Out: Greta Thunberg. In: Reddy Kilowatt
By Mitch Berg
Big day for Greta on the blog today, huh?
Sweden has ditched the Greens “100% Renewable” goal, doubled down on nukes:
More than 40 years after the country voted to phase out nuclear power, Sweden is now looking to build more nuclear reactors after its parliament formally abandoned its 100% renewable energy target to meet net-zero by 2045.
“Living close to Russia focuses the mind, and the Swedish people not only wish to join NATO, but also to ground their economy in an energy source, nuclear, that is physically sound and secure, unlike renewables which are neither,” said Dr. John Constable, NZW’s energy director.
This follows close on the utterly unrelated move to bar “Gender-Affirming Care” for minors in Sweden…
…and the Minnesota DFL’s uncritical mad dash to embrace unicorn power and allowing people who can’t buy vape, rent a car, consent to sex, buy a beer or sign a contract to commit to
June 27th, 2023 at 11:29 am
The election of the Sweden Democrats has already had a major effect on Swedish politics. You know, for those Swedes that decided to stay and fight for Sweden instead of leaving for Denmark or Spain. 😉
June 27th, 2023 at 11:33 am
Nuclear power is the only real alternative to fossil fuels to power the world. Why are environmentalists not pushing strong for more investment in the sector? Could it be they are not data driven when it comes to nuclear?
June 27th, 2023 at 11:43 am
The whole place is a bunch of refuseniks, stubbornly ignoring advice from all the Best People like, for instance:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/sweden-report-coronavirus-1.6364154
June 27th, 2023 at 1:07 pm
I think one of the lessons from the Ukraine would be the vulnerability of nuclear plants in war time. Both a loss of power and the threat of nuclear contamination.
I just don’t think we are ready for nukes yet, storage issues are also (currently) an unsolved problem.
June 27th, 2023 at 1:17 pm
Whoa, that’s a monumental shift in policy from the folks who were at the forefront of killing off fossil fuels and leading charge on green energy. And nuclear ain’t green™ nor renewable™ nor circular™ nor sustainable™ (by their own definitions). This is a seismic shift! Is there hope that logic will actually prevail? Time will tell.
June 27th, 2023 at 2:47 pm
Juan, I don’t think wartime destruction is too big an issue. Zelensky has made feints, and threats, and yeah, he blew up a dam, but he’s not likely to nuke the ukes.
Storage isn’t a problem, unless we make it a problem. Much of the waste can be reprocessed and reused over and over again.
June 27th, 2023 at 3:38 pm
The cost of new electric generation by technology is summarized as:
Natural Gas, Combined Cycle – $1000/kW
Utility scale Solar PV – $1313/kW
Large, on-shore wind – $1265/kW
In contrast, the only nuclear reactors currently under construction in the US are Vogtle 3 & 4 in Georgia. If these reactors come on-line as expected in 2023, seventeen years after initial construction permits were obtained, they will have cost $30 billion for just 2 million kilowatts of generation, or $15,000/kW**. This is anywhere from eleven to 15 times the cost of alternatives. This is just capital cost. Over the ~50 life of nuclear plants, operating and fuel costs will likely be far higher than any other technology.
We constantly hear excited talk of SMR’s, breeders, thorium reactors and all manner of other gold plated tech that will revive Nuclear. But the nuclear industry is 70 years old and in the real world, as of today, it is ruinously expensive.
https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost/pdf/capital_cost_AEO2020.pdf
If you check Table 2 (lines 11 and 12) in my first source above, you will see that estimated cost of new nuclear construction is still at least $6000/kW. This is an estimate. I’ve already described current reality. I have no idea what a new nuclear plant, started today, would end of costing. I do know that US industry won’t touch it with a barge pole absent enormous government subsidies.
In my source, also note the operating cost of nuclear power is estimated a ~$3.5/MWh vs $0 for renewables: No help there.
June 27th, 2023 at 3:39 pm
Second source: Plant Vogtle #3 and #4: More Issues (costs, delay, partner opt-downs)
https://www.masterresource.org/georgia-power
plant-vogtle/plant-vogtle-3-and-4-more-negatives/
June 27th, 2023 at 4:34 pm
^ I’m interested in knowing in all those wonderful charts and graphs if your renewables are shown to be trusted enough to actually produce energy when needed. That is, 24/7, 100% of the time. Because if you go back to the post that started this thread, that is the problem the Swedes are trying to solve.
But do tell us more about how economical and earth-friendly “renewables” are.
