Can we build a baseload renewable grid, or do we have to go nuclear?

[Eclipse Now]

There are vast reserves of energy we haven't fully tapped into whether it's solar, geothermal, biomass, or simply reducing wasted energy. We don't need to fight wars over oil or arable land or water if we made better use of what we already have. We need a paradigm shift. Too many misplaced priorities. Too many missed opportunities.

 

This comment from the biochar thread pretty much summarised my old view of renewables... that a mix of renewables could make a baseload grid because if the wind wasn't blowing the sun was shining, or the waves were going up and down, etc.

 

But now it seems there's a growing movement of greenie nuclear activists saying renewables CAN'T replace fossil fuels at anything like a competitive price for this VERY reason! That is, where one nuclear power station could supply baseload power it takes a solar thermal plant AND then a wind farm AND a wave power generator and all these cost serious money!

 

In other words, if one of these power supplies were truly baseload (being available all year around apart from maybe 10% of the time like coal plants getting serviced) why wouldn't we just use them?

[maikeru]

This comment from the biochar thread pretty much summarised my old view of renewables... that a mix of renewables could make a baseload grid because if the wind wasn't blowing the sun was shining, or the waves were going up and down, etc.

 

But now it seems there's a growing movement of greenie nuclear activists saying renewables CAN'T replace fossil fuels at anything like a competitive price for this VERY reason! That is, where one nuclear power station could supply baseload power it takes a solar thermal plant AND then a wind farm AND a wave power generator and all these cost serious money!

 

In other words, if one of these power supplies were truly baseload (being available all year around apart from maybe 10% of the time like coal plants getting serviced) why wouldn't we just use them?

 

I only support the use of nuclear energy if it's in safer, more efficient forms like breeder reactors or molten-salt reactors that can consume most of the fuel, transform it, and not leave much deadly stuff behind. I am not in favor of expanding the number of light- or heavy-water reactors that use uranium and for the inevitable storage problems that might result, and I think that the use or disuse of nuclear depends on conditions and locations. In truth, I'd rather not, when we have so many options for renewables to explore and utilize.

 

Many renewables can be coupled to environmental, land, societal, or quality-of-life improvements. Out here in the American West, nuclear waste storage and contamination are major issues. A few years ago there was a huge debate over whether the US government could dump more nuclear waste in Skull Valley.

 

Do we need to make every place humans go into an unlivable hell hole by putting toxic waste there, especially for thousands or millions of years?

 

The land lives on so much longer after we do. Today a desert, tomorrow a forest, and someday underwater as a sea.

 

And one more thing as I understand it is that many power plants, especially nuclear, gobble up vast amounts of water:

 

Water Shortage Could Dry Up Nuclear Power Plants in Southeast : Planetsave

Water Wars: Thirsty Power Plants Find Another Environmental Obstacle - Environmental Capital - WSJ

Drought could close nuclear power plants - Weather- msnbc.com

http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/20071204-ucs-brief-got-water.pdf

 

With global warming predicted to increase the number and intensity of droughts and growing cities and agriculture placing more strain on dwindling water resources, I wonder how viable current nuclear power plants will be.

 

Those involved in renewable resources also need to consider water use, conservation, or possibly restoration of and storage of water in watersheds, forests, and lands to maintain the water cycle. Living in a desert and through a 6-year drought made me much more aware of the importance of water. I'd rather have no power than no water.

[Eclipse Now]

Water could be an issue that nuclear helps with, surely? It takes power to desalinate etc.

 

Many renewables can be coupled to environmental, land, societal, or quality-of-life improvements. Out here in the American West, nuclear waste storage and contamination are major issues. A few years ago there was a huge debate over whether the US government could dump more nuclear waste in Skull Valley.

But don't the Gen3 and coming Gen4 reactors take waste that lasts 100's of thousands of years and burn it again to about 10% of the waste that is even MORE radioactive but burns itself out to safe levels in just 500 to 1000 years?

 

The guys I've been reading on this (and arguing with occasionally) are at:

BraveNewClimate.com

 

They claim we can SOLVE all the waste issue by running ALL radioactive waste AND nuclear warheads through these new reactors and get 10% of the waste, and only store it for 1000 years. Sounds good to me!

[Zythryn]

If we can get more advances in storage of power, that will help renewables immensely.

I think, with current technology, we need some nuclear, but renewables can grow a lot.

Solar will help as there is little to no water needed (depending upon the type of solar plant). Tidal generators are awesome as the power is VERY steady. You know exactly what time of day will produce how much power. The areas that can use it are limited to coastal areas, however there is a lot of power needed in those same areas.

[Moontanman]

I think building a base load renewable grid is possible but at great cost to the natural world. Nuclear takes up far less space and has much less impact on the natural world. We are just beginning to work out nuclear power, there is much reason to expect the stuff we call waste to eventually be an important resource for future energy needs. Nuclear pollutes far less, and takes up much less space on the planet. I guess it's up to us to decide whether we want to look at at huge fields of windmills and the dead birds and bats laying on the ground around them to vast fields of solar collectors or fewer small nuclear power plants. The renewable power sources have their own unique problems with wastes and environmental impact, no source of power is completely clean.

