Photovoltaics, Biofuels, and Nuclear Energy – Some Food for Thought
Thanks to frequent commenter Tim Kingston for sending me these two articles with which I begin the work week here at 2GreenEnergy. First is a pro-nuke piece – certainly a concept that defies what I’ve come to believe, yet I try to keep an open mind. I know there are people who say that nuclear is absolutely required if we’re to avoid both horrific economic collapse and catastrophic global climate change. Again, I don’t believe this, based on the bulk of what I’ve read, but I don’t have a problem with discussing the notion.
The second is exactly in step with what I believe, i.e., that photovoltaics is a better “harvester” of solar energy than biofuels, because of the realities of the physics involved.
Craig,
I’ll chime in with a complete and total agreement with the fact that nuclear energy must be a part of the mix for at least the next three decades. But it seems that the now pro-nuclear power advocate that was once an anti-nuclear advocate (mirroring my own evolution in a way) who made the film in question is a bit of a serious over-the-top exaggerator. The comment that “an I-phone uses as much energy as a refrigerator” is nothing short of stupid, indefensible garbage.
But the truth is that we enjoy a life of luxury due to electrical and chemical energy, and we don’t want to go back to a culture that does not enjoy that level of luxury. Wind energy is currently ~4% of the nation’s electricity profile, while solar is ~0.1%. Solar may scale up to as much as 5-7% within the next decade (by 2023), and wind may scale up to ~12-15% (this is an EXTREMELY ambitious projection for both platforms, and is actually a greater penetration level than is projected by any Wall Street or government analyst, it’s fair to say this is likely the maximum pace that will be achieved).
If that (extremely aggressive renewables penetration) occurs, and nuclear power were taken out of the mix, then fossil energy would enjoy the exact same penetration that it enjoys today. Worse, the very-low cost baseload power would be taken out of the grid, and would most likely be replaced by coal, reversing the trend of coal’s gradual diminishing penetration.
So we need the nukes. I suspect that the decade from ~2020-2030 will see a marked slowdown in the growth of both platforms, with the only path towards increasing growth rates coming from future WindFuels demand.
If we don’t have nukes producing power, then that power will have to be made from fossil fuels, because the wind and solar power will not ramp up to a 100% penetration level very quickly… and though an I-phone isn’t a refrigerator, we can only achieve so much energy reduction through efficiency upgrades.
Glen, Although the fossil fuel percentages may be the same, natural gas will, hopefully, take the place of much of the coal generation.
Will,
I agree that it’s certain that NG will continue to expand. But in a hypothetical world where the nuclear fleet was taken offline, coal would be preferred to replace nuclear generation due to the very low baseload generation costs… So in that scenario, coal would increase its penetration compared to now.
I do not think we will see an elimination of nuclear power, so I don’t feel this hypothetical situation is at all relevant… but my post was an attempt to explain the importance of nukes by describing what the energy profile would look like if they went away.
🙂