June 27th, 2023 at 5:29 pm
And the argument always begins with a false premise-that renewables are needed. No one has proved that. Did you know that as of now, there’s still not a single simple physics experiment that can demonstrate the AGW hypothesis? That adding more CO2 makes an object warmer than a lesser amount of CO2 from its own emissions? Not one single peer-reviewed paper showing verifiable cause-effect evidence that man’s emissions are warming the planet. The propaganda, though, is doing a very good job with the general public…
June 27th, 2023 at 6:06 pm
In the US, Texas has the highest penetration of renewables and also has at/near the cheapest electric rates.
A typical thermal/turbine power plant (gas, coal, nuclear) can go to ~30% of nameplate capacity to accommodate incoming renewables. The unused capacity becomes “spinning reserve” that functions as a backup to renewable. Since most fossil capacity was build decades ago, a large fraction (but <100%) of electric demand can be handled by renewables without building new generation.
This is done every hour of every day by large US utilities.
The key problem is that investors after listening to those guys decide there are better options to invest in clean energy. The technology (nuclear) is wonderful but the business is poor.
But who said anything about "entirely?" Using renewables to replace ~70% of fossils is not particularly difficult.
Everyone fixates on a 100% transition.
But for the older generations living today, doing the first, easiest 70% may be good enough. The young people of today can solve the rest.
June 27th, 2023 at 6:08 pm
We can debate all day whether they’re needed–who needs anything, anyways, when there are alternatives, strictly speaking?–but what strikes me is that wind and solar power simply does not make economic sense for most users. It works if you’re on a ranch in Utah and connecting to the grid would cost six figures, but not so much when the utilities have been through the neighborhood for decades.
I’m generally OK with the notion of reducing our impact on the environment if it can be done without endangering human lives, but I don’t believe that windmills and solar qualify for this. The ecological costs of installing them are very close to their stated benefits, even assuming that the actual product lifecycle is similar to what is promised–and that’s not a good assumption when you’re dealing with environmentalists.
June 28th, 2023 at 12:14 am
[…] FL Dems Assail “Stand Your Ground” Laws In Wake Of AJ Owens Shooting Shot In The Dark: Out – Greta Thunberg, In – Reddy Kilowatt, also, Borrowed Time STUMP: Sunday at Sea: the Vasa, the Far Side of the World, and Alexander in a […]
June 28th, 2023 at 6:32 am
Those massive solar farms in CA are ruining the desert, killing wildlife and now affecting the water supply.
https://dailycaller.com/2023/06/27/california-desert-solar-projects-aquifers-habitat-locals/
June 28th, 2023 at 7:42 am
Say lyin’ rAT?
Instead of wasting time and electricity cutting/pasting large sections of text no one is going to read, just copy/paste the link.
That way you’ll have more time to tell us about your trAP LeAGue, your FaBUloUs ReaL EsTATeS and where you got your PhD in Nuclear Physics and Chemistry, your MBA, JD and MD.
June 28th, 2023 at 7:46 am
We’ve sent enough federal fiat dollars to the Zelensky mob to defend buttsex, child trafficking and money laundering to build 3 or 4 nuc power plants.
June 28th, 2023 at 8:59 am
I do note that IEA appears to be assessing nuclear costs based on continued operation of existing plants (with 10 or 20 year lifetime extensions) or new “nth-of-a- kind (NOAK) plants to be completed by 2025 or thereafter.” These don’t as yet exist.
Kindly remember that I am relating actual, on-going nuclear construction costs in the US — not just quoting a study.
Go to Table 2 of the source below. Compare the “Fixed O&M Costs” and “Variable O&M Costs” for cases 7, 11, 12, 20, 24.
If you see the same numbers I do, your conclusion may decisively reverse. I’m happy to be “proven” wrong.
https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost/pdf/capital_cost_AEO2020.pdf
I’m not pushing fossils over nuclear. I’m just trying to show that the nuclear industry has a lot to prove. Given its age and maturity, that says a lot. There are reasons why its out of favor after 70 years.
Maximizing renewables is a simple and relatively cheap proposition up to the point where intermittency becomes too much. We are far from that point now. And there is no guarantee we ever need to reach it.
June 28th, 2023 at 10:16 am
^^Does not understand law of diminishing returns.
The easy gains to solar & wind total production have already been done.
Hundreds of billions — maybe trillions — spent on low density, un-green solar & wind power, a mere pittance spent on making nuclear power safer & cheaper.
