Comments on: The True Cost of Electric Power

By: Nuclear Power | Renewable Energy Business Consulting and Investment Services

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 22:06:40 +0000

[...] writing, and I try to be as specific as possible in supporting my beliefs. E.g., take my post on the Florida utility group FPL, in which I wrote the following. That was fairly specific, wasn’t it? The actual cost of building [...]

By: Solar Thermal Leader Ausra -- Sold | Renewable Energy Business Consulting and Investment Services

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:50:15 +0000

[...] the other hand, I believe that there is no future whatsoever for the nuclear industry. I know there are people who disagree (I’ll be hearing from them any minute). But to me, no [...]

By: Craig's Book on Renewables - Help Requested | Renewable Energy Business Consulting and Investment Services

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:11:13 +0000

[...] Completed – interview with David Mills [...]

By: arlene allen

arlene allen — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:21:03 +0000

Both the informative article and various comments don’t quite seem to bring the thesis home. Imo, there is a balancing of technology and policy that is essential to any wave of disruption we might be hoping for. Technology is a pretty straight forward business, and that lends itself to getting more focus. Policy is incredibly hard work and has a minimal baseline upon which to build. Because policy is hard and we are human, we lean towards technology solutions as our potential saviours. I certainly don’t disavow technology as its own physician, but I emphasize that most of the work now needs to be on the policy side.

I have every faith that most renewable energy technologies will improve year over year, the storage of that energy will get less expensive and the grid will get smarter. Plenty of room for improvement and we are early in the cycle (think T. Edison and N. Tesla here).

Again and again, I see people referencing economic negative externalities, i.e. what is the true cost of lung cancer, etc.? This is a well seasoned discussion that is hardly newsworthy. What would be newsworthy is the advancement of policies that bring these factors internal to the OMP expense calculation.

I’m likely somewhat north of the several hundred million people who have already said this, but the concept of cheap energy, gasoline that is less than the cost of bottled water, and the reversal of 250 million years of carbon sequestration in approximately two centuries, is totally broken as designed.

Without meaning to fan any flames, the free market is totally and utterly incapable of solving this class of problem. We need a ‘higher’ view, if we at all aspire to being good stewards of the only planet we have at the moment.

By: Peter Fynn

Peter Fynn — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:26:01 +0000

There are many good points made in the article and in Craig’s points above. However, I find it amusing that very little is made of energy storage after generation. We actually do it all the time in our homes. I have a hot water heater. I transfer the energy from burning gas into hot water to use it when I want a shower. Many people do this with electricity. Millions of houses in the US could conserve a LOT of energy by using solar hot water heaters and yet we do not. Why?
If we really want to examine energy use properly, we need to start looking at energy from the point of view of the second law of thermodynamics, not the first law.
Why do we continue to build homes with electric hot water heaters? Why do we only continue to look at renewables with an eye to generating electricity when they could be doing so much more?
Thanks.

By: Lon Garrison

Lon Garrison — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:46:41 +0000

You assume that “molten” salt is universally available over the entire power grid?

Get real!

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:45:03 +0000

Thanks for addressing this.
The real costs of all consumption are easily determined: just add up all of the government budgets (state, local, federal) plus the sales taxes, the road taxes, the fees and licenses, etc.
You see, the reason we have government is because we consume things outside what we produce ourselves. Very little of government is not directly related to protecting our ’stuff’ and our ability to get more ’stuff’.
Ergo, instead of trying to calculate the ‘pollution expenses’ of things, simply use the cost of government which provides protection, health care, cleanup, wars to get stuff, etc. Put that cost where everyone can see it when they make consumption decisions: at the cash register or on the bill for their electricity.
That amount is currently close to 50% of our income. No need for ‘cap and trade’ or other complicated measures.

By: Frank Eggers

Frank Eggers — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:11:44 +0000

Although it’s certainly true that the presently used pressurized water reactors have problems that make them unacceptable, that fact should not be used to condemn nuclear power. There are many possible reactor designs that would be acceptable.

The reactors commonly in use now use only about 1% of the available energy in the uranium fuel, and the waste is dangerously radioactive for thousands of years. However, there are reactor designs that use fuel more efficiently and could even burn the existing waste. Those reactors generate only a tiny amount of waste compared with currently used reactors, and the generated waste needs to be stored for only a few hundred years.

Again, although the reactors commonly used now are unacceptable for several reasons, reactors can be build which completely eliminate those problems.

By: Craig Shields

Craig Shields — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:24:51 +0000

Thanks, David. Just one more point (of which there are dozens) that makes nuclear such a terrible option.

By: Craig Shields

Craig Shields — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:23:38 +0000

Craig: Good point, nuclear is also very slow to implement these days. The fuel is also insufficient to run the exisiting fleet until mid century unless one invokes the Plutonium Cycle. The latter is at odds with the Obama disarmament initiative.

David (Dr. David Mills, Founder, Ausra)