“This is a very serious accident by all standards. And it is not yet over.” – Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
George Monbiot, the known environmentalist and journalist managed to surpass the nuclear power lobby in the downplaying of the Fukushima disaster. First, he wrote that the disaster should not lead to an end of nuclear power, since that would mean more coal plants, so we should build more nuclear plants (Monbiot.com). Then, he wrote that since no one died from Fukushima he is now a nuclear power advocate (Monbiot.com). Amazing.
His arguments are as far-fetched as they are deceiving. It is worth to discuss them in detail, going through four strategies that he uses to make his point.
Cherry-picking: playing with statistics to downplay the health effects of ratiation
Nuclear power enthusiasts like to say that the damage to human health from Chernobyl was negligible. Monbiot here again sides with them and quotes the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) figure of 28 deaths from Chernobyl’s staff and emergency workers, caused by radiation exposure, and 15 additional deaths from thyroid cancer from people living in the surroundings (link). The figure appears in the Chernobyl Forum, a regular meeting of IAEA and several UN agencies, reports. But Monbiot “forgot” to add to this figure the estimated 9,000 deaths from thyroid cancer. He also “didn’t notice” that the Chernobyl Forum, while avoiding estimates of cancer deaths among the most exposed to radiation because of the significant uncertainties regarding the treatment of data, it admitted that they could amount to thousands (PDF). Worse still, he “forgot” to mention how these estimates are contested.
In 2006, Greenpeace commissioned a report on the health effects from Chernobyl, in which it is estimated that about 200,000 people can die from cancers caused by radiation exposure (PDF). The Chernobyl Forum dismissed this study as “ideological” and “non-scientific” but its results were backed by many scientific studies.
In the same year, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) estimated that more than 10,000 people were affected by thyroid cancer, to which 50,000 more cases are expected in the future should be added. The IPPNW report (link) is highly critical of the Chernobyl Forum’s evaluation of the scientific literature, as the references it quotes mention 10,000 to 25,000 additional deaths due to cancer but the number was somehow crushed to 4,000 and as statistics regarding the increase in several health problems and deaths among rescue workers were ignored.
More importantly, in 2007, a book published by the New York Academy of Sciences, called “Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe of the People and the Environment” (Google Books) estimated a whopping 985,000 deaths as a result of the radioactivity released in the 1986-2004 period. The book used as a reference over 1,000 published scientific articles and over 5,000 Internet and printed publications, mostly from Slavic origin, which were ignored by the Chernobyl Forum.
I’m no expert on the matter, so I won’t discuss the differences in methodology among these studies. It is worthy of note that we still know little about the effects of radiation on human health because there aren’t a lot of subjects to study. The estimates we have now on safe levels of radiation are based on data from the survivors of the infamous bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Fortunately, it is still impossible to find other populations that were exposed to high levels of radiation, so all we can do is extrapolate from this data and try to estimate the long-term effects of radiation exposure.
Yet, it seems evident to me that one should be suspicious of the Chernobyl Forum’s estimates, as one of the main participants is the powerful pro-nuclear lobby IAEA. As someone who states “I despise and fear the nuclear industry as much as any other green”, Monbiot should do the same, instead of just assuming that the “green” side of the argument is wrong and arguing that “Some greens have wildly exaggerated the dangers of radioactive pollution”.
Crystal ball: pretending to have the ability to guess the future
The danger of a nuclear meltdown on Fukushima is still long from gone. The rescue team has managed to put the power back on and start pumping water but, according to the engineers running the operation, the hardest tasks are still ahead and only two weeks from now, if all goes well, can we be sure that the worse was prevented. We still don’t know how much radiation was leaked into the surrounding area, how many people are going to be exposed and what the consequences will be. But Monbiot assures us that the problem was solved: “Atomic energy has just been subjected to one of the harshest of possible tests, and the impact on people and the planet has been small.”
Unless Monbiot has psychic abilities, it is hard to imagine how he can know that, no matter what happens in the next days, the impact of the leaked radiation on human health and on the environment will be negligible. Personally, I don’t believe that Monbiot can guess the future, so I can only conclude that he is being cynical and wonder if he would have the guts to tell the residents from Fukushima that there’s nothing to worry about.
Deceitfulness: playing with words to fool the reader
Monbiot bases his argument for nuclear power on the false choice between nuclear winter and global warming. If we don’t have nuclear power, the argument goes, we will need to use coal, and we’ll all die from climate change. If we use nuclear power instead, only some people die. In his words: “nuclear causes calamities when it goes wrong, coal causes calamities when it goes right, and coal goes right a lot more often than nuclear goes wrong.”
He goes then to show that even the main problem of nuclear power, radioactivity, is present in coal-fired plants, by quoting a Scientific American article (link) stating “the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy.” From this, Monbiot concludes that, on every measure, coal is 100 times worse than nuclear, even considering radioactivity. But reading the quoted article, one can easily see how misleading this conclusion is.
What the article is quoting is a figure from a 1978 study that compared the radioactivity present in fly ash and the radioactivity present in the surroundings of a nuclear plant, where radioactive waste is sealed. It is of no wonder that the former is greater than the latter, despite still not being high enough to cause health problems. To jump from this to comparisons between burning coal and being exposed to radioactivity from nuclear fuel when there is a leak or a meltdown makes no sense.
The editors note on the article says it all: “As a general clarification, ounce for ounce, coal ash released from a power plant delivers more radiation than nuclear waste shielded via water or dry cask storage.” So, the comparison is between a certain event with negligible health effects or a low-probability event with significant health effects. Monbiot clearly thinks that the former is more acceptable than the latter, after leaving aside the possibility of neither being acceptable. He should have been honest enough to make this point clearly, instead of playing with words.
Twilight zone: what is true in this reality can be untrue in another dimension
To us the coal-vs-nuclear blackmail (which is the only convincing pro-nuclear argument an environmentalist can offer), Monbiot has to prove that we cannot have 100% renewable energy. It should not come as a surprise that he chooses to evade the hard question.
There are several reports which show that we can abandon both fossil fuels and nuclear power and still provide energy to everyone’s needs. Both WWF (link) and Greenpeace (link) published reports showing possible pathways to achieve this goal by 2050. A similar study was made for Australia by Beyond Zero Emissions (link).
There are also several scientific papers on the subject, based on case studies from a single country. A paper in Energy (abstract) concluded that reaching 100% renewables by 2050 is feasible for Denmark. Another paper in Applied Energy (abstract) concludes that “a 100% renewable energy-system is not only feasible in Ireland, but that there are numerous methods of achieving this.”, leaving as an object of future research how and when to achieve this goal.
I could go on showing examples but the point is that while Monbiot crossed his arms and assumed that getting rid of fossil fuels and nuclear is impossible in the next decades, experts around the world are using their brains to figure out how we can phase out non-renewable energy starting now.
Then there’s the problem of cost. The main argument given against the expansion of renewables is their high cost, but nuclear power is even more expensive. Back in 2003, already a comprehensive study by the MIT concluded that nuclear power can only be competitive against fossil fuels if its cost decreases and a high carbon tax is imposed (link), and the conclusion was again present in the 2009 update and in the 2010 evaluation of the nuclear fuel cycle (PDF). MIT then recommended that taxpayers’ money should be used to subsidize the nuclear power industry, as a temporary measure until its cost decreases enough to make it competitive in deregulated markets. But last year, Citibank issued a report showing that the cost of nuclear power has been increasing and predicting that it will not decrease in the future (PDF). Further, the cost estimates that MIT uses are much lower than the estimates from consultancies and the historical data from the industry (Nuclear Information and Resource Service).
