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Post by sod on Apr 12, 2013 0:20:50 GMT 9.5
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Post by edireland on Apr 12, 2013 1:34:24 GMT 9.5
Have you accounted for the significant wind power subsidy in these numbers that claim "free power"?
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Post by Nuclear on Apr 12, 2013 4:18:09 GMT 9.5
Wind integration doesn't always make sense. A grid with a high percentage of fast-ramping natural gas power plants can accomodate more wind power than a grid with less flexible coal or nuclear plants. And if your main goal is to reduce carbon emissions, there is no point at all in adding large amounts of wind to a grid with plenty of nuclear baseload.
Without direct subsidies, wind's viability would probably be restricted to regions with good wind resources and a significant dependence on natural gas.
I'm not saying that direct subsidies are necessarily a bad thing. Without these subsidies, wind power would never have reached the level of technological maturity required to reach LCOE levels which let it compete with established technologies under the right circumstances. The important thing is that these direct subsidies decrease over time (to foster innovation) and are replaced by a price on carbon.
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Post by anonposter on Apr 12, 2013 4:50:32 GMT 9.5
In some regions, the plant-level levelised cost of electricity for wind turbines is competitive with that of natural gas generators at high gas prices. I find that doubtful given that it doesn't appear as if wind actually does much of anything to reduce natural gas use when you consider that the excessive spinning reserve requirement needed to deal with the wind suddenly dropping to nearly zero (which does happen) means those gas turbines are going to be idling at pretty significant load. Also less efficient gas turbines are better at the kind of load following you'd need to back up unreliables, I wouldn't be surprised if you could save more fuel and CO 2 emissions by having combined cycle plants and no wind than you could with wind and the fast responding simple cycle units. Adding wind to an energy mix dominated by natural gas makes sense if good wind resources are available and gas prices climb past a certain level. In theory it should (though it still makes more sense to just switch to nuclear) but whether that works in practice is another matter. There's also the possibility that the kind of unpredictable power level changes a gas plant will go through will result in having to pay more for the gas as it'll be bought on the spot market. But gas prices will likely increase in the coming decades, giving wind a chance to compete without the aid subsidies. Wind would need to be able to contribute something to a grid to be able to compete without subsidies and it doesn't look like it does that on grids that don't have a lot of hydro (and even there it looks to be only a marginal benefit). The advantage of wind over nuclear is that it can be added to the grid incrementally, which reduces investor risk compared to huge single projects like nuclear power plants which are prone to cost and schedule overruns. Nuclear power plants can be built on time and on budget if you manage them well. SMRs look like they'll be the real answer to incremental addition of generating capacity to a grid. adding a certain amount of wind (about 20%) makes sense nearly everywhere. I'd say it makes sense almost nowhere (the exceptions would be places with lots of hydro going through droughts where you're willing to starve fish of water). again, wind does compete very well with new gas plants (they are not getting build in the numbers we would expect) Wind, compete with gas, hahahahahahahahahaha. The relationship between wind and gas is one of symbiosis, not competition, wind needs gas to cover for its unreliability while gas needs wind to divert attention away from the fact that it emits CO 2. In the long run, the gas will have to compete with storage and it will have a difficult time, That assumes we get cost effective large scale energy storage, anyone who bases their energy plans on that appearing is a fool. because at 20% wind we already get close to free power at times... While having more expensive power when the wind isn't blowing. And if your main goal is to reduce carbon emissions, there is no point at all in adding large amounts of wind to a grid with plenty of nuclear baseload. If you're main goal is reducing carbon emissions there is no point in bothering with wind and solar as they are only a partial solution if they even work as advertised. Without direct subsidies, wind's viability would probably be restricted to regions with good wind resources and a significant dependence on natural gas. Even then I doubt it makes sense in those places I'm not saying that direct subsidies are necessarily a bad thing. Without these subsidies, wind power would never have reached the level of technological maturity required to reach LCOE levels which let it compete with established technologies under the right circumstances. The important thing is that these direct subsidies decrease over time (to foster innovation) and are replaced by a price on carbon. The subsidies on wind though were the equivalent of the government subsiding the manufacture of carbon fibre horse drawn carriages. Fundamentally wind is obsolete technology that was largely abandoned for good reasons which will never change, it's at the end of the technology lifecycle.
