

[Overseas]

23. I hadn't thought about nuclear plants' emissions.

More to factor in to the true costs of nuclear power.

I am also sad about the political dominance of power discussions. I didn't want to believe that Fossil Fuel firms dislike renewables because they loosen the grip that large corporations have had on the distribution of electricity and power.

But it certainly seems like that has played a large part in our decision making.

[Liberation Angel]

24. It is the deadly nuclear elephant in the room: Nuke emissions kill

just as coal emissions kill.

But people do not want to believe that their government is irradiating them daily

with substances that will likely kill them and their children and children's children.

Industry wants us to be oblivious to them.

and proNuclear industry hacks want us to believe it is safe to add radiation to our daily bread and to feed it to our kids.

[Overseas]

25. And nuclear is so dangerous that it requires tight control by powerful corporations.

Not like renewables, which, properly subsidized, will evolve to allow individuals to control their own sources of power.

I remember reading about the electric car and people who quashed that technology at the time being concerned that being battery powered, it would make people more independent from the fossil fuel giants.

It is a pity that such bold power monopolies seem to have so much control of our national energy policies. We have passed a critical threshold of 350 ppm of carbon in our atmosphere. It is time for urgent change. We will still need fossil fuels to make those transitions, so I hope the powerful energy companies can chill and loosen their grip. But sadly, from Rachel Maddow's excellent show I hear that they are hiring amoral right wing PR firms to get troops of "genuine grass roots" Energy Citizens to band together in defense of their right to further destroy our atmosphere. Sad news.

I hope DU friends will join with people all over the world to make our more creative, nonviolent statements to our legislative leaders and fellow citizens about how critical the issue of reducing our carbon emissions is. www.350.org .