Nuclear power isn’t even cost-efficient compared to renewables. A study from the Rocky Mountain Institute, for instance, estimates that reducing emissions through expansion of nuclear power is 2 to 10 times more expensive and takes 20 to 40 times as much time as reducing emissions by investing in efficiency, renewables and co-generation (link). Talk about wasting money.
Monbiot’s answer to these claims is laughable. In the debate with Green MP Caroline Lucas (Guardian), he makes the following point: “When you have a relatively low penetration of renewables on the grid – 10, 20, 30, even 50%, the costs will not be that high. But once you get beyond 50% or maybe 70%, they are likely to escalate dramatically, because you need a lot more redundancy and storage. So while you can say wind at the moment costs less than nuclear, it’s much harder to be confident that wind, once we’ve got 60% of all our electricity being produced by renewables, will cost less than nuclear. My guess, because I haven’t yet seen a comparative study, and I don’t believe one exists, is that when we get up to those sorts of levels, nuclear is likely to be quite a lot cheaper.”
To put it in other words, while it is true that nuclear is not cost-effective now, it might be true that it will be cost-effective when we have a high percentage of renewables (even though their cost is decreasing) and this possibility justifies the investment in new nuclear power plants.
This “what if” argument is present in a different form in one of his articles: “It may well be the case (I have yet to see a comparative study) that up to a certain grid penetration – 50 or 70% perhaps? – renewables have smaller carbon impacts than nukes, while beyond that point, nukes have smaller impacts than renewables.” When everything else fails, Monbiot turns to guessing the future games.
Flip-flop leads to discredit
In December 2009, I saw George Monbiot in a debate on nuclear power in the KlimaForum. Among environmental activists, he claimed that he changed his stance from neutrality to opposition to nuclear power because the risks are too high. Among other things, he mentioned how there is no regulatory system that is reliable enough to assure us that radioactive waste won’t be just thrown into the sea, as some has been in the last decades. Now, he uses the most ridiculous, cynical and even dishonest arguments to support nuclear energy, destroying the image of a journalist who is serious about his use of sources.
It is one thing to change one’s mind and only an idiot doesn’t do that several times over her life. It’s another thing to engage in an intensive flip-flop and become someone who has no opinion of his/her own. Maybe someday Monbiot will change his mind again and turn anti-nuclear again, but I for one can’t take him seriously anymore.
Renewables simply can’t deliver base load power to an advanced industrial economy. Wishing it was so doesn’t make it so. Nuclear might need subsidies to get off the ground, but once it’s there, at least it will provide power at the level required. Wind and solar are already subsidised and they can’t deliver the goods.
The choice is coal or nuclear, I’m afraid.
eh no … how about a lower power world!
rubbish. the choice is reduce our consumption and energy wastage or watch nature become even more imbalanced….
“The choice is coal or nuclear, I’m afraid.”
This is a fallacy of exhaustive hypotheses. It is a type of logical fallacy that involves a situation in which only two alternatives are considered, when in fact there are additional options.
“The definition of alternatives is the supreme instrument of power.” E F Schattschneider (American politica theorist)
Why does Monbiot have to prove we can’t have 100% renewable energy? Sure, we can. But at what cost? There’s the rub.
50% to 70% grid penetration from renewables: How is that even possible without blackouts when the sun goes down and the wind stops?
Randall Parker,
Problems with renewables:
- they are intermittent….
Nuclear has its own problems with intermittency, not withstanding the odd unplanned outage for safety reasons: http://daryanenergyblog.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/myth-v-%E2%80%93-but-we-can%E2%80%99t-rely-on-renewables-because-of-their-intermittence-nature/
This intermittency argument is something of a red herring, as it depends what renewable sources we’re talking about and how they’re utilised as well as ignoring the fact we can store energy by various means.
- Some them are expensive….
Yes but not as expensive as nuclear is! http://daryanenergyblog.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/myth-iv-nuclear-power-is-cheaper-than-any-of-the-alternatives/
While the costs of renewables will likely fall in the future nuclear’s costs (post-Fukushima) will likely rise, never mind the costs of decommissioning!
Furthermore the major problem with nuclear is the financial uncertainty over its costs, as this Citigroup report makes clear: https://www.citigroupgeo.com/pdf/SEU27102.pdf
- NREL have a vested interest in promoting renewables
I don’t think Citigroup (above) are a noted bastion of pro-renewables sentiment, and they don’t seem too keen on nuclear! When economists tell you the numbers don’t add up, that’s when you know you’re in trouble.
….lots of politics supporting renewables…..
What? I think the nuclear pot is calling the kettle black here! Nuclear power is as blatantly political as you can get. You’ll find few if any nuclear projects that have ever gone ahead without a nod from the powers that be.
D A Ryan,
The intermittency argument is complicated, but no red herring. The site you linked to states that nuclear has it’s own problems associated with requiring being constantly ‘on’ where demand fluctuates. This is very different from renewables as it is perfectly predictable, so systems can be established much more easily to deal with it. However the main problem in that link is the series of qualitative assertions with no numbers to back up viability.
You’ll find most of the 100% renewable case studies listed in the report rely heavily on the use of biofuels to offer a ‘green’ alternative to natural gas to back up the intermittency of renewables, but don’t justify where this biofuel will come from. Some biofuel is available as waste products of processes we already do, but no where near enough to back up a global 100% renewable network. There is already severe ecological damage being done in the pursuit of biofuels (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2007/aug/17/biofuelsmenacerainforests) and we shouldn’t casually brush this off as something that will sort itself out – it won’t.
“None of the studies reviewed in our assessment suggest that intermittency is a major obstacle to the integration of renewable sources of electricity supply. At the levels of penetration foreseeable in the next 20 years, it is neither necessary nor appropriate to allocate dedicated ‘back up’ or reserve plant to individual renewable generators when these are integrated into modern electricity networks.” http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/support/tiki-index.php?page=Intermittency
“Intermittency” becomes even less of an issue as e.g. offshore wind is expanded, where winds blow constantly and strongly.
Also, there is massive progress being made in battery technology – there are already grid-scale storage solutions and they continue to improve and fall in costs.
Also, as country grids are connected – e.g. the UK and Netherlands have just opened an HVDC connection – the issue of intermittency further disappears.
“Intermittency” seems to be the final battleground for the fossil and nuke propaganda departments – and they are losing that battle. Badly.
2sixity2,
Nuclear is NOT perfectly predictable. Firstly in the event that one unexpectly trips for safety reasons you still need a spinning reserve of something (non nuclear as it can respond quickly enough) on the grid ready to go just in case. Furthermore many existing nuclear reactors have only a very limited scope to vary their power output, at least in comparision to the speed at which the grid fluctuates (it takes them hours to change output, the grid takes minutes or seconds). Once nuclear goes above 20-40% of a countries electricity demand the only way to vary output (exlusively through nuclear anyway) is by by gradually ramping up/or down power output from the reactor.
But reactors become unstable if their power output is rapidly varied, espicially at low power levels. One of the many safety violations committed at Cherynobl was that they started a reactor shut down and then aborted it when grid demand unexpectly rose and (another plant went off line) and they started raising control rods again (normally you’d have to shut it down completely and restart after a day or two’s decay). This was a major violation of safety rules, made worse by the fact they then continued the shutdown procedure later on that day and then tried operating the reactor at a low power output… the rest is history…and its not the thing we want people repeating on a daily basis!
More modern reactors do have a bit more scope for varying plant output, but only by keeping the power output high, generally at maximum, and essentially throwing away large amounts of steam whenever grid demand drops below a certain level. If you’re advocating throwing away the best part of half the energy nuclear power generates you can increase by 2 or more the cost of nuclear electricity (which is already higher than renewables). The principle argument against using energy storage (batteries, pumped storage, hydrogen generation, take you’re pick), to even out the peak and troughs of renewables, also falls by the wayside, because none of these would be as grossly inefficient, nor as expensive as you’ve now rendered nuclear.
