Nuclear Energy and Renewables Need To Cooperate. Isn’t That Obvious?

As noted yesterday, some of these pro-nuke people have a very dim view of renewables; some of the more extreme among them accuse the entire renewable energy enterprise of being a corrupt/criminal attempt to suck down government subsidies, while knowing that they’re contributing to the planet’s demise.  If you click on the post linked above, you’ll see that I had some fairly harsh words for the guy who leveled that accusation.  

Here’s a further conversation on the subject that takes a more collegial tone.  Nuclear proponent Mike Conley writes:

Craig, It is incumbent upon wind and solar supporters to show exactly how they intend to fulfill their goal of running the entire country on renewables. It’s an extraordinary claim – running an advanced industrial society on fuel-free, intermittent systems.  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Which thus far doesn’t exist. Case in point: Jacobson’s 50-State Roadmap, the most cherished plan the renewables crowd has. It’s taken as gospel, but if you actually read the entire thing, you discover that the deeper you look, the flimsier it gets. The more you pencil it out, the sketchier it becomes, and finally falls apart under the weight of its own hubris. My and Tim Maloney’s upcoming ebook Roadmap to Nowhere clearly shows this, six ways from Sunday. 

Again – extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.  Make a claim and back it up, and you get respect.  Make a claim that is clearly not true, and you shall be ruthlessly shat upon in the public sphere, made fun of, disparaged, and raked over the coals of cold, unforgiving logic.   Such is the nature of rational public discourse.

I respond:

Mike: Thanks for this very civil and level-headed reply.  And yes, I’m all about rational public discourse.  Here are a few things I believe you need to keep in mind:

True, there are people who claim that 100% renewables at a reasonable price is an achievable goal in the coming couple of decades.  A) They’re in a fringe minority, B) They’re misinformed/wrong, but most importantly, C) It doesn’t matter.  Wind and the other flavors of renewables are not idiotic/corrupt enterprises.  As we speak, wind is offsetting ~5% of fossil fuels in the US grid-mix, and accounts for more than 30% of Iowa’s electricity. Fossil fuels will soon be almost completely absent in places like Costa Rica, Iceland, Scotland, Scandinavia, and other parts of the world that have great renewable resources, be they hydro, wind, geothermal, etc.

Do most parts of the world have wind resources like Iowa or geothermal resources like Iceland? Of course not. Do we need nuclear?  Of course we do.  For people who somehow can’t comprehend this, I point to India; it will be completely impossible to address the world’s carbon emissions issues without nuclear in the Asian subcontinent. Anyone who’s studied this subject with any reasonable level of clarity and integrity totally gets that.

Here’s something else to think about; it’s what senior energy analyst Glenn Doty wrote in response to seeing this discussion:

Here in South Carolina, we’ve been paying in towards four reactors for two major nuclear power plants for the last decade. The cost overruns and delays eventually drove Westinghouse – the company directly contracted – into bankruptcy… and the two power plants were cancelled… so now we’ve paid in something like $6 billion, and we’ll pay in another billion to dismantle and bury the project sites… and have nothing to show for it. Until nuclear power can manage to get around stories like that, it has a problem.

I’m a fan of nuclear, but we need everything that is not fossil… and we need to be honest about what is best for what regions. In the Midwest, the best option is wind, and that should be the focus. In the Southwest, it’s solar, and that should be pursued. Here in the Southeast it should be nuclear, but the nuclear people (involved are displaying) some combination of incompetence, corruption, and poor public relations that has resulted in a complete disaster.

Those nuclear people need to figure out what is wrong in their own house, and eliminate stories like ours. Then they can WORK WITH OTHERS to reduce fossil emissions as fast as possible.

I think he’s got a wonderful point here, one that you folks may wish to consider.

I guess I would summarize this as follows: AGW (anthropogenic global warming) represents a huge and urgent problem to our civilization, one that is best addressed (can only be addressed?) by a blend of solutions: nuclear, renewables, efficiency, storage, electric transportation, DR, peak-shaving, load-shifting, smart cities, etc.  Nuclear and renewables’ fighting against one another makes no more sense than having the US Army attack the Marine Corps.

Thanks for involving me in the critically important discussion.