Other than 1) I would not call nuclear viable 2) wind+SOLAR+hydro+geothermal
BTW, one other thing, When people talk about mineral resources for solar/wind.
Same minerals for nuclear.
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 11:25 PM, Gar Lipow <gar.lipow at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 7:08 PM, Dissenting Wren
>> <dissentingwren at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>><snip>. Could you unpack the last
>>> paragraph a bit?
>> <snip> Paragraph to unpack:
>>> Incidentally nuclear and renewable are not complementary. If you have
>>> a lot of renewable energy, then you need shaping energy, on demand
>>> energy. Nuclear is baseload. If you use it for shaping you waste most
>>> of its capacity and it becomes extremely expensive. If you have a lot
>>> of nuclear, using nuclear for base load and maybe for load following,
>>> you need peaking power and spinning reserves. Renewables (except hydro
>>> and geothermal whose potential are limited) are lousy for that. So if
>>> you want to go carbon free you go nuclear or renewable. Splitting
>>> this baby just gives you a dead baby.
>>
>> Nuclear has a high capital cost (higher even than renewables) and low
>> operating cost. Where (in the abstract) nuclear can be cheap is that
>> you can run it all the time. So your total cost is low, because not
>> only do you have low operating cost, you make use of your capital 23
>> of 24 hours. Your actual power production is close to the theoretical
>> maximum.
>>
>> OK, not say you have a very high penetration of renewables - 75% of
>> your power comes from renewables. Well it is not going to provide 75%
>> 24 hours a day or close to it. It will provide 100% sometimes and 90%
>> sometimes and 75% and so on, down to 10% sometimes. (With that high a
>> pentration, it probably won't ever drop below 10%). So, say you are
>> using nuclear as backup. Well you have to have a nuclear power plant
>> capable of producing 90% of your needs and then run it at a lot less
>> than capacity most of the time. So your cheap nuclear power (not that
>> it was ever than cheap) suddenly becomes extremely expensive. The most
>> lowest estimates I've seen from independent sources of nuclear power
>> is 11 cents a kWh. Use those plants to shape a grid with a high
>> penetration of renewables and that changes to 22 cents per kWh or 33
>> cents per kWh. In comparison, Commonwealth Edison, who has been widely
>> criticized for overpaying for electricity, buys electricity for an
>> average of a bit over 7.5 cents a kWh in the merchant power market.
>>
>> Let's go the other way. Assume mostly nuclear, and try to complement
>> it with renewables. OK, well nuclear as I said is baseload. To get the
>> most out of it run it at maximum capacity producing the same amount
>> day and night. There are two extra steps for more penetration. We can
>> use various forms of smart grid and just plain old time of day pricing
>> to encourage shifting of as much demand to base, so as high a percent
>> of demand as we can manage is baseload. And we can build the plants
>> for a bit beyond baseload, throttle them down a bit for the minimum
>> demand period, up a bit during higher demand. Still not handling peak,
>> but doing what is known as load following. So now you you can run
>> plants at 70% capacity instead of 90% which is not that big a price
>> addition. But still need some for peaking and also for unexpected
>> increases in demand. And renewables don't give you shit there. I mean
>> the wind blows when it will, the sun shines when it will. So even
>> you try to use renewables for peaking or demand response you can't
>> count on them being there when you want them. Unless you put in place
>> the same amount of renewables that would if you had no nuclear, and
>> the same long distance transmission, and the same storage. And at the
>> point you get power when you want it, but you also get power when the
>> nukes are already providing all you need. So you end up having to
>> discard most of what your renewable sources produce. Just as trying
>> to using nuclear as backup for renewables ends up with very expensive
>> nuclear, trying to use renewables as backup for nuclear ends up with
>> very expensive renewables. Which if you think about it makes sense.
>> They are both capital intensive. Neither are truly demand responsive.
>> They have similar flaws, other than nuclear being a hell of a lot more
>> deadly. Neither compensates for the other's weaknesses. Not much is
>> gained from mixing them.
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