As I stated in my article all energy sources have they’re own pecularities and to pick on renewables and say “oh! that doesn’t work because sometimes the wind doesn’t blow” just ignores a whole host of issues. Yes, intermittency is an issue for renewables, but equally nuclear also has its own problems.
You’re also getting you’re arguments with biofuels mixed up. Yes “some” biofuels are a waste of time and bad for the environment but don’t tar every source with the same brush. Biofuels from chip fat, recycled waste wood chippings from European based sustainable forests or willow, hemp etc., are all very different. The devils in the detail!….not that I’m a particular fan of biofuels mind!
Blue Rock,
Thank you for linking to that report. It appears most interesting and I will give a a thorough read at some point!
darayan12,
Thanks for your comments (and a very interesting blog). I don’t dispute the inflexibility of nuclear, and equally I very much endorse as much use of renewables as much as is feasibly possible! My comment served more to highlight that no energy source is without it’s issues. I know some biofuels are very good indeed (a good source to get some rough numbers- http://www.urbanmines.org.uk/?i=3216&s=1111). My point was more that these sources are limited and shouldn’t be used as a cop-out for a well structured ‘green’ plan to balance supplies.
Perhaps you’re right and nuclear is counter productive above 20-30% supply penetration. And I completely agree that any source shouldn’t be written off because of a few obstacles. But I include nuclear in that. It has many problems, but it should not be neglected as a possibly important tool to help solve our energy needs. I fear that far too many voices on both sides (including Monbiot, as shown by his erratic views) have a poor grasp of the basic numbers involved, but use emotional arguments and hand-picked quotes to support their poorly constructed points. The problem is not simple, and won’t have a simple solution.
In summary; I don’t know what place nuclear has in a future energy policy, but I do know that finding reasons to exclude it before you start (as with any other energy source) is the wrong way of approaching the problem.
daryan,
Actually I’ve had a better look at your blog and like it a lot (have now bookmarked it), it’s refreshing to see some comments from someone who vaguely knows what they’re talking about
!
The only point I would add is that the “nutty cheerleaders” for certain renewables are as potent as those for nuclear and can be just as damaging, particularly when influencing people not from a technical background. The number of people I see lap up whatever ill conceived green press releases come their way, but dismiss nuclear as the root of all evil begins to grate…
Certainly I believe it’s the engineers and scientists that should be directing energy policy, NOT politicians, PR people, and journalists.
2sixty2,
Agreed, we do need more science engineers and a pragmatic approach to these problems, hence why you’ll note in my blog I don’t necessarily take nuclear off the table.
What worries me about nuclear and its cheerleaders is that they are applying the sort of hard sell tactics usually reserved for used car salesmen, and are trying to sell nuclear to the public for all the wrong reasons. While there maybe there is a case for “some” countries with poor renewable resources to build a few plants (preferably smaller gas cooled ones rather than these mega LWR). Instead, like any dodgy salesman, they are trying to sell 10 units or 20 units (big LWR’s of course!) way more than the country actually needs “buy one, get one three”…i.e you’ll be getting one for the price of three! :0
“Oh! & you’ll need a MOX plant to go with that as well, sir!” ” don’t want to be dependant on the Russians for Uranium as well as Gas!”…. (he briefly turns, strikes his forehead and mubbles close the deal Willy! close the deal!) :0
Inevitably if they do this then sooner or later they’ll get “found out” and we’ll be left with several multi billion euro holes in the ground – or worse, another serious nuclear accident. Also there’s the worrying matter of nuclear waste. Whether people are pro-nuclear or against it we need to do something about it now, as leaving it lying around is just asking for trouble.
And of course theres’ the issue of nuclear safety. While some elements of the media do go running around in a tissy at the mere mention of the word “radiation”. The other extreme “oh! its just a little radiation don’t you worry you’re pretty little head about it” is hardly encouraging….especially as these are the guys actually running nuclear power stations!
There are several solutions, if you read the reports I mentioned. The most important thing is to reduce energy demand, which is possible, feasible, easy and extremely cost-effective, by investing in efficiency reforms. Then, there’s the need to deal with variability. This can be achieved by investing in renewables that can deliver baseload energy, like concentrated solar and geothermal, investing in energy storage, like compressed air systems, and/or investing in smart grids that can improve our management of supply and demand. These are all technologies that we have now, and all of them are cheaper than nuclear.
Even if we accept that we need to have some baseload power in a transition period, we could use gas power, since gas plants are the most efficient and gas is less polluting than coal.
It seems likely to me that he’s been nobbled. I certainly wouldn’t discount the possibility of heavy bribery and / or blackmail. Someone should ask him straight up.
Ricardo,
Great article. Thank you.
Couple of points:
* WHO / IAEA updated their “4000 dead” to “9000 dead” a few months later: WHO: “…there may be up to 9,000 excess cancer deaths due to Chernobyl among the people who worked on the clean-up operations, evacuees and residents of the highly and lower-contaminated regions in Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine.” http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr20/en/index.html
* WHO / IAEA then appear to have admitted they invented the 4000 number: “Explaining why the 4,000 figure was given prominence in the report, Melissa Fleming, a press officer for the International Atomic Energy Agency told Nature that it was to counter the much higher estimates which had previously been seen. … “It was a bold action to put out a new figure that was much less than conventional wisdom.”" http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4922508.stm
And compare what Monbiot is arguing now with what he stated in 2006: “To start building a new generation of nuclear power stations before we know what to do with the waste produced by existing plants is grotesquely irresponsible. … If, as a result of slow leakage into the groundwater, radioactive materials from a burial site kill an average of only one person a year for one million years, those who made the decision to bury them will – through their infinitesimal and unrecorded impacts – be responsible for the deaths of a million people.” http://www.monbiot.com/2006/07/11/thanks-but-we-still-dont-need-it/
Nothing has changed since then re. the storage of nuclear waste. We still only have one ‘solution’: dig a hole, bury the waste and hope it does not leak for the next 1 million years.
Monbiot has destroyed all credibility that he had IMO.
Thanks for the links, they’re most helpful and I’ll quote them soon on the new article I’m writing on Monbiot’s nuclear nonsense.
Yes, it seems that Monbiot’s credibility is one of the victims of the Fukushima disaster. He has been so dishonest and even insulting towards environmentalists that I cannot take him seriously from now on. But I guess that’s the problem of being an “activist” whose only activism consists on writing pieces for a newspaper: one tends to loose contact with the reality one is writing about.
You may also find something useful from the other links I give here: http://www.marklynas.org/2011/03/the-dangers-of-nuclear-power-in-light-of-fukushima/#comment-495
That article is from Mark Lynas and Chris Goodall – both UK ‘environmental’ journalists – who are pushing the same horrible lies about Chernobyl as Monbiot. It seems the three of them are sharing the same notes – or maybe Areva have intimate photos of them and are blackmailing them!
> He has been so dishonest and even insulting towards environmentalists…
Yes, did you see the debate with Dr Helen Caldicott? http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/30/prescription_for_survival_a_debate_on – Monbiot mocks Caldicott for suggesting that IAEA / WHO are not telling the truth. Does he not know that the IAEA controls what the WHO publishes about nuclear?
I can find no sense in Monbiot’s position or his arguments. The more I think about it and the more fact-checking I do, the less sense it all makes.
I’ll look forward to your next article.
Best,
David.
P.S. And all of this is made worse by the fact that nuclear offers the worst solution to mitigating climate change. It is too slow, too expensive to build and there is not enough fuel for the entire planet to be able to use it.
