"Gov't mandates are able and should look farther ahead than the short sighted planning that individuals are prone too."

As long as they are not motivated by individuals or by group lobbyists.

Stas wrote;

> In any case the (nuclear) subsidy is tiny compared to the massive amounts wasted on developing uneconomic renewable sources

The nuclear subsidy is higher than the renewables subsidy.
http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/104708.pdf

150GW of Geothermal power alone has been identified by MIT to be conservatively available. Wind power is easily less expensive than nuclear. Again, where on Earth do you get your information??
http://www.energy.gov/news/5920.htm

Some time after 1950 a great disaster struck the UK. It was the discovery of North Sea gas. It seemed unlimited at the time but Norway got a big enough chunk of it at the time to still keep building pipelines to the Netherlands. The UK did not keep building nuclear reactors, and now the gas is expensive. Nuclear electricty is imported from France. No nation should even consider importing nuclear electricity; It is far more efficient to import uranium. The US imports some electricity from Canada even, and has closed every uranium mine.

What most people do not fully realise is that Nuclear power is carbon negative. Little carbon is released by the worker going to work but much much more carbon generation is displaced. This if even more true if Phevs are used. ..HG..

Nuclear power may be carbon negative but uranium mining is not. Nor is the large concrete structure of the reactor housing, although it could be with a different concrete formula. I'm not saying your wrong, over all, but please show us the LCA.

@Will S

LWRs have paid a huge dividend for the R&D money spent. Currently LWR produce 20% of US electricity and pay lots of taxes.

On the other hand renewable energy does not really work except for hydro and biomass. If you would like to compare the cost of a 30 year old nuke plant to a 30 year old wind turbine you will find that wind does not make electricity.

The proper way to look at R&D is line item by line item. However, if Will S wants to use a criteria of potential to produce electricity at an affordable cost, renewable energy would get no R&D funds.

KitP typed:
"Extraction of materials to make the battery for the EV contributes 13% to the overall EV
climate change impact in 2020.

Ooch!!!

Another interesting assumption is that renewable energy is going to increase from 5% in 2007 to 32% in 2020. "

Now connect the dots. IF renewable energy is 32% of the mix in 2020 THEN the extraction of materials contributes 13% to the overall EV climate change impact. That is with an estimated 60% fossil fuel mix for the electricity in 2020 (17 coal/43 gas). Not such a big "ouch" to me when you put everything together (13% of a smaller pie is less impact versus if they were to say 13% and the grid were 100% fossil fuel).

To whoever, as of 2003 the UK electrical supply mix was;
Coal 34%
Oil 1%
NG 38%
Fossil fuel subtotal 73%
Nuclear 23%
Renewable 1%
and Other made up the rest.

If they increase renewable energy to 32% of the mix in 2020 it will come out of the fossil fuel's side, reducing it to 42% - not 60%. More nuclear is also possible, which would reduce the fossil fuel's side even more.

Will S,

The propaganda you spout is erroneous. It must have come from a green press release written by some PR flack, who wouldn't know the difference between a Volt and and Ohm.

Fact: California's experience with actual production from wind turbines versus "nameplate" ratings is extremely poor. For every MW of "nameplate rated" wind power installed, at a nameplate cost three times nuclear/fossil per KW, you get actual capacity utilization of 3-14%. Yes that is right 3%-14%. And you have no base-load capacity at all. When you actually need the power you don't have it.

The UK Utilities' experience with windmills is that the life expectency for financial reasons is based at 30 years, but in practice, after but 9 years of operation, most windmills require a total rebuild. It is actually cheaper to scrap them, and replace them with newer units. This experience is based on running a fleet of over 2000 windmills.

It does not do well to place an generator up in the sky on a pole, subject to the elements, and to the stresses of excessive winds. They must be shut down in winds over 24 mph as the bearings can't handle the torque loads and strain. Nor can the enormous airfoils. Similarly they are shut down in light winds of less than 8 mph for lubrication problems among other reasons.

The worst features of wind and solar is that they are intermittent and can't be controlled to provide stablity to grids. Their variable outputs cause surges of power bouncing around the grid, and these instabilities lead to overloads, underloads, damage and complete blackouts, when wind power get close to 20% of the the grid. Then you must build normal powerplants, in addition, to provide baseload and enforce grid stability. Thus wind power saves you exactly nothing, and provides exactly nothing after you get to about 15% of the grid.

Did you ever wonder why T Boone Pickens has been spending lots of money on adverts? The ignorant oil magnate bought lots of unstable windpower, not connected to a massive stabilizing grid. His diversity investments in Texas electrical Utilities are turning into a disaster of repeated brownouts, blackouts, and lawsuits, in his service area.

What Stas is trying to say is that wind and solar does not work most of the time until they stop working altogether. This would appear to be a perfect energy source for POV that are not used very much.

The fallacy of various green theories present at GCC is the problem is people like me who are not the problem. Those of us who have a POV that are not used very much will not benefit at all for the extra cost of batteries. Society will not benefit very much if we are given tax break for more expensive cars we do not use very much.