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Post by Nuclear on Apr 12, 2013 6:01:27 GMT 9.5
I find that doubtful given that it doesn't appear as if wind actually does much of anything to reduce natural gas use when you consider that the excessive spinning reserve requirement needed to deal with the wind suddenly dropping to nearly zero (which does happen) means those gas turbines are going to be idling at pretty significant load. Also less efficient gas turbines are better at the kind of load following you'd need to back up unreliables, I wouldn't be surprised if you could save more fuel and CO 2 emissions by having combined cycle plants and no wind than you could with wind and the fast responding simple cycle units. You are assuming a wind farm in a single location backed up by an OCGT. That's not how it works in reality. Wind farms are interconnected through the grid, which provides some degree of output smoothing. Gas still needs to ramp fast, but not really faster than in response to changes in demand (which are predictable, but so is the average wind output a few hours in advance). While it is reasonable to assume that changes in output and operation at non-optimal power levels slightly increase fuel use, the net effect on emissions of adding wind to the grid is overwhelmingly positive. See the report by the UK's National Grid on that topic: www.scottish.parliament.uk/S4_EconomyEnergyandTourismCommittee/NATIONAL_GRID.pdfIn theory it should (though it still makes more sense to just switch to nuclear) but whether that works in practice is another matter. There's also the possibility that the kind of unpredictable power level changes a gas plant will go through will result in having to pay more for the gas as it'll be bought on the spot market. Perhaps, but at the moment utilities seem to value investments into wind as a hedge against future gas price hikes. Gas price volatility could boost wind (and nuclear) investments: emp.lbl.gov/sites/all/files/lbnl-6103e.pdfNuclear power plants can be built on time and on budget if you manage them well. Agreed. But nuclear doesn't seem to be economically viable without political support. Utilities shy away from the huge price tag even though it may be the most economical form of producing low-carbon electricity on the long run. Nuclear requires government backing in the form of price or loan guarantees, especially when carbon emissions are not priced. I hope that Small Modular Reactors will change this. They could be a game changing technology, if they can be manufactured cheaply enough and the state refrains from errecting regulatory hurdles which are too high for potential investors to overcome. Fundamentally wind is obsolete technology that was largely abandoned for good reasons which will never change, it's at the end of the technology lifecycle. I don't think wind power is an obsolete technology. Wind and natural gas can be a bridge into a world of low-carbon baseload power. Natural gas generators are cheap to install and wind, where viable, may be used to hedge against fuel price hikes and to reduce emissions further. Use cheap gas to replace coal ASAP and in the meantime tool up for a true nuclear renaissance.
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Post by trag on Apr 13, 2013 1:19:49 GMT 9.5
You are assuming a wind farm in a single location backed up by an OCGT. That's not how it works in reality. Wind farms are interconnected through the grid, which provides some degree of output smoothing. In order for multiple locations to be able to smooth the output, every location must have transmission lines capable of delivering the full rated capacity of each wind farm to the consuming grid. This multiplies transmission costs by about 5 and multiplies the capital cost of each wind installation by a factor of 2. Add in the cost of back up capacity, and the wind cost is multiplied by 3, compared to the levelized costs published by folks like the EIA. If one carefully reads all the wind levelized cost charts, one finds small print which clearly states that the costs of transmission and backup are not included in the levelized costs. Yet, for wind, those two additional costs triple the cost of wind. Except, possibly in some remote off-grid area, wind makes sense no-where. It's just a foolish way to divert resources from solutions that actually will reduce CO2 emissions.