Another way to determine how wrong Monbiot is: take a look at what Koch Industries’ propaganda department is saying. http://www.reddit.com/r/RenewableEnergy/comments/eqzx9/another_way_to_determine_the_potential_for/
Randall Parker
> Why does Monbiot have to prove we can’t have 100% renewable energy? Sure, we can. But at what cost?
He admitted that renewables are currently cheaper than nukes – but then said he was “guessing” that nukes would suddenly become cheaper when we hit ~70% renewables. He offered no evidence or rational argument for this claim.
> 50% to 70% grid penetration from renewables: How is that even possible without blackouts when the sun goes down and the wind stops?
There are many studies that detail how we reach 100% renewables, e.g.:
* A Solar Transition is Possible. “We find that we can replace the entire existing energy infrastructure with renewables in 25 years or less… to provide energy consumption per person levels sufficient for every one on the planet to live at high human development requirements…” http://iprd.org.uk/?p=6877
* The Combined Power Plant. How Germany will provide 100% renewable electricity by 2050. http://www.kombikraftwerk.de/index.php?id=27
* 100% clean, affordable energy possible by 2050 says WWF. http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/how_we_work/policy/wwf_europe_environment/?199255/100-clean-affordable-energy-possible-by-2050-says-WWF
* Road map to zero carbon, renewable energy in Europe by 2050. “Nuclear and / or coal-with-CCS plants are not essential to decarbonize power while safeguarding system reliability.” http://www.roadmap2050.eu/
BlueRock,
Renewables are cheaper than nuclear? I think that depends on where and when. Solar is cheap in Phoenix, especially between March 21 September 21. But how cheap is solar in Oslo in January?
Similarly, wind isn’t cheap where the wind does not blow.
70% renewables and a price threshold: Wind’s unreliability means that it needs back-up power that adds to its costs. A low penetration rates these costs are hidden. But at higher penetration rates these costs will become higher and more visible.
Also, a big wind build-out in the US runs up against the fact that there are not enough high quality wind sites and the cost of wind from the lower quality sites is much lower. This problem is worse in Europe where population densities are higher. Europe doesn’t have the equivalent of the US and Canada great plains.
Randall,
Crazy idea: don’t deploy solar in Oslo.
The strength of renewables is in their diversity. You deploy what works in each location. It’s mainly wind, hydro, tidal, biomass for northern Europe.
The issue of providing backup for wind is largely a non-issue when you have lots of renewables connected to a large grid. And it’s *many* years in the future for most industrialised countries – but we already have storage technology and that will get cheaper over the coming years.
You’re mistaken about wind resources in the US and Europe. E.g. there’s enough wind resource off the UK coast to provide electricity for *the entire planet*:
* Two Terawatts average power output: the UK offshore wind resource. “The theoretical resource from offshore wind turbines in UK waters is approximately 2.2 TW of average (ie continuous output) of electricity.” http://www.claverton-energy.com/two-terawatts-average-power-output-the-uk-offshore-wind-resource.html
Also, no one is advocating 100% wind or 100% solar – it’s a portfolio of complimentary sources.
Renewables can easily power the entire planet. And given the massive costs of nukes and fossils, renewables are the only sane option.
BlueRock,
The diversity is a mirage in many locations.
Hydro is already fully exploited (probably too exploited – sorry fishies) in northern Europe.
Wind: it has to be offshore because the continent is too small and densely populated.
Solar: Not just a problem for Oslo. The big solar build in Germany is in a lower insolation country.
Geothermal: You do know there have been problems with mini-quakes when doing geothermal drilling in Europe, right?
Europe’s a bad place for renewables. Too far north and densely populated. The only renewable that can work for them on a really large scale is wind and then only offshore. Offshore is very expensive. Plus, there’s the problem of what to do when the wind stops blowing.
Randall,
You have drunk deeply of the anti-renewable Koolaid.
We don’t need more hydro to make renewables work. We just use what is available. Although:
* US Hydropower can be increased by at least 50% without building any new dams. http://www.nirs.org/alternatives/factoid17.htm
You think Europe is “too small and densely populated” for wind? Have you ever visited any part of it? You seem to have a very strange idea of what it looks like. We have all the land we need to deploy wind in Europe – and it’s already happening.
The same applies to the US and everywhere else – all the space we need for 100% renewables. Also, you do realise we can still farm around turbines?
Geothermal: you do know that there are operational plants around the world that have no problems with “mini-quakes”?
Wind is already the main source of electricity for Spain – recently pushed nukes off top spot. Portugal gets near 50% of their electricity from renewables. Scotland is targeting 80% renewables by 2020. Denmark is targeting 50% wind by 2025. Even France are now beginning large-scale renewable deployment. Your claim that Europe is a “bad place” for renewables and “too far north” is nonsense!
Just pay attention to reality and not Fox News to see what is happening with renewable energy all around the planet.
BlueRock,
No, I do not read Fox. Good attempt at trying to dismiss me though.
You can find reports on the quake problem in Europe in the June 23, 2009 NY Times and in Scientific American.
Anti-renewables Koolaid: No, I just see the problems with them just as I see the problems with coal and nuclear. When people start touting panaceas I get naturally suspicious.
I’ve pointed you at a post I did that pointed to an NREL report on wind scaling. See page 50 of that report. Really, wind costs go up as it gets built out further.
Also, do you realize you condescend much?
I never denied some geothermal plants had caused mini-quakes. Why are you repeating the claim? There are always teething troubles with new technology. Other geothermal plants have been running for years without problem.
> …I just see the problems…
But each of the “problems” you’ve asserted do not exist – as I’ve explained and demonstrated.
I’m not touting a “panacea”, simply explaining that we have all the technology we need to go 100% right now. It just needs the political will to deploy it. Germany, Denmark, Spain, Scotland, Portugal, many countries are doing it.
> …an NREL report on wind scaling.
One vested interest think tank that cherry picks an extremely low capacity factor for one moment in time. We know the wind stops blowing sometimes. It does not stop blowing across an entire continent at the same time.
Also, *all* energy sources are intermittent. Nothing – not even nukes – produce energy all the time. Everything needs backup. In fact, nukes are worse than wind – they can go offline in seconds and stay offline for weeks or months.
* Most comprehensive assessment on intermittency ever undertaken finds reports suggesting renewable energy is costly or limited by intermittency are out of step with majority of expert analysis. http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/support/tiki-index.php?page=0604INtermittencyrelease
> Also, do you realize you condescend much?
Yeah, I get that a lot from people who are anti-renewable when I refute all the anti-renewable propaganda they produce. If it’s any consolation I find it just as annoying seeing the anti-renewable nonsense you’re typing out.
P.S. Do you realise you can click ‘Reply’ to comments on this blog rather than just add comments to the bottom?
Problems with renewables do exist:
- They are intermittent.
- They are limited in terms of where they can be implemented.
- Some of them (e.g. solar in many locations) are quite expensive.
NREL: A vested interest think tank? For what? You do not know about the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden Colorado does (hintL it does not see it as its mission to promote nuclear or fossil fuels) and yet you do not hesitate to tell me I’m getting my information from Fox News.
All energy sources intermittent: In the electric power industry they use the term “dispatchable” for energy sources. Nuclear electric is dispatchable. Natural gas electric is dispatchable. You can command it when you want to. Wind, not so.
Most nuclear power plant outages are planned months or years in advance and up-times (at least in the United States) are very high.
There’s already lots of political will to provide renewables with large subsidies. So there are lots of deployments, growing number.
Anti-renewables: I’ve repeatedly argued for their technological development and deployment where they make sense. That doesn’t include solar power in Germany though it does in SoCal. But I’m not a fan boy. Renewables have serious problems, just like their alternatives do.
Randall,
> They are intermittent.