@Stas
You set off my twaddle detector.

"The UK Utilities' experience with windmills"
OK so we are talking about wind turbines. They don't mill anything.

"the life expectency for financial reasons is based at 30 years"
Twaddle!
I invested in 1997 in a UK wind farm co-op on the basis that my original stake would be returned at the end of the operational life of 20 years. Not 30.

"after but 9 years of operation, most windmills require a total rebuild"
Twaddle!
In 12 years I think we had 2-3 turbine failures (under warrantee) on the wind farm and no 'total rebuilds'.
If total rebuilds were as prevalent across the industry as you say then the Danish, Swedish, Dutch, German, Spanish and UK markets would be screaming by now.

"It is actually cheaper to scrap them, and replace them with newer units."
Twaddle!
There was a 'repowering' programme supported by the Danish government some years ago
(http://www.energy.ca.gov/2007_energypolicy/documents/2007-03-13_workshop/2007-03-13_ATTACHMENT_B.PDF)
but this was to boost the indigenous industry and to increase power from existing sites. Bear in mind that as an early adopter, Denmark ended up with a large stock of low capacity turbines.
Oh, and the replaced turbines have generated a second hand market (e.g. http://www.greendimension.co.uk/?q=form-refurbished.html).
In the UK, there is talk of repowering the first wind farms built in the early 1900s but only at the end of their 20 year(!) nominal lifetime.

"This experience is based on running a fleet of over 2000 windmills."
Twaddle!
The current fleet may be 2000+ but most of that has gone up in the last 8 years so where is the evidence of a 9 year lifetime? There were less than 700 wind turbines installed in the UK before 1999 and those were mainly old sub-MW scale designs that could not meaningfully be used to forecast lifetimes for the current multi-MW designs.

You should be embarrassed to spout such opinionated drivel and attempt to deliberately mislead others.
If you get a kick out of it then you are a bit of a 'saddie'.

A lot is being said about future power generation mix. Sooner or latter fossil fuel units will have to be discarded and replaced with other sustainable means.

The power mix will progressively change to Nuclear (+ some remaining Hydro) for base loads complemented by interruptible generating alternative sources such as Wind and Solar.

The construction of a few hundred up-to-date large Nuclear power generation plants are unavoidable to satisfy our hunger for energy, specially with the arrival of many million PHEVs and BEVs of all sizes and electrified HVAC in the next 20-25 years.

Clean coal (with effective capture of CO2) and NG may be part of the power mix for the next 50+ years.

It is not a question of being pro or anti Nuclear but more a future neccessity. More and more electrical power will be required and Nuclear may have to supply about 50 + % of it within a few decades.

@Thomas Lankester

It is nice to have a fearless sucker (investor) speak up but your post set of my BS (twaddle) meter.

While I would hope that wind turbines (common term for serious generating equipment) less than 10 years old are better than older windmills (common use term in the US for quaint junk from a bygone era), Thomas completely failed to do anything except mislead others.

Thomas when it comes to making electricity performance counts. First, how much electricity is produced. Second, when and where is it produced relative to demand.

There is a British expression that describes how useful US windmills are. Theyequate with the milk producing glands of male mammals. I hope I am not boring you.

So Thomas, tell me again how much renewable energy UK engineers are have on line by 2020. The problems is not your engineers but your clueless nanny state loons that have never seen a construction schedule.

Hi KitP

I am not sure which post of mine you were responding to but I shall try to ignore the slights and give (as ever) as honest and factual an answer as possible.

As a 'fearless sucker' of 11 years standing I can assure you that my 6-7pa% return on investment is better than I would receive from a standard (UK!) savings account.

In terms of how much, when and where wind turbines produce electricity I made no comments on this so I don't see how I misled anyone. For the UK, the wind turbine load factor 'rule of thumb' is about 1/3 but we certainly have some very poorly performing sites (that I did not get suckered into).

We all know that intermittency and grid connection are real issues. In fact on my earlier post I particularly made the point that to meet UK government commitments (talk) would involve considerable deployment of other renewables as well. Increased hydro and biomass and possible tidal lagoon storage being important elements of the mix needed to balance out supply in the UK. Trans-EU DC interconnectors are also seen as critical to address both the dispatch to the demand centres and balance of supply.

I cannot really (and have not) commented on US turbine performance as my experience and knowledge is UK based. The UK does have the best wind (+ tide + wave) resources in the EU so what might work for us may very well not work in the US. It is horses for courses with renewables. Each state has to go with what they have. Massive hydro, geothermal and solar probably won't be big for the UK.

I could not possible tell you how much renewables we WILL have on line by 2020. Study after study by industry and academic experts
show a massive shortfall with current policy. All I stated in my first post was what our snail-like government has signed up to.

15% total energy renewable with a disproportionate contribute in terms of electricity generation (35% of the mix). Technically possible but politically incredible.