The truth is, the greenies do not want “power too cheap to meter” and they never have.
June 28th, 2023 at 10:25 am
^ Yes! Well-stated, MMP.
June 28th, 2023 at 11:13 am
I suggest you make sure you know the difference between kW and kWh. They are literally as different as miles and tons.
The figure I quote of $15,000 per kilowatt of generating capacity (e.g. $15,000/kW) is exactly what I meant, and is 100% correct for the subject reactors. Read my sources if you differ.
I specifically referred to Vogtle 3 & 4 which are the only reactors under construction in the US. I provided an unbiased and credible source to back my statement.
But as egregious boondoggles go, the Vogtle reactors are not an isolated case. Read up on Hinkley Point C over in Britain — currently running ~$30 billion for ~3200 MW or $9400/kW of generating capacity.
June 28th, 2023 at 11:24 am
Testing for moderation triggers:
boondoggle
June 28th, 2023 at 11:24 am
I suggest you make sure you know the difference between kW and kWh. They are literally as different as miles and tons.
The figure I quote of $15,000 per kilowatt of generating capacity (e.g. $15,000/kW) is exactly what I meant, and is 100% correct for the subject reactors. Read my sources if you differ.
I specifically referred to Vogtle 3 & 4 which are the only reactors under construction in the US. I provided an unbiased and credible source to back my statement.
But as egregious boond0ggles go, the Vogtle reactors are not an isolated case. Read up on Hinkley Point C over in Britain — currently running ~$30 billion for ~3200 MW or $9400/kW of generating capacity.
June 28th, 2023 at 11:52 am
Woolly writes: “Does not understand law of diminishing returns. The easy gains to solar & wind total production have already been done.”
Says the person who backs up his blustering asseveration with — nothing.
June 28th, 2023 at 1:03 pm
The figure I quote of $15,000 per kilowatt of generating capacity (e.g. $15,000/kW) is exactly what I meant, and is 100% correct for the subject reactors. Read my sources if you differ.
I’ve reviewed your link, Emery. Care to give the page number where this figure comes from?
I provided an unbiased and credible source to back my statement.
“Unbiased” and “credible” source, where the legal CYA at the front of the doc
states:
This report (“Deliverable”) was prepared by Sargent & Lundy, L.L.C. (“Sargent & Lundy”), expressly for the sole use of the U.S. Department of Energy – Energy Information Administration (“Client”) in accordance with the agreement between Sargent & Lundy and the Client. This Deliverable was prepared using the degree of skill and care ordinarily exercised by engineers practicing under similar circumstances. Client acknowledges: (1) Sargent & Lundy prepared this Deliverable subject to the particular scope limitations, budgetary and time constraints, and business objectives of the Client; (2) information and data provided by others may not have been independently verified by Sargent & Lundy; and (3) the information and data contained in this Deliverable are time sensitive and changes in the data, applicable codes, standards, and acceptable engineering practices may invalidate the findings of this Deliverable. Any use or reliance upon this Deliverable by third parties shall be at their sole risk.
A figure based on total cost divided by total projected capacity is meaningless without the added context of technical challenges and costs versus political costs. It’s the same statistical sleight-of-hand that “proves” women earn less than men. You noted that the Vogtle reactors in GA are the only ones under construction. How much of that is to this day influenced by the anti-nuke movement, and its intrusions into public policy.
June 28th, 2023 at 1:46 pm
Having electricity 70% of the time is good enough, say the chat-bot guri at The Emery Collective.
Unless it’s January and your heat source is electric because all the combustion methods have been banned
Unless it’s July and your freezer full of food is out of power again
Unless you need supplemental oxygen for your COPD but the home oxygen machine runs on electricity
Unless runway lights and air traffic control radios are now optional
Unless burglar alarms and fire alarms are a hateful form of white privilege
Then 70% just isn’t good enough, at least not for modern civilized society. Then we need to devolve to a lower form, back to the lifestyle of the 1700s and earlier, but without fire (greenhouse gasses).
If the goal is savagery, we are well on the way.
June 28th, 2023 at 2:15 pm
Really impressed by the number of people on SiTD who turn out to have expertise in power generation, deep sea engineering AND modern Russian political dynamics.
June 28th, 2023 at 2:32 pm
Emery is writing comments and then congratulating himself on writing them? WTF?
June 28th, 2023 at 3:46 pm
MMP: +1
Lmao
June 28th, 2023 at 3:47 pm
Too bad he’s waaaay too fucking stupid to get it, MMP.