So are *all* energy sources. You really need to grasp this simple truth. *Every* energy source is intermittent. *Every* energy source requires backup in a grid otherwise blackouts occur when it fails.
> They are limited in terms of where they can be implemented.
So implement them where they work – there is no shortage of locations to power the entire planet – despite your bizarre belief that Europe is “too small and densely populated”. You really need to spend some time on Google Earth.
> Some of them (e.g. solar in many locations) are quite expensive.
So use what is cost-effective in each location. Wind is cheaper than any other source. Solar is cheaper than fossils and nukes in the sunniest locations – that area continues to spread as solar continues to plummet in cost.
> All energy sources intermittent: In the electric power industry they use the term “dispatchable” for energy sources.
Intermittency is unrelated to dispatchability. They are different things.
> Nuclear electric is dispatchable. Natural gas electric is dispatchable. You can command it when you want to.
Nuclear is not dispatchable. It is constantly on – except when it breaks down (usually for weeks, months or longer) and when it needs refuelling.
> Wind, not so.
Here’s *another* source to help you understand why your simplistic belief is flawed:
* Wind Power Is Not Intermittent. http://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2009-03-Wind-Power-Is-Not-Intermittent.html
> Most nuclear power plant outages are planned months or years in advance…
Except when they are not. Then the grid loses a massive source of electricity – usually without any warning, unlike wind which is predictable. Nukes are massive, single points of failure that make grids vulnerable to failure.
> …and up-times (at least in the United States) are very high.
You’re now confusing capacity factor with reliability. Not the same things. Wind may have ‘low’ capacity factor but it has effectively 100% reliability. The chances of all grid-connected wind turbines failing at the same time are zero.
> There’s already lots of political will to provide renewables with large subsidies.
They’ll need to offer a lot of subsidies to match the money that is thrown at nuclear and fossils.
> That doesn’t include solar power in Germany…
Germany now produce 20%+ of their peak electricity supply from solar – that continues to increase. They have created hundreds of thousands of jobs in the industry and it has provided *net* economic benefit. Your belief about the viability of solar in Germany (and many other places) is completely contrary to *reality*.
> Renewables have serious problems, just like their alternatives do.
What problems? Are they insurmountable? How do they compare to not deploying renewables?
Renewables are being deployed all over the planet at a rate that exceeds every other energy source. This is happening because renewables work and they are cost-effective. That is *reality* – not your confused interpretation of it.
BlueRock,
Dispatchable generators are rarely offline at unplanned time. That’s even more true of base load generators which face financial penalties for failing to perform. Wind and solar are intermittent and the regulatory environment in the US exempts them from paying the costs of their intermittency unlike other power sources.
Dispatchable generators are the ones you can flip on and use to rapidly replace the intermittent power sources or to deal with summer time power spikes and the like.
You can pretend that all power sources are equally intermittent. But base load generators rarely fail. That’s a statistical fact. They have high levels of dependability. Then there are dispatchable load following generators. Then there are the intermittent power sources like wind and solar.
A higher amount of wind and solar increases the amount of needed dispatchable generators. But dispatchable generators are less efficient than baseload generators and they cost more per kwh. So raising the amount of intermittent power sources raises costs for backup dispatchable load.
If you dispute what I said about then you really are not serious. I’m not saying anything that ISO operators wouldn’t tell you. They are the ones who operate the backbones and manage shifting sources of generation and demand.
If you do not believe me then follow my links back to what Jim Detmers VP of California ISO (which manages California electric power backbone) said about the intermittency problems posed by wind. That’s not the rosy talk of a fan boy. That’s the realistic talk of an engineering manager wrestling with a tough problem.
I think Randall means that the nature of backup for renewables is different. For example, the power in the wind varies as the cube of wind speed, and if not steady, can cause rapid transient changes in wind-extracted power. The backup for this has to respond immediately and therefore has to be kept in spinning readiness at all times. If this spinning reserve is fossil fuel, then the carbon saving can be reduced. For renewables, the “backup” has to be kept on line and will operate at part load all the time, hardly the most efficient mode. So the general “backup” for any power system in the event of failure of one of the generators is slightly different in role to the “backup” for renewables.
In addition, there is the prospect of more cost if the smart grid is deployed and load is despatched instead. So Randall has a point that needs to be addressed, as I think Germany will try soon and will be watched avidly to see if it actually works.
Randall,
> Dispatchable generators are rarely offline at unplanned time.
And what happens on the many occasions when they are? Nukes can trip offline in seconds – very often without warning. They very often stay offline for weeks or months. What then?
All energy generators are intermittent. However, with e.g. wind there is *zero* chance that tens of thousands of wind turbines spread across a wide geographical are will stop all at once. It’s impossible. Same with solar on everyone’s roof.
> You can pretend that all power sources are equally intermittent.
You can fight strawmen if you like. I never said anything about equal.
> But base load generators rarely fail. That’s a statistical fact.
lol. But they do fail. What happens when a multi-GW nuke goes offline? It’s a massive single point of failure. It’s the equivalent of trying to run the internet on a hundred giant mainframes instead of millions of servers. Centralised energy generation is inherently weak.
> So raising the amount of intermittent power sources raises costs for backup dispatchable load.
What is the total effect on the system?
* Economic Analysis and Evaluation of the Effects for Germany. “The support of electricity generation from renewable energy sources (RES) in Germany thus far has been very effective. …the overall balance of positive and negative economic effects has already reached zero. Future economic benefits of increasing shares of renewable energy will be significant. In the electricity sector, prime costs, that would otherwise steadily increase, will be stabilized.” http://www.bmu.de/files/pdfs/allgemein/application/pdf/eeg_impacts_chap7_summary.pdf
Now add in global warming.
> If you dispute what I said about then you really are not serious.
Thanks for your opinion.
Randall, the problem you have is that you’re throwing out claims that don’t match reality. You’re trying to assert that renewables are not viable when entire countries already have extremely high percentages and are rapidly moving towards 100% renewables.
Who do we believe? Randall Parker on the internet – or reality?
> The backup for [wind] has to respond immediately…
Only if you placed all your wind turbines on one hill. The wind does not stop blowing across an entire country or continent in an instant – in fact it most likely *never* stops.
* “…there has never been a time over the past 35 years when the entire country has been without wind, and that the wind always blows strongly enough to generate electricity somewhere in Britain.” http://www.bwea.com/ref/capacityfactors.html
Also, you’re not understanding how a modern grid works – it fluctuates continually both in supply and demand. It is designed to cope with those fluctuations.
> …therefore has to be kept in spinning readiness at all times.
What do you think happens when a multi-GW nuke trips offline?
> For renewables, the “backup” has to be kept on line…
Much like Randall, you are imagining problems that are not problems or that have solutions. Your beliefs do not match reality. Many countries already have extremely high percentages of “intermittent” renewables but somehow they don’t suffer blackouts every 10 minutes. They don’t suffer blackouts at all.
Wind power pushes down electricity costs and cuts CO2. It threatens fossils and nukes – which is why we see so much propaganda and nonsense against it on the internet. Even blogs such as this one.
Wind energy is the fastest growing energy source on the planet – because it works, because it is cheap.
> …there is the prospect of more cost if the smart grid is deployed…
Yes, progress does not come for free. But you should maybe consider the costs of doing nothing – or attempting to deploy nuclear all over the planet. You can see the potential costs of that in Japan right now.
Wind power reliability: Try looking at what the managers of ISOs say.
Now all the wind turbines did not stop. A whole half of a percent of nameplace capacity was still flowing out of them. So if you need, say, 100 GW you can assure yourself of getting 100 GW by building 20000 GW. Want to label that a solution.
