What if Renewables Aren’t the Answer?
This is going to be a short entry, but what if we’re going about this the wrong way? It’s no to suggest that renewably generated electricity is a bad thing, in fact it has many things in its favor. However, consider wind for just one moment. Wind generation has grown from just over 3 GWh in 1993 to over 28 GWh in the most recent rolling 2007 twelve month window; an increase of nearly an order of magnitude. To put this in perspective, the entire electrcity production during the 2007 rolling twelve month period is 4,085 GWh meaning wind accounts for less than 1% of net generation. (Source: DoE)
Make no mistake, renewable electricity is part of the answer. But the scale is not even close to being meaningful. In other words, what if we’re winning individual battles but losing the war?
That same line of reasoning, combined with further research into waste issues, changed me from hating nuclear to admitting that it needs to be part of the short-term solution.
We must get all the way to 100% renewable eventually. But we’re burning coal and fossil fuels right now, and the quickest way to bring large capacity power online may be to start building nuclear plants.
Of course, we shouldn’t stop building or funding renewable capacity – our prime goal should be to build this as fast as possible. But something has to take the place of coal until we catch up.
After reviewing the situation, I tend to agree that it’s a dual prong effort with renewables and nukes.
If one is going to consider nuclear power they should look at the entire fuel cycle and check the costs and impacts associated with each step of the cycle. As I see it, the problems with nuclear are: 1) very long permitting times-often 20 years (and it isn’t environmentalists holding things up!); 2) the impacts of mining the uranium; 3) the financial cost of nuclear. Considering the amount of money sunk into each reactor one has to wonder if that is the best allocation of money; 4) Safety issues; 5) security issues; 6) water issues-for reactor cooling; 6) what to do with the waste. There still is not an operating waste facility in the US; 8) How to transport the waste, and 9) how much will it cost to protect and maintain the waste from these facilities.
There is also what I call the headache factor. I got the worst headache of my life touring San Onofre unit 3 just before it turned on. I don’t know if anyone would approve of these facilities if they saw how many pipes (dripping and spewing water), and nozzles, and pipes, etc were built into each reactor. Clearly engineers love this stuff but it scares the heck out of me.
I think the 800 pound gorilla in this energy/global warming issue is vehicle miles traveled (VMT). The fuel issue relative to transportation needs and especially to the issue of total miles driven-which is increasing twice as fast as vehicle registrations- is the biggest issue to solve. And within VMT the fastest growing segment of VMT is not travel to work, but rather, it is discretionary driving. If we can’t get a handle on this issue I think we are sunk. I think the answer might be in urban design and transit planning but one doesn’t see much info about smart growth–there are no stocks, there are no carbon traders, there a few web sites that focus on smart growth and urban design.
I think we need to focus on the big issues. Building nuclear power facilities for building condition systems seems to be like hitting an ant with a hammer. It is also an argument that doesn’t really get much mileage in the energy / global warming resolution discussion.
Energy is mostly about cars. Focus on the cars!