June 28th, 2023 at 3:52 pm
Emery, for reference, I’m a third generation electrical engineer. My grandfather had a great part, for better or worse, in setting up the ring of power plants around Chicago for Commonwealth Edison, and my father made a living selling process control equipment to power plants and other factories. Add my power class as an undergrad (Michigan State has a pretty nifty cogeneration plant that gets power added efficiency to about 60%), and yes, I agree that I’ve got some knowledge about electrical power–though I personally “strayed” to microwave and data storage.
I also did running camp in the shadow of one of the Ludington pumped storage plant, a reservoir that empties and fills to help balance power generation needs. So I’m very familiar with how it matters when power generation is online and not. Finally, I’m familiar with the fact that at peak demand–early evening–the sun is going down and the wind generally dies down as well.
Long and short of it; either you have fossil/hydroelectric/nuclear, or you have candles at dinnertime. Like the old joke goes, “What did Californians use for light before candles?” The answer is, of course, “lightbulbs.”
June 28th, 2023 at 6:08 pm
“Really impressed by the number of people on SiTD who turn out to have expertise in power generation, deep sea engineering AND modern Russian political dynamics.”
These are examples of two Logical Fallacies. The first is Ad Hominem, attacking the speaker rather than disputing the substance of the message. The second is Appeal to Authority, asserting nobody can dispute The Settled Science.
Both are attempts to end debate rather than win it. Both are used by desperate people who have no winning intellectual arguments to make. Basically, they are rhetorical tricks for lying cowards.
But then, it’s The Emery Collective, so we knew that.
Forget I said anything.
June 29th, 2023 at 9:03 am
Really impressed by the number of people on SiTD who turn out to have expertise in power generation, deep sea engineering AND modern Russian political dynamics.
I asked for a page number cite of your $15k/kW figure from the report you linked to, Emery.
A fair number of us are engineers. Engineers can read (and understand) technical documents from disciplines other than our own. There’s no law against it. We’re don’t have “expertise” in the other fields, but we have knowledge that overlaps. Has any of us professed expertise?
In my career as a software engineer, I’ve written code to control electrical relays designed by electrical engineers. I modeled the physics affecting a piece of automated equipment (designed by mechanical engineers) being moved by a servo motor (controlled by controls engineers). I had to understand the controls engineers’ closed-loop controllers to align the velocity, acceleration, and motor torque profiles generated by interactions with real hardware with my model. Using simulations to shake the problems loose with the control loops or the embedded software sending it commands was on the whole cheaper. Easier, cheaper, and less paperwork to reset the simulation, instead of finding out you just warped a perfectly good piece of metal while you slap an E-Stop.
One does not need to be a nuclear engineer to understand how a reactor works, nor does one need to be a structural or metallurgical engineer to understand the difference in how a column of water exerting tons per square inch of pressure will act on steel versus carbon fiber versus titanium, or how flexible or rigid those materials are, or how their flexibility or rigidity affects their tensile strength.
Maybe you should explain how you have “expert” knowledge of all these different topics…
June 29th, 2023 at 12:26 pm
It’s all in my 3:38 comment
It also appears I posted a bad link which is corrected below.
Plant Vogtle #3 and #4: More Issues (costs, delay, partner opt-downs)
https://www.masterresource.org/georgia-power-plant-vogtle/plant-vogtle-3-and-4-more-negatives/
Your statements are overly pessimistic.
What we can confidently say is that cynical and easily defeated people won’t make much progress on the problem of energy security or anything else.
June 29th, 2023 at 5:24 pm
What problem of energy security do we have? I’m speaking of fossil fuels, not the unreliables
June 29th, 2023 at 7:10 pm
Emery is off in a hallucinatory spiral, an imagined world where his words make sense, and people pay attention, damn it!
Some clues to the various Emeries. All stuff taught in an English 100 class at your neighborhood community college.
-State your thesis.
-Expand your thesis, giving the reasoning that led you to believe your thesis is true.
-Give counter arguments to your thesis, and assume those arguments are made in good faith.
-Respond to those arguments.
-Summarize arguments for and against your thesis, and explain how the arguments against your thesis do not disprove your thesis.
-Conclude by restating your thesis.
As it is, Emery is the guy who can foretell the past. Lord knows he has been completely shitty at forecasting the future. Emery is the master of just-so stories.
June 30th, 2023 at 7:29 am
Woolly writes: “The easy gains to solar & wind total production have already been done.”
😂😂😂😉😂😉