British wind power production in 2010 went down even as number of wind turbines went up:
During some peak demand days last year British wind production cratered:
It is not hard to dig up these sorts of reports. Wind power is very intermittent. When did nuclear power in the United States ever drop to 5.5% of capacity? When did coal or natural gas power ever drop to 5.5% of capacity? Wind is far less reliable.
Randall Parker,
This is what’s called in “cherry picking” data, i.e picking two times when either energy demand was low (and hence regardless of whether the wind was blowing or not it wouldn’t be used) or wind speeds were low. It could well be in the period in between the wind was meeting a much higher level of capacity.
I could similarly be unkind and cruise through the data and find a time when all the nuclear plants in California were down for maintainance and claim that the capacity factor of nuclear on that day was zero, but the next day (when they came back online) it swung up to 90%, how can we cope with that;(
This is exactly the sort of tactics that the Global warming denial bunch use and its why anyone with any sense tends to ignore them.
You’re also building up a delibrate strawman, nobody, even the most ardent fan of wind energy is suggesting you’d try to meet a 100 GW wind energy load with wind alone, or indeed any source of energy. By utlising wind in a mixed mode with other energy sources (hydro, solar, geothermal, tidal/wave, fossil fuels and yes if you insist nuclear) we have a much more stable grid. Even for countries where wind is really all they’ve, you can maximise wind’s output by using pumped energy storage, or in the future hydrogen production (which can then be burnt in conventional thermal plants for electricity). That last option might be expensive, but not as expensive as nuclear….which itself, least we forget also need backing up.
You’re also “cherry picking” quotes. one of the interviews you mentioned (I think it was in the Daily Mail or something, a notorious right rag) took qoutes from a wind energy manager out of context. He highlighted the challenges associated with intergrating wind energy, but then said what a good idea it was…course they only published the negative bit and ignored his praise of wind energy!
I could similarly re-edit the comments of David King, the chief Scientist of the UK who said yestarday and I quote Nuclear power…..has….safety….problems….which are…..insurmountable….and we….k…illed…..m…other….T…er….sa
Randall Parker:
> Wind power reliability: Try looking at what the managers of ISOs say.
Try looking at *reality*. It trumps “what the managers of ISOs say.”
Regions of Spain now supply 70%+ of their electricity with wind. Scotland is now targeting 80% renewables by 2020 (mostly wind); Denmark is targeting 50% wind by 2025. Wind is being deployed faster than any other energy source across Europe.
Which is more likely to correct? Some quote you’ve found? Or the indisputable reality of wind being deployed at an accelerating rate by dozens of industrialised countries?
P.S. Randall, I’m touched that you’re concerned about the reliability of our energy supply here in the UK. You can add this to your list:
* Half of Britain’s nuclear power stations closed for repairs. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/oct/23/nuclear.world
You should also do some research on France’s ‘nuclear utopia’. They have had to switch off many of their nukes several times due to high summer temperatures. They also have to import electricity from Germany and elsewhere during cold winter snaps because their inflexible nuke fleet cannot meet demand. Also, they have recently been importing electricity from Spain – produced by wind turbines!
And France have recently launched a €1.35 billion renewable energy research program and they’re currently deploying 3 GW of offshore wind. Does that not make you think that maybe your belief about wind being “unreliable” is flawed?
Cherry picking? Wind energy advocates claim it can substitute for base load generators. Real base load generators are orders of magnitude more reliable.
If all the wind installations can go down to 2-3% of nameplate frequently then wind needs total backup from other sources. That’s not the case with coal or natural gas base load generator plants. The individual plants rarely go down at unscheduled times and maintenance schedules are chosen so that not too many go down at once.
The basic facts are simple enough. If the range of total outputs is too wide then either wind has to be incredibly overbuilt (3-4-5 times more than is needed on average) or wind has to have backup generators of, for example, fast spin-up natural gas to back it up.
Denmark happens to be close enough to Sweden that it can use Sweden’s hydro dams as backup. But most countries or regions aren’t going to have that luxury.
Randall,
You don’t need great plains to have lots of wind power. In my country, Portugal, we will exceed 25% of electricity from wind power in 2020 just by installing windmills on top of mountains. No problem with population densities there.
Also, in the South of Europe we have loads of sun. It’s a tragedy that we don’t have solar panels in all rooftops there, as that would sharply reduce energy demand.
As for geothermal, yes it’s true that it can cause minor earthquakes. I’ve yet to see a single news piece about an accident, even a small one, caused by geothermal, so this is not a big problem.
Ricardo,
A lot of people do not want their mountain vista views ruined by wind towers (count me as one of them btw). Others do not want their Cape Cod ocean views ruined by wind towers (Ted Kennedy was one of the opponents to the Cape Wind project). Still others do not want their health ruined. Folks in Cohasset Massachusetts are going to court to block a wind turbine due to the expected noise. Also, in Falmouth Massachusetts people are very angry about wind turbine noise. Stories like these where people living close to wind turbines are complaining about health effects are not hard to find. My guess is these complaints are justified and the wind towers should not have been located so close to people.
Of course, it is possible to locate wind turbines far from people, at least in lower population density areas. The US and Canada great plains provide excellent settings for wind farms. But many other areas have either low quality wind or too many people for wind to work.
Wind as 25% of Portugal electric power: Well, getting to 100% would be much more than 4 times more expensive and it still would not encompass other needs for power that currently require liquid fuel or natural gas. Generating nitrogen fertilizer from electric power (regardless of whether from solar, wind, coal, or nuclear) costs far too much for example.
Geothermal earthquakes: Whether there is a real objective problem the geothermal projects in Germany and Switzerland have run into political opposition due to the threat of earthquakes. Projects have been halted as a result.
Geothermal’s bigger problem is that most locations aren’t good for geothermal. Even where geothermal has been found at shallow locations a few things have gone wrong:
- The hot area cooled too quickly.
- Seismic activity blocked a dug hole.
- Heavy mineral concentrations precipitate once the water cools and the resulting deposits clog up the system.
- Difficulties drilling.
To make geothermal very highly scalable requires use of rock fracturing technology pioneered in the oil and natural gas industry so that dry hot rock can be harnessed. If this can be made to work well then geothermal could become a major electric power source globally.
Ricardo,
There’s no purely benign energy source. Wind power causes noise problems for some residents of Maine too. Read wind turbine noise problem reports like this one. Here’s a long list of local news articles in America about local residents upset with wind turbine noise.
Geothermal: The biggest human-induced earthquake at the Geysers geothermal site in California is 4.5 on the Richter scale. In Basel Switzerland a geothermal drilling project induced a 3.4 quake. The project was halted as a result.
Water’s another concern with geothermal projects where the local water table gets messed up.
No, there’s no purely benign energy source. But there’s a difference between subjecting ourselves to pollutant emissions that cause severe health problems and reduce our life expectancy and using earplugs at night to stop listening to the fans rotating in the windmills.
Also, from my perspective (and this is arguable, of course), wind turbines are way prettier than coal plants, large dams or nuclear plants. Further, I don’t think that landscape preservation should be of greater concern than other very serious issues regarding pollution from fossil fuels and nuclear.
I can say for sure that the issue with the noise from wind turbines is an exaggeration. I know it because I’ve been there. I once visited a wind farm and recently I spent a weekend at a place which was right next to another wind farm. Having spent days and nights surrounded by those rotating turbines I spent my time wondering how could people complain about the noise when all I could hear was a minor sound at night when I went outside. Nothing compared to the noise in the city (mainly from cars!). So, if there are problems with noise I’m sure they are not unsurmountable.
As for the landscape issues, sorry but I haven’t heard of an invisible power plant yet
Ricardo,
Wind turbine noise is just another piece of bullshit from the anti-renewable lobby in the US – Randall linked to one of their websites – wind-watch.org.