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Post by Nuclear on Apr 13, 2013 2:34:25 GMT 9.5
In order for multiple locations to be able to smooth the output, every location must have transmission lines capable of delivering the full rated capacity of each wind farm to the consuming grid. This multiplies transmission costs by about 5 and multiplies the capital cost of each wind installation by a factor of 2. Add in the cost of back up capacity, and the wind cost is multiplied by 3, compared to the levelized costs published by folks like the EIA. Your transmission cost estimate is in the upper range. Most studies predict transmission costs below $500/kW, which, while significant, is hardly a doubling in the capital cost for wind installations. eetd.lbl.gov/ea/emp/reports/lbnl-1471e.pdfConcerning backup, if there's a lot of natural gas generation on the grid already, wind may be a useful hedge against future natural gas price increases. As a result of the shale gas boom, there is a dash to gas in the US. But gas prices will not always remain as low as 4$/MMBtu ... once they reach 8$/MMBtu and more, wind will start become competitive in good wind regions like the US Midwest. Except, possibly in some remote off-grid area, wind makes sense no-where. It's just a foolish way to divert resources from solutions that actually will reduce CO2 emissions. Actually, we should put an adequate price on carbon emissions and let the market decide what the most cost effective path to a low emission future is.
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Post by sod on Apr 15, 2013 0:21:40 GMT 9.5
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Post by edireland on Apr 15, 2013 0:44:07 GMT 9.5
Now cut all the transmission lines between Portugal and Spain. See if they can sustain those figures in an isolated system. And I do note that 37% of that energy production is hydro, which is not traditionally classified with "renewables"
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Post by sod on Apr 15, 2013 4:17:46 GMT 9.5
Now cut all the transmission lines between Portugal and Spain. See if they can sustain those figures in an isolated system. Why would you want such a handicap for renewables? Are you sure, that Portugal was not importing spanish solar power? hydro will increase as other renewables increase. It is not your choice, to decide, what counts as renewables and what does not. As i said above: people here will deny stuff, which is already happening. PS: notice, they also saved a lot of coal and gas. This also is in contradiction to theories brought forward here...
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Post by David B. Benson on Apr 15, 2013 12:11:51 GMT 9.5
By happenstance of geography, some locations can generate a large majority of their power by means other than fossil fuels: www.eia.gov/state/?sid=WA[The other renewables category is almost entirely wind. However, a majority of the wind generation leaves the state for points south; that's about twice what stays in-state.
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Post by anonposter on Apr 15, 2013 12:42:53 GMT 9.5
Now cut all the transmission lines between Portugal and Spain. See if they can sustain those figures in an isolated system. Why would you want such a handicap for renewables? Are you sure, that Portugal was not importing spanish solar power? Are you sure Portugal was not importing French nuclear power? But regardless, if you can't run a country on renewables without backup from a country that doesn't have so many renewables (remember that basically all the European grids are connected) you can't run a country on renewables. hydro will increase as other renewables increase. It is not your choice, to decide, what counts as renewables and what does not. Hydro will only increase if there are rivers to dam and the willingness to dam those rivers. Doesn't matter how many bird blenders you build.
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Post by David B. Benson on Apr 15, 2013 13:53:36 GMT 9.5
Hydro, with proper generators, is better suited to providing the balancing agent for wind generation than (almost) any other type. The limitations on amount, etc., are due to whatever licensing restrictions are in place. In the case of BPA, with the vast Columbia River system dams, it takes a substantial amount of hydro to balance a modest amount of wind generation: BPA Balancing Authority Load and Total Wind, Hydro, and Thermal Generation, Near-Real-Time transmission.bpa.gov/business/operations/wind/baltwg.aspxBPA is about maxed out so the other wind farms have to find alternate balancing agents, increasingly natgas turbines.
