Here's Jeremy Rifkin in the LA Times on why we should pursue a range of decentralized energy technologies -- solar, wind, geothermal, hydro and biomass, for example -- and not the nuclear that's become in vogue of late.
(For the record, here, here, and here are some posts from the past few weeks that hit on the same subject.)
His argument:
1. "Nuclear power is unaffordable."
2. "60 years into the nuclear era, our scientists still don't know how to safely transport, dispose of or store nuclear waste."
3. "Acording to a study conducted by the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2001, known uranium resources could fail to meet demand, possibly as early as 2026."
4. "building hundreds of nuclear power plants in an era of spreading Islamic terrorism seems insane."
5. "nuclear power represents the kind of highly centralized, clunky technology of a bygone era."
I've been discussing the last of these more than the prior ones, so here's an extended Rifkin quote on it:
"In an age when distributed technologies are undermining hierarchies, decentralizing power and giving rise to networks and open-source economic models, nuclear power seems strangely old-fashioned and obsolete. To a great extent, nuclear power was a Cold War creation. It represented massive concentration of power and reflected the geopolitics of a post-World War II era. Today, however, new technologies are giving people the tools they need to become active participants in an interconnected world. Nuclear power, by contrast, is elite power, controlled by the few. Its resurrection would be a step backward."
Thoughts?
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Thoughts?
No! No! NOOOO!!!!!!
My world is collapsing, nothing makes sense anymore, it is the End Times(tm) - I actually agreed with something Jeremy Rifkin said!
Namely, the part about distributed energy (including fuel) generation being vital to economically (and environmentally) sustainable alternatives to our current system.
'course, Rifkin (as usual) is more interested in the "anti-" part ("Nuclear Power Bad and Scary and Incomprehensible [to Mr. Rifkin]!") than the "pro-" (non-monolithic power sources are viable), and personally, I think in the short term nuclear power is probably going to be necessary to continue supplying our "monolithic" power generation infrastructure while any adjustments towards smaller, more distributed (and presumably more varied) power generation takes place.
Oh, and in case it isn't obvious, I think Rifkin is, as seems to be typical for him, mixing the usual vague FUD with grossly overblown versions of otherwise legitimate concerns to sell books. I have no particular fear of nuclear power, personally.
Uh, why not both? Solar isn't going to cut it for many purposes, but I'm sure there's a place for it. Especially in the southwest - use solar to power air conditioning. If it's hot enough to use the A/C, its probably sunny, so why not use the energy pouring in to cool your place down? I'm sure solar is good enough to augment many household power uses.
But there still needs to be major power generation somewhere. Nuke is the way to go for this. It's simply too efficient when compared to the alternatives. Keep researching fusion of course, but for now, we're stuck with fission. Safety is less of a concern if you go with a pebble-bed model. Maybe there's even a better way, but we need the research and the INCENTIVE to research. I'm sure there's ways to make them even safer.
The only REAL problem is indeed the waste. We need to figure out what is best to do with it. I say fire it into the sun. Afraid of the rocket blowing up? Encase the waste in a blackbox. Seriously, those things never seem to break. They should make the whole rocket out of one, to be honest. ;) Ok maybe not. The waste is a real problem. But so is the waste from coal and oil burning plants. And we just dump that into the atmosphere, never gave it much thought - and look where that's gotten us. I'm sure we can find a better solution for nuke waste than pumping it into the atmosphere.
What I want to see is a detailed analysis of the actual cost per kilowatt-hour of each method, including the complete life cycle of the equipment involved. For solar, that'll include the manufacturing of the panels, the cost of deploying them over all that land, and their eventual disposal; for nuclear, that includes the plant, the fuel, storing the waste, and the security on all of them. I suspect renewable sources will work out as cheaper.
Max-
Solar and wind need huge tracts of land (haha) to generate enough electricity volume. Be sure to count the land cost into your calculations. Given the amount of land needed, it might tip the scales the other way. Sure, land is cheap out in the desert in the middle of nowhere, but then all your operating and infrastructure costs soar. The plant won't run itself, the employees need to come from somewhere. And if its far away...
You try and buy huge areas of land closer to civilization, you're going to be spending an AWFUL lot of money - some of the best places for solar collection are also places where people want to live and will pay good money for.
I too have no particular fear of nuclear power, but I do have concerns about the waste.