These people don’t think to complain about the noise or pollution from cars or lorries – but wind energy is going to DESTROY their lives!
* Do Wind Turbines Make Noise? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD0v9_zV2uk
* Wind Turbine Noise. At a very close distance of 300 meters away, a turbine will be somewhere between an air conditioner (50 decibels) and a refrigerator (40 decibels). At about 500 meters, the levels drop to about 38 decibels, which is well below the typical 40-45 decibels of background noise in a populated area. http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2010/11/measuring-wind-turbine-noise?cmpid=rss
I guess noise could be an issue if they built a 5 MW turbine on top of your house… but I don’t think that happens too often.
BlueRock, Ricardo, You telling me all these people who claim harm from wind turbine noise should be ignored and dismissed? They have no right to peace in their rural abodes? I’ve pointed you at many articles from many local newspapers reporting the views of many people living near wind turbines and you just dismiss all these people?
Your faith is powerful.
Randall,
The think that just gets me about wind turbine noise (and the point I think Bluerock & Ricardo are making) is it’s frequently out of proportion to the problem. A neighbour decides to install a diesel generator, which will produce lots of noise and lots of nasty sooty smoke to drift over the kids playing in the yard, and nobody looks at him twice. Or another neighbour gets a big honking (noisy and polluting) SUV (you know how a disproportionate number of people run over by SUV’s and trucks tend to be children….), again nobody objects to this, our a farmer sets up a side business in barn meaning you get 20 trucks a day running down a wee little rural road, nobody says a word, despite all the noise and pollution they makes…..
……Then someone decides to put a wind turbine up on a hill several miles away…..and suddenly the Pitchforks, Banjo’s and Wickermen come out…..
I would also note that quite a good number of the wind farm objectors are often being egged on by the nuclear lobby, who are doing themselves no favours as they’re merely encouraging the fostering of a selfis,h irrational, NIMBYist attitude in people that all but guarantee’s that nothing will ever get built (including the nuclear power stations you favour….which generate quite a bit of noise and visual disruption as well you know!).
I’d stay to talk further……but I think I hear Banjo music in the distance!….
daryan12:
> …and suddenly the Pitchforks, Banjo’s and Wickermen come out…
lol. I’ve got to remember that phrase!
I’m, what I’d describe as a “recovering” nuclear energy fan, i.e I used to think it was a good idea, but as I’ve learnt more and more about it (notably the costs…I don’t just mean the financial ones, I’m talking about the environmental and political costs too!) I became more and more critical. My position now is that its more trouble than its worth.
What now firmly swings me into anti-nuclear camp is in fact the nuclear industry’s own nutty cheerleaders. Most I find fit into one of four categories. They are either, desperate (i.e if nuclear power isn’t kept going they’re out of a job), corrupt (paid lobbyists who distort the truth on the industries behalf), missinformed (by one of the latter two) or J.P.N (just plane nuts!). I shall leave it to the reader of this to decide which group Monbiot belongs to!
I happen to know something about nuclear energy (I’ve a PhD in Engineering!), and it pains me when I keep hearing the most outrageous howlers from the nuke industry supporters. I’ve “caught” a few out from time to time (failed to catch Monbiot on Saturday when he came to Glasgow!) and I’ve usually found they actually don’t know alot about what exactly they’re advocating. They make ridiculous statements (costs figures for LWR that are way too low, gross understatements of the dangers of radiation, etc.) as well as overly ambitious assumptions about stuff like Thorium or Fusion power or (spare me!) Fast Reactors.
Of course to someone else who also doesn’t know alot about the topic, I can see how seductive such talk can be. It seems to be that Monbiot, like so many others before him, has been sucked in to this nuclear energy “cargo cult”
I’ve tried to debunk a number of the principle myths of the nuclear industry at the link below, should anyone reading this be wavering on the topic
http://daryanenergyblog.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/the-top-ten-common-myths-of-the-nuclear-cheerleaders/
> They are either, desperate (i.e if nuclear power isn’t kept going they’re out of a job), corrupt (paid lobbyists who distort the truth on the industries behalf), missinformed (by one of the latter two) or J.P.N (just plane nuts!).
Nicely categorised!
> I shall leave it to the reader of this to decide which group Monbiot belongs to!
I’m tempted to suggest he is given his own sub-category. Joe Schmoe has some kind of excuse for being hoodwinked by the propagandists – Monbiot does not. He even referred to the nuke industry as a “corner-cutting bunch of scumbags” – but he has clearly been seduced by their soft whispers.
My latest theory (as in, ‘wild stab in the dark’) is that Monbiot (along with several other journos at the Guardian) have been wined and dined by possibly David MacKay. MacKay has very successfully sold himself as an impartial scholar who is “all about the numbers”. I believe he is a very clever propagandist. See:
* David MacKay’s “…inflated demand figure of 490 GW is nowhere near our real energy demand, and has mislead people into believing the myth that Britain’s energy demand exceeds its renewable resource, whereas the reverse is true: our renewable resource is much greater than our energy demand.” http://www.energynumbers.info/british-energy-demand-and-professor-mackays-estimate-of-it-an-explanation-of-the-differences
* ‘No Hot Air’ About Renewable Energy While Blowing Smoke: David Mackay plays ‘Brutus’ to the Sun’s ‘Caesar’. http://www.justmeans.com/-No-Hot-Air-About-Renewable-Energy-While-Blowing-Smoke-David-Mackay-plays-Brutus-Sun-s-Caesar/27338.html
> They make ridiculous statements…
For nukes and against renewables. I have encountered several who really believe solar is not viable because the sun does not shine at night. They have all the symptoms of denial we see in the ACC deniers.
> …overly ambitious assumptions about stuff like Thorium…
Thorium is a mass psychosis on the web. It’s the weirdest thing – and when you point out to the fan club that it will take many decades to appear commercially (if ever), watch the hysterics begin!
Thanks for your ‘Myths’ article – very good. Added to notes.
Bluerock,
Firstly, I seem to have missdirecting my comments towards Randall Parker at you, appologies for the “friendly fire”
I always did think David McKay’s number’s didn’t quite add up. The problem is that he neglects cycle efficiency’s, e.g. getting heat energy from Solar thermal direct is much more energy efficient than from nuclear to electric and back to heat again. Also even his optimistic forecasts for nuclear still fall short. Maxmium ever built rate of nuclear (in the 70′s when we neglected safety, economics and had a cold war to fight) 30 GW/yr. Current rate…roughly -1 to -3 GW/yr (i.e reactors being turned off quicker than new ones are built). Current build rate of renewables, last I checked 80 GW/yr in 2009, probably alot higher now though.
Thorium reactors…my problem is not whether they (or Fusion) will work in 20 years time, its will they work ever! Thorium has no fissile isotopes and thus we need to rely on Uranium supplies to run them or Fast reactors…waste of time!
> …I seem to have missdirecting my comments towards Randall Parker at you, appologies for the “friendly fire”
I was momentarily puzzled!
Re. MacKay, I’ll add a comment to your ‘Myths’ article in a minute that details my opinion – it’s not popular with a lot of people!
“I have encountered several who really believe solar is not viable because the sun does not shine at night. They have all the symptoms of denial we see in the ACC deniers.”
I strongly suspect that this may be because they’re often the same people: IME those who argue against renewables tend to also argue against ACC/AGW; they want ‘business as usual’ and confirmation bias won’t allow them to consider that alternatives are viable.
Colin,
> I strongly suspect that this may be because they’re often the same people: IME those who argue against renewables tend to also argue against ACC/AGW;
Bingo! There’s a huge overlap between ACC deniers and the anti-renewable gang. A Venn diagram of the two would be nearly concentric circles – with George Monbiot just sat outside.