How is this misleading? Why are you shooting the messenger?
I did not even vote for our current government!

@ Thomas

It sounds like you are interested in a civil discussion. I judged your response to Stas as not being very cicil and more to the issue, not very accurate. Moving on, let me address some of your points.

First, regarding investment; are you comparing a very safe way to save with the return on a more risky investment? There was company in the US called ENRON that built wind turbines and wind farms. Had you invested 11 years ago, you would have been the victim of a scam. Some of the responsible went to jail. However, pieces that include building wind turbines and a wind farm are now profitable operations run by ethical companies.

Second there is misleading through omission.

“In terms of how much, when and where wind turbines produce electricity I made no comments on this so I don't see how I misled anyone.”

Each energy projects has discreet performance indicators. If you are make statements without knowing any of them, it is just gossip. A public utility built a smaller wind farm across from ENRON wind farm and cost and performance was publicly disclosed in the annual report. If you have the correct information you can speak with authority.

I would agree the final assessment of Thomas. He does not know what the mix will be in 2020.

I would assert that government policy makes a difference. One state set a modest RPS to encourage renewable energy. That state in now a world leader in wind generation. In a second state, wind farms started springing up based on the economics learned in the first state. The second passed a RPS taking credit for utility leadership. A third state set a ridiculous RPS without any studies to determine if that amount of renewable energy is possible. That state claims leadership in AGW by have the largest commitment at the same time it has the regulatory process with the most difficult barriers.

@KitP

OK, I made 2 posts. The first, in response to you, was to fill you in on the UK situation and add some facts not in the original article - specifically that the renewable 'targets' were not simply 'wind targets'.

The second post, in response to Stas, related to some insideous untruths. I normally try to ignore him but as this related to my 'home patch', the UK, his mix of made up facts (turbine financial write down and reliability) and misleading information (2000 turbines worth of experience) shook me out of my apathy.

My response to him stuck to the issues that I had direct knowledge of and felt had to be corrected. I did not stray onto load factors, turbine location, grid connection issues etc. as these were not the issues I was responding to. There is a difference between focused, point by point response and sin of omission. I also did not talk about the generator availability of wind (v. good) vs. our nuclear fleet. When a 1GW piece of plant goes off line that is quite a hit to the grid. When 7 are taken off for several days as happened last year (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-489362/Power-cuts-warning-energy-chiefs-shut-half-nuclear-power-stations.html) over a common design concern it is a big deal. And people complain about wind being intermittent....

As for my reference to being an investor, I was making it clear that I had personal experience and was prepared to put my money where my mouth was. Where I come, from both attributes are normally considered commendable, not an invitation to being called a 'sucker'.

This term was not only uncalled for but totally uninformed. You had no idea of either the 'due diligence' that I undertook nor the size of the investment and financial exposure I took on (~1000USD, whoopie!).

The social enterprise involved was not an ENRON. It was a local group following the Danish community investment and ownership model. The turbines had been erected (no planning risk, no construction risk), the wind farm was covered by a long term purchase agreement (no distribution risk), the turbines were under a long term maintenance contract (no plant risk), there was a decommissioning fund in place (no decommissioning liability) and the site, on our west coast facing the Atlantic, is damn windy.

Through its spin off company, Energy4All (http://www.energy4all.co.uk), local wind co-operatives have started to spread across the UK, (including near major areas of demand such as the Honda factory in Swindon). These co-operatives are now considered some of the most financially and environmentally ethical social enterprises in the country, often bringing wealth to hard pushed rural communities.

And sucker that I am, I got involved right at the beginning, 11 years ago. And the icing on the cake? Those banks with the 'a very safe way to save' accounts had to be part-purchased by the UK government to stop a round of savers withdrawing funds in panic.
So, yeah, I stand by my comparison.

The DOE continues to support nuclear subsidies for COL licenses.

"The COL program has two objectives: to encourage utilities to take the initiative in licence application, and to encourage reactor vendors to undertake detailed engineering and arrive at reliable cost estimates. For the first, DOE matching funds of up to about $50 million are available, and for the second, up to some $200 million per vendor....

Nuclear Innovation North America (NINA) was formed in February 2008 by NRG Energy and Toshiba to promote the Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR) in North America. NRG had filed a COL application for two ABWRs at South Texas in 2007"

The language is to say not the least ambiguous. And since there is no recorded cut off dates....

@Stan, as always your virtritude is unwelcome. According the the EIA, the cost of wind power production is about 0.96c/KWh. Far cheaper than nuclear. It is also far cheaper to install and in smaller increments. I find the your carbon arguements to be disingenuous considering other anti-AGW arguements.

In the DOE report on wind, the 5000MW put up in 2006-07 had a 33-35% capacity factor. Not the lowball figure that stan and Kitp like using. The variations of wind are compensated for in the same fashion as that of demand. Gas fired turbines and that won't change except that they will be used less.

Instead of getting this propagandist anti renewable power spin, at least get the DOE figures to see how it's being spun.