Another point to consider in favor of decentralized power generation is that it would make the power grid more robust in the face of a terrorist attack (or natural disaster). So it would help with national security. If anyone is trying to do a cost analysis, they would have to factor in some quantity to reflect the security improvement, too.
You can also deploy solar on urban and suburban roofs (though not at the same density as on dedicated land), and put wind farms so far offshore they're not even visible from land, up in the sky on tethered balloons (though then you have air traffic control issues), or in the middle of agricultural land (since their footprint is pretty small). All of these options will require complicated cost-benefit analyses, but I think they would be worthwhile.
Max-
I agree the analysis is worthwhile. All I'm saying is caution - while you expect that the solar/wind energy systems will be less expensive, I expect they'll be more expensive. For example:
Offshore wind farms will be expensive to maintain and build - its hard to get supplies out there, hard to maintain, etc. On top of urban roofs is a good idea, but its almost TOO distributed. Imagine the power line system necessary to delive the power wherever it needs to go - assuming the panels aren't just for the building they're on. But if they are, they won't be enough to power them anyway, and you'll need another, more robust power source.
I'm all for solar/wind, but I don't believe it will be nearly enough to generate the kind of power modern society needs. It would be a great auxiliary power, great for small-scale needs -- but big cities need big, big power.
The article is so bad it's scary..
Simple reponses to the points:
(1) Yes, nuclear has high capital costs - but low running costs; overall it is the same as coal without CO2 sequesteration. Wind and solar are far more expensive, especialy if backup is taken into account. Focusing on the capital costs is deliberately misleading; indeed if this is our criteria then all renewables are right out.
(2) We do, in fact, know what to do with nuclear waste; reycle as far as possible, burn the transuranics in IFRs, and make the fisson products into nuclear batteries for sites that need absolutely reliable power. Environmentalists oppose all of this, for what appear to be entirely political reasons. We should not be in the business of burying nuclear waste; indeed we should not regard it as such.
(3) Actually, uranium is perfectly abundant - especially if, as we should, we use breeders to reduce the amount of mining. We can get the stuff from seawater if we get short. Oil and Natural gas are in far shorter supply.
(4) Is pure scaremongering. Using nuclear to stop world dependance of a few islamic states for oil and gas might actually stop islamic terrorism.
(5) Distributed generation sounds a nice idea until you look at the practical details. As I've said before, if you dismiss solutions that are uncomfortable but viable in favour of solutions that are comfortable but don't actually work you are not doing the environment any favours.
(5a) I assume that the wind turbines and solar panels will come from a big, centralised factory..
I found the comments to this post interesting for two reasons: 1) most people seem to agree that Rifkin is at least gesturing in the right direction (even if some of those gestures are a little obscene); 2) after agreeing (in part) with Rifkin nearly everyone seemed to ignore the basic tenet of the argument small is beautiful! Comments jumped almost immediately back into the same boring and misleading debates about how there just isnt enough land for all those solar panels and the wind farms will require huge amounts of space and maintenance, and well maybe we could put them offshore so we dont have to look at them, and maybe solar could be isolated to the Southwest, and on, and on, and on. Dont get me wrong, we need to be having these debates, but we also need to be moving beyond these debates, which I take it is the point of Rifkins editorial. Large solar arrays and wind farms are part of a centralized power system precisely what is being argued against. How much is the track of land on my landladys roof? And her neighbors. What about a green roof (for decreased consumption) paired with solar panels or hydrogen fuel cells (commercial uses are far closer than anything we might get in vehicles) for apartment and office buildings? This isnt simply an argument against nuclear power (or at least it isnt for me), its an argument for re-thinking how energy is produced, distributed, and consumed the three cannot be separated from one another without in some way perpetuating the same problems were currently facing.
Now, I know, some people done the calculations and decided that this is the only way we can do this, if only the people would trust those of us whove already figured it out. But Im tired of that argument; anyone with any sense of the history of science, technology, and engineering will know that these arguments are part and parcel to the crises from which they arrive. That is, continuing to focus on the calculations keeps the conversation limited, options narrow, and possibility for real change almost non-existent. And its a shame that in each of the threads where these discussion have been taking place on this website, that the minute someone (and it seems to be the same someone) chimes in with the Ive done the calculations argument, everything comes to a grinding halt. Too bad for all of us.