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Post by edireland on Apr 16, 2013 2:40:03 GMT 9.5
Now cut all the transmission lines between Portugal and Spain. See if they can sustain those figures in an isolated system. Why would you want such a handicap for renewables? Are you sure, that Portugal was not importing spanish solar power? Because if it can't sustain those figures in an isolated system it is absolutely no use for determining whether we can do this across the entire European continental landmass. It is highly likely that is what that is happening is that Portugal is exporting power to the European supergrid some of the time and then importing huge amounts of electricity during other times. hydro will increase as other renewables increase. It is not your choice, to decide, what counts as renewables and what does not. As i said above: people here will deny stuff, which is already happening. So where will these Hydro power plants go? I will let you in on a big secret about Europe.... thanks to several thousand years of technological civilisation, pretty much every hydro resource that can be tapped already has been. There was a government study in the UK a few years back that concluded that the Scottish Hydro Board had already developed >90% of the available hydro resources in Scotland during the 50s and 60s. A similar situation pervades over pretty much all of Europe excluding perhaps Norway and Iceland, and they can only manage all hydro simply because they haev such small populations. PS: notice, they also saved a lot of coal and gas. This also is in contradiction to theories brought forward here... We do not have sufficient information to determine that. The coal plants cannot start up in seconds so we cannot derive estimates for the amount of coal power capacity that is in cold storage compared to warm standby waiting for something to happen. You can't view Portugal as an isolated system. You pretty much have to treat the UK, Irish and Western European supergrids as one interconnected whole.
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Post by Nuclear on Apr 16, 2013 3:03:49 GMT 9.5
This sort of nonsense happens all the time.
In Germany, there are villages which claim to supply themselves with 100% renewable energy, when in reality, their lights would go out without the nuclear power plant next door. Their total production of electricity equals their consumption of electricity, but the timing of production and consumption is not equivalent.
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Post by sod on Apr 16, 2013 5:01:46 GMT 9.5
Reactivation of hydro is happening due to feed in tariffs. for example 50000 small hydro plants have been closed in Germany over the last century. the trend has reversed. cosmic.rrz.uni-hamburg.de/webcat/hwwa/edok05/ch316g/DB111.pdf(pdf page 17) pumped hydro will increase significantly with wind power. just wait and see. There will be no sudden and massive increase in hydro in western Europe. But feed in tariffs and changes to priorities will offer new opportunities. This is an effect of other renewables and can not be discarded.
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Post by sod on Apr 16, 2013 5:36:24 GMT 9.5
Because if it can't sustain those figures in an isolated system it is absolutely no use for determining whether we can do this across the entire European continental landmass. It is highly likely that is what that is happening is that Portugal is exporting power to the European supergrid some of the time and then importing huge amounts of electricity during other times. ... You can't view Portugal as an isolated system. You pretty much have to treat the UK, Irish and Western European supergrids as one interconnected whole. It is not me, who wants to exclude the rest of Europe, it is you. It is obvious, that renewables like wind and solar benefit from integration into a wider grid. But even IF Portugal is forced to import nuclear or fossil fuel power from neighbour countries, it could still benefit from not having to fully backup alternative power. ("pooling" backup can save ressources)
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Post by jagdish on Apr 16, 2013 18:18:30 GMT 9.5
There is no real "rural niche" anywhere that consumes large amounts of electricity. Advances in power transport technologies have seen to that. Unfortunately, it is only partly true. Small users, away from large centers of use face heavy grid charges. Numbers of such users in India is many times the population of continent of Australia. It is true of Africa too. Elsewhere too, I am sure that diesel sets are used a lot. Wind power could be economically stored by low tech. low cost direct compression of air as compressed air. in underground tanks. Solar energy is largely used in crop growth but could have opportunity use in cooking and drying. If and when converted to electricity by high tech photovoltaic process, it should be used for high value electronic use like CFL or more advanced lighting, radio, telephone, TV or computer use. Mechanical power use can be left to compressed air.
