Energy Matters

McCain <3 Nuclear Power

So I just read the McCain wants to build 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030 which would be a very impressive feat for a 70-something year old, especially as he will be in his early 90s by the time he plans on finishing the project. But I am guessing he probably wants other people to build them, which would make a lot more sense. What doesn't make sense is how someone could claim to be tough on terrorism but want to increase the amount of fissile material out there. 45 new nuclear power plants would produce a lot of waste (which we can't permanently store by the way) which could be used in making a nuclear bomb. The thing that stops terrorists from making nuclear devices isn't the technological complexity (a basic bomb can be made by throwing two pieces of uranium at each other) it's getting the nuclear material. So if we drastically increase the number of nuclear plants we have, we will increase the likelihood of terrorists getting nuclear material (and the likelihood of others getting cancer/radiation poisoning).

Oh, and don't forget that Nuclear power plants need lots of water, an increasingly scarce commodity.

Oh, and the fact that companies are reluctant to make a nuclear power plant without tons of gov't subsidies, which of course we all know is a big tenet of McCain's platform.

I wish I had the numbers on the cost per watt of solar and wind compared to the full cost (including semi-permanent storage) of nuclear power. Also, I wonder how many brownie points solar and wind get since they don't contribute to terrorist threats as nukes do.

Nuclear Threat in Georgia

A nuclear power plant in Georgia was forced to shut down today because of a cyber attack. I would just like to point out that this couldn't happen to distributed power generation, nor could it happen to a solar farm or a wind farm. Also, any accident on a solar farm or a wind farm would cause much less damage to surrounding areas than any other type of accident at a power plant.

Just another advantage of renewables.

I just don't get nuclear power (warning, slightly melodramatic)

*Disclaimer* I just finished re-reading Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's book Good Omens which has a big bit about nuclear weapons causing the apocalypse. And now onto the post.
--
I understand that the idea of "energy too cheap to meter" is pretty attractive, but nuclear power has not delivered that. Last I heard, all utilities that operate nuclear power plants still charge their customers per kWh (if you know of a utility that doesn't, please let me know, I would be pretty happy to not have a power bill). Also, there is the slight issue of nuclear proliferation (for more info Google Iran), or terrorist threats. Oh, and the fact that nuclear waste takes thousands of years to decay.

To put half-life and the time it takes nuclear waste to no longer become a hazard, in context....
According to Wikipedia, "Certain radioactive elements (such as plutonium-239) in “spent” fuel will remain hazardous to humans and other living beings for hundreds of thousands of years." Human civilization has been around for about 15,000 years. My favorite line about the whole thing is that one day knowledge of what the Soviet Union was will be lost to the passage of time. No textbook will mention it, not even the most esoteric historian will have heard of such a thing...but the USSR's nuclear waste will still be harmful*.

So why do we consider it a part of our energy future? People say that it is CO2 free and because desperate times call for desperate measures we should invest in more nuclear power to save ourselves from Global Warming. While that would work, so would using AIDS to get rid of a cancerous tumor. Effective, but it doesn't lead to a happy ending (a similar idea is the basis for the Will Smith movie I Am Legend by the way).

In my eyes nuclear power fails a cost-benefit analysis, not just fails but bombs it.
Pro: generates a lot electricity through uranium which can be reused a few times
cons: needs a lot of water for cooling (ok, some new plants can use air for that)
nuclear waste can't be permanently stored
terrorist threat
nuclear proliferation
complex, tightly-bound systems are just waiting for a disaster

We have other ways of generating electricity without poisoning the only Earth we have for hundreds of thousand of years...shouldn't we be using those instead?

--
*provided humanity lives for that long, which is looking doubtful if we don't find a balance with nature soon

Scary China fact for the moment

Currently I am taking a class called "China, energy and the environment". It's a very interesting class and with each reading assignment (of which there are many) I am learning tons of scary China energy facts. I'm not sure if I'll save them up for one post, or post them as I see them, but we'll see.

So, today's scary China fact is (drum roll please)*

From now until 2030, at current energy growth rates, China is projected to add 1312 GW to its generating capacity, which is more than the total current installed capacity in the US
(“IEA World Energy Outlook)
--
Imagine if you will, another US energy system...inside another country...on top of what they already have...

And we are going to power that....how? Peak Oil is 2015... coal kills the earth (sure carbon capture and storage will happen someday, right around we get the cold fusion thing to work)...and that many nuclear power plants would be able to make western China glow in the dark (not to mention the whole, we have yet to develop a permanent way of storing the radioactive waste).

Looks like solar, wind, tidal, hydro, geothermal and the rest of the Renewable bunch are going to have to step up to the plate. Makes me wonder why BP is open to the idea of selling its alternative energy division.

Fundamentally Flawed Utility System

There is a big debate out there that has been raging for a while: What is the cheapest form of energy?
Coal, Natural Gas, Nuclear, Oil, Biogass, Geothermal, Solar Thermal, Photovoltaic, Wind, Water, and kinetic and a few others (like gravity) are the ways we can generate electricity. It's a pretty heated debate and the true costs of any energy source are hard to calculate exactly. There are questions that need to be asked and answered to find the true cost of any of these sources. Questions like what about pollution/mining costs, is it subsidized already, does it require big power lines?

The cheapest (and cleanest) thing to do would be reduce our demand and become more efficient. But the problem with pursuing this is the incentive structure. Utilities have no incentive to encourage efficiency because they get paid per each kWh their customers consume.

So, if you want to encourage energy efficiency, you have to use rate decoupling for utilities so they will stop resisting and in fact help their clients cut their demand.

Rate decoupling is the local Public Utilities Commission guaranteeing  a utility  a certain amount of  revenue each year which it can make by setting a specific $/kWh rate for its customers while still maintaining a high level of service. If the utility earns higher revenue then they are allowed to have, the PUC takes the excess. If a utility (like any other company) wants to maximize profits, and has a fixed level of revenue, it must cut costs. If it can't cut costs by reducing the quality of service, it will do so by helping its customers become more energy efficient, so the utility won't have to buy as much fuel (or build more wind turbines or solar panels, etc).

Bada bing bada boom, utilities make money by making their consumers more energy efficient. US energy demand goes down, quality stays the same, less energy producing stuff needs to be built, fewer mines need to be opened, less reliance on oil, fewer Green house gasses emitted. We will all stand in a big circle and sing Kumbaya.

So find an email address at your local public utility commission and tell them that you support Rate decoupling.

(posts on side affects to come)