> …they want ‘business as usual’ and confirmation bias won’t allow them to consider that alternatives are viable.
Yeah. And that’s also often described by political allegiance – “whatever those leftie liberals and progressives are for, I’m against!”
David.
Yeah. And that’s also often described by political allegiance – “whatever those leftie liberals and progressives are for, I’m against!”
David,
So we should try reverse psychology! Maybe this is what Monbiot’s really up too, he goes to the States, does a lecture tour to Tea Party guys about why nuclear is a good idea and renewables aren’t…next day Sarah Palin’s calling for more windfarms…or am I being a bit too clever?
daryan12:
> So we should try reverse psychology! Maybe this is what Monbiot’s really up too, he goes to the States, does a lecture tour to Tea Party guys about why nuclear is a good idea and renewables aren’t…next day Sarah Palin’s calling for more windfarms…or am I being a bit too clever?
[chuckle] It’s an enticing theory, and I’d love to believe it given my (former) admiration for George – but I’m fairly convinced he’s been bamboozled by the nuke lobby and is as much in denial about reality as any of the ACC deniers he has excoriated over the years.
Much as he was bamboozled by the ACC denial gang over the stolen CRU emails. He was absolutely convinced there was malfeasance amongst the climate scientists. He only begrudgingly admitted he’d made a mistake ~7 months later after 5 (??) official enquires found no evidence of any fraud.
I’m currently writing my own article on George’s ‘nuclear epiphany’ – similar to Ricardo’s. It’ll appear on http://www.green-blog.org/ – hopefully done in a day or two.
Ricardo,
I made a reply to D A Ryan last night – it has not appeared. Maybe in the spam folder for some reason?
Now, this is interesting… my “beliefs” do not match your reality. Just so… because I live in the Asian tropics, along with half of humanity in the arc from India to China. We build many renewable systems for export, and I should be encouraging you. We do not use them ourselves… we use coal and do not plan stopping… we have voltage fluctuations, brownouts and blackouts, being third world, I am sure you will understand. But this powers our manufacturing industry and we have lower electric costs than Gemany certainly, very attractive for your renewable industries when they want to manufacture. For every Mwh you convert to wind, we will install more than fivefold that in coal… we now build coal at more than 1GW capacity per week… lets see you save carbon as you should, while we poor people here are allowed to build coal at an unbelievable rate. That is the reality. I am afraid the prognosis for carbon reduction is poor since you yourself do not really focus on its reduction globally, only in your little neighbourhood where the wind blows everyday. You prefer to say “I am green… screw the expense”. We are too poor to say that plus we do not have winds like yours. So I should say to you, carry on and build more wind and solar… but it is just so sad to see you founder. Never mind, carry on!
Ng Ai Soo:
> …I live in the Asian tropics … We do not use them ourselves…
* China has raised its target for renewable energy to 500 GW by 2020 http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2010/07/renewable-energy-policy-update-for-china
* India Turns to Solar to Meet its Energy Needs. Energy-hungry India is on pace to meet its commitment to add 1.1 gigawatts of solar power to the national grid by 2013, part of a greater goal of achieving 20 gigawatts of solar capacity by 2022. http://www.energyboom.com/solar/india-turns-solar-meet-its-energy-needs
Blue Rock…
Good! Believe that and Carry on!
Ng Ai Soo, Re: “I am green… screw the expense”. It’s not quite as simple as that…
Assuming for argument’s sake that you’re right, and ‘us rich folk’ are better placed than ‘you poor folk’ to take advantage of renewables (a stance I don’t accept myself):
As you may have noticed, some of us here (in the UK at least) are currently having trouble trying to persuade those here who think renewables are expensive that, when environmental costs, hidden taxpayer subsidies to established power generation systems (mainly coal and nuclear), market inertia and so on are taken into account, renewable alternatives can be cost-effective.
Assuming that the local impediments can be overcome (and there are encouraging signs that there is some useful progress being made on this front), the good news from where you sit is — I hope — that we will have proven the ground. All I can say is: more fool us if we don’t.
And if Ng Ai Soo thinks wind turbines and solar panels are expensive – he / she should check the price of nuke reactors… or unmitigated climate change.
Of course, the reality is that renewable tech. is actually helping the poorest people on the planet. People in the poorest parts of the world are not grid-connected and may not be for a very long time. A solar panel or small wind turbine can transform their lives – and that is already happening, e.g.:
* Solar lighting spells the end of kerosene in Africa. A simple but effective solar kit is helping to bring light to homes in the less-industrialised world without the choking side-effects of kerosene lamps. http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/other_comments/412387/solar_lighting_spells_the_end_of_kerosene_in_africa.html
* Africa’s Rural Poor Begin Harnessing the Sun – As small-scale renewable energy becomes cheaper & more reliable, it’s providing the 1st drops of modern power to people far from electricity grids & fuel pipelines. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/25/science/earth/25fossil.html?ref=science
I’m afraid Ng Ai Soo’s hand-wringing does not ring true for me. It’s repetition of a very common piece of propaganda from the rightwing: “won’t someone think of the poor people?!” They try to make the nonsense claim that renewable energy is going to stop the poorest escaping poverty – when the very opposite is very clearly true.
Apart from all the environmental benefits, renewables will democratise energy production and give everyone on the planet a chance to enjoy the energy that some of us take for granted.
Ng Ai Soo, Faith is powerful. The fact that China is building some wind and solar installations is seen as more persuasive than their far larger builds of coal and nuclear power plants. BlueRock quotes a subset of the picture and ignores the rest of the picture.
China’s coal demand is rising. China’s oil demand is rising. China is baking in another 1 million barrels per day in demand with every year of car production for their domestic market. The only thing that’ll stop China’s oil demand rise is Peak Oil. China’s CO2 emissions surpassed the US either in 2006 or 2007 and will grow much higher. 72% of China’s energy comes from coal. Overall globally the IEA projects the absolute growth of energy from coal will be larger than from any other energy source.
I do not like this trend with coal. But I do not wear rose-colored glasses when I look at the world. So I admit the ugly truth.
Randall:
> …China is building some wind … far larger builds of coal and nuclear power plants.
500 GW of wind by 2020. (30% capacity factor = 150 GW)
70 GW of nuclear by 2020.
That was before Fukushima.
Are you not spotting how your beliefs are regularly different to reality?
Blue rock,
Problems with renewables:
- they are intermittent….
Nuclear has its own problems with intermittency, now withstanding the odd unplanned outage for safety reasons: http://daryanenergyblog.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/myth-v-%E2%80%93-but-we-can%E2%80%99t-rely-on-renewables-because-of-their-intermittence-nature/
This intermittency argument is something of a red herring, as it depends what renewable sources we’re talking about and how they’re utilised as well as ignoring the fact we can store energy by various means.
- Some them are expensive….
Yes but not as expensive as nuclear is! http://daryanenergyblog.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/myth-iv-nuclear-power-is-cheaper-than-any-of-the-alternatives/
While the costs of renewables will likely fall in the future nuclear’s costs (post-Fukushima) will likely rise, never mind the costs of decommissioning!
Furthermore the major problem with nuclear is the financial uncertainty over its costs, as this Citigroup report makes clear: https://www.citigroupgeo.com/pdf/SEU27102.pdf
- NREL have a vested interest in promoting renewables
I don’t think Citigroup (above) are a noted bastion of pro-renewables sentiment, and they don’t seem too keen on nuclear! When economists tell you the numbers don’t add up, that’s when you know you’re in trouble.
….lots of politics supporting renewables…..
Aye? I think the nuclear pot is calling the kettle black here! Nuclear power is as blatantly political as you can get. You’ll find few if any nuclear projects that have ever gone ahead without a nod from the powers that be.
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