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Post by edireland on Apr 16, 2013 21:00:24 GMT 9.5
Because if it can't sustain those figures in an isolated system it is absolutely no use for determining whether we can do this across the entire European continental landmass. It is highly likely that is what that is happening is that Portugal is exporting power to the European supergrid some of the time and then importing huge amounts of electricity during other times. ... You can't view Portugal as an isolated system. You pretty much have to treat the UK, Irish and Western European supergrids as one interconnected whole. It is not me, who wants to exclude the rest of Europe, it is you. It is obvious, that renewables like wind and solar benefit from integration into a wider grid. But even IF Portugal is forced to import nuclear or fossil fuel power from neighbour countries, it could still benefit from not having to fully backup alternative power. ("pooling" backup can save ressources) If you don't want to exclude the rest of Europe, stop quoting figures for Portugal alone. What are the renewable energy figures (listing Hydro seperately) for all of Western Europe? You don't get to go on and on about how Portugal has managed to be 50%+ renewable if you are treating the grid as whole object. And with regards to those "50,000" hydro stations in Germany.... those stations are almost entirely of power ratings in the single digit kilowatts. They are "stations" in mill ponds and other such things that are of questionable economic value, hence the need for enormous subsidies.
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Post by sod on Apr 17, 2013 2:00:34 GMT 9.5
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Post by Nuclear on Apr 17, 2013 2:48:19 GMT 9.5
Sod, you need to understand that the problem is not that Portugal generated renewable electricity equivalent to 70% of its electricity consumption. The problem is that Portugal can't generate 70% of its electricity from renewable sources on demand. Without storage, renewables will never be an adequate solution to our climate change dilemma. True, they help by reducing emissions a little, but they don't displace fossil fuel capacity unless matched with electricity storage.
Nuclear has predictable output throughout the year. Intermittent renewables without storage do not.
I will be the first to applaud (bravo, Iceland) when a country gets 100% of its electricity from renewables and starts replacing fossil fuels in other sectors, but right now I don't see that happening. Renewables can be a part of the solution, but they're not THE solution.
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Post by sod on Apr 17, 2013 5:23:31 GMT 9.5
Sod, you need to understand that the problem is not that Portugal generated renewable electricity equivalent to 70% of its electricity consumption. The problem is that Portugal can't generate 70% of its electricity from renewable sources on demand. Without storage, renewables will never be an adequate solution to our climate change dilemma. True, they help by reducing emissions a little, but they don't displace fossil fuel capacity unless matched with electricity storage. Nuclear has predictable output throughout the year. Intermittent renewables without storage do not. I will be the first to applaud (bravo, Iceland) when a country gets 100% of its electricity from renewables and starts replacing fossil fuels in other sectors, but right now I don't see that happening. Renewables can be a part of the solution, but they're not THE solution. I understand your points, but i still disagree with most of them. The effect in Portugal is real: "Dropping the fossil fuel habit: Portugal’s electricity had 29 percent less coal and 44 percent less gas in it from 2012 figures. "thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/04/14/1858811/is-70-renewable-power-possible-portugal-just-did-it-for-3-months/
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Post by Nuclear on Apr 17, 2013 16:01:02 GMT 9.5
Nobody denies that the effect is not real and that production from renewables does not help Portugal to cut emissions. The problem others and I highlight is that without storage, renewables are not a 100% solution, but require fossil fuels as back up, whether it's in Portugal itself or in other countries doesn't matter.
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Post by jagdish on Apr 17, 2013 19:10:41 GMT 9.5
While I agree that unreliables are not the solution for power grid, let us not be too hard on them. There are substantial areas where the grid is not the solution and diesel generators are in use. Wind and solar plus storage could reduce the diesel use there. They have a niche use. Diesel back up is even required in nuclear power plants. Batteries charged by solar power or compressed air collected by wind power provide an alternative not dependent on outside sources which could face disruption or delays. We may have given up sailing by wind power, but many prefer it to onboard or outboard motors for their yatchs. Wind still has a niche there too. I am, in fact, a votary of nuclear power for international/intercontinental shipping but would not reject sailing in its original sense.
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Post by anonposter on Apr 17, 2013 20:46:52 GMT 9.5
While I agree that unreliables are not the solution for power grid, let us not be too hard on them. There are substantial areas where the grid is not the solution and diesel generators are in use. Wind and solar plus storage could reduce the diesel use there. They have a niche use. I suspect many such places would be better off either on the grid, or with a small nuclear reactor if they aren't close enough (once such things exist). Diesel back up is even required in nuclear power plants. I don't think the IFR and LFTR designs would require it. Batteries charged by solar power or compressed air collected by wind power provide an alternative not dependent on outside sources which could face disruption or delays. For rarely used backup power in places with a grid connection diesel is probably going to remain a lot cheaper than a renewable energy plus storage system designed by Rube Goldberg for quite some time (and emissions of something almost never used is pretty much irrelevant in the bigger picture). We may have given up sailing by wind power, but many prefer it to onboard or outboard motors for their yatchs. Wind still has a niche there too. I am, in fact, a votary of nuclear power for international/intercontinental shipping but would not reject sailing in its original sense. Recreation is a minor use anyway so pretty much insignificant. Just like how the car replaced the horse, but there are still people using them for recreation and even ceremony.
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Post by edireland on Apr 17, 2013 22:34:58 GMT 9.5
If you don't want to exclude the rest of Europe, stop quoting figures for Portugal alone. What are the renewable energy figures (listing Hydro seperately) for all of Western Europe? You don't get to go on and on about how Portugal has managed to be 50%+ renewable if you are treating the grid as whole object. Your request is strange. so massive increases in alternative power only count, if they stretch all over europe? Why? You may not have noticed, Portugal is a rounding error. A population of ten million out of 500 million in the EU alone. (not counting the other countries that are not almost completely integrated into the European power system). Its power demand is rather small, especially considering it is one of the less economically developed Western European nations. It only counts if it is achieved across europe because if you can't do it everywhere you have effectively achieved nothing. So SHP potential across pretty much the entirity of western europe is roughly 38,000GWh/year? You do realise ther are 8760 hours in a year right? Which mean that translates to the equivalent of 4.3GWe of actual generating capacity. Most SHP plants are run-of-the-river and as such are not dispatchable. (A mill pond based system can't stop up the river for obvious reasons) So you are stuck with 4.3GWe of actual non dispatchable power production. Which means it produces roughly the same as three modern nuclear reactors. It would produce as much power per annum as this nuclear power plant, which operates at a deliberately reduced capacity factor of only 77% primarily for economic reasons. Does this still look like "considerable" increase to you? It really is effectively nothing. Diesel back up is even required in nuclear power plants. An ESBWR only requires a 9hp diesel powered pump to pump water into its isolation condensors during long shutdowns..... hardly a significant amount for a power station that has a shaft output of something like 2.1 million horsepower. It has larger diesels in the design to provide black start capability but those would only be used for a few hours during the plant's entire operating life.
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Post by David B. Benson on Apr 18, 2013 11:00:43 GMT 9.5
IEA: World has stalled on clean energywww.world-nuclear-news.org/EE_World_has_stalled_on_clean_energy_1704131.htmlThe world's governments are failing on almost every level to clean up their energy systems and must intervene to support nuclear power, said the IEA, noting that only renewables and electric vehicles are 'on track'. As I see it, the problem is, in many locations, an energy-only market with, then, insufficient return-on-capital for capacity, i.e., dispatchable generation.
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Post by sod on Apr 18, 2013 21:22:31 GMT 9.5
IEA: World has stalled on clean energywww.world-nuclear-news.org/EE_World_has_stalled_on_clean_energy_1704131.htmlThe world's governments are failing on almost every level to clean up their energy systems and must intervene to support nuclear power, said the IEA, noting that only renewables and electric vehicles are 'on track'. As I see it, the problem is, in many locations, an energy-only market with, then, insufficient return-on-capital for capacity, i.e., dispatchable generation. here is the full report: www.iea.org/publications/TCEP_web.pdfIt looks like renewables are on track, while nuclear is not. so this rather partisan report is demanding more support for nuclear. While personally i oppose nuclear, is till don t get, why it isn t successful, if everything that is being told here is true. according to people here, nuclear is much cheaper than renewables and flexible enough to work alongside them.
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Post by David B. Benson on Apr 19, 2013 12:15:42 GMT 9.5
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Post by sod on Apr 19, 2013 15:27:20 GMT 9.5
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