[Zythryn]

...I guess it's up to us to decide whether we want to look at at huge fields of windmills and the dead birds and bats laying on the ground around them to vast fields of solar collectors or fewer small nuclear power plants. The renewable power sources have their own unique problems with wastes and environmental impact, no source of power is completely clean.

 

While it is true that all sources of power generation have some impact, please don't bring exagerations into the discussion.

Wind turbines kill fewer birds than are killed by buildings, power lines, or even house cats (by magnitudes).

Yes, wind turbines do kill some birds, but so do many other things.

As for vast fields of solar collectors, that isn't the only way to do it. Far prefered, in my mind, is to create the power as close to where it is being used.

Since the rooftop of most buildings is not very useful, why not use it? Now, solar pv isn't cost efficient YET. We need advances in either the material used, or the efficiency. But those are coming so why not take advantage of it?

[Moontanman]

While it is true that all sources of power generation have some impact, please don't bring exagerations into the discussion.

Wind turbines kill fewer birds than are killed by buildings, power lines, or even house cats (by magnitudes).

Yes, wind turbines do kill some birds, but so do many other things.

As for vast fields of solar collectors, that isn't the only way to do it. Far prefered, in my mind, is to create the power as close to where it is being used.

Since the rooftop of most buildings is not very useful, why not use it? Now, solar pv isn't cost efficient YET. We need advances in either the material used, or the efficiency. But those are coming so why not take advantage of it?

 

 

I am sorry Zythryn, I should have indicated i was talking a little tongue in cheek on that one. But the killing of bats is a real concern for windmills. For some reason bats are being killed at a large rate, other things like buildings do not have this effect on bats. I must say that covering all the roofs of buildings will not generate more than a fraction of the power required by said buildings. But i think a mix of these renewable and nuclear are where we are headed. Once the renewables become more cost efficient they will of course compete with other types of power. But there are many applications that renewables will be hard pressed to cover, Manufacturing plants use huge amounts of power. The Du Pont plant I used to work at had it's own coal fired power house just to heat the Dow therm and steam used at the plant. Electricity was provided by the local power company but the plant was located where it was due to the proximity of nuclear power plant and the continuous energy it provides. a few seconds of power outage could cause millions of dollars of damage and we used power in huge amounts. I honestly can't see renewables providing power in those amounts.

[Zythryn]

Sorry Moontanman, that is just a sore spot for me as it is often brought up by critics as a serious point of contention when it really is, for birds at least, quite silly.

200 square miles of solar panels could supply the amount of electricity the US uses. With 10s of millions of buildings, I bet you that roof space alone would cover that.

However, I mainly point that out to show there is no issue with the total amount of renewables available.

I agree completely with you that right now there is a big issue with the consistancy of renewables such as wind or solar. Once better power storage methods are developed, I do believe the baselines can be all renewables. Present day, if the infrastructure was in place, I feel we would need a combination of nuclear and renewables.

Perhaps not out west where they have the energy from the Hoover dam?

But both the plants (nuclear or renewables) and the transmition lines would need to be built, as I don't think there is sufficient transmition lines right now??

[Moontanman]

First i would like to point out that the surface of a building is quite small compared to it's power needs. Take the average 10 story office building. could the roof actually proved all it's energy? How much energy actually falls on such a building? how much surface area would it take to provide that energy even at 100% conversion much less the few percentage points of solar cells?

 

Could the entire roof of a 2000 square foot home provide it's entire energy budget for one year? Air conditioning and heat, lights? I don't think so.

 

Then you have the problem of power transmission. Electricity is difficult to send over long distances, you loose much of the power in long distance transmission. The Hoover Damn comes up quite short in providing the energy needs of the entire west or even a few large cities.

[Zythryn]

First i would like to point out that the surface of a building is quite small compared to it's power needs. Take the average 10 story office building. could the roof actually proved all it's energy?

 

Yes, tall buildings may be difficult to reach self sufficiency. Luckily parking lots would produce much more power than they use, so that would help out. Windows with PV cells build into them are also being worked on which would drastically increase the area that could be used.

 

How much energy actually falls on such a building? how much surface area would it take to provide that energy even at 100% conversion much less the few percentage points of solar cells?

On a sunny day, 1.4Kw/sq meter. Given a 20% efficiency rate it adds up, but again tall buildings would be difficult to provide all their power themselves. Luckily they aren't the average.

 

Could the entire roof of a 2000 square foot home provide it's entire energy budget for one year? Air conditioning and heat, lights? I don't think so.

 

Don't move the goal posts unless you allow me to change my answer.

We are talking about replacing electricity, not natural gas, geothermal or other means of heating and AC.

If the home is 2 story, that is about a 25' x 40' foundation or 1000 square feet. Most rooflines are angled, however only half will be efficient for solar collection, so figure 500 sq feet. or about 150sq meters. Let's cut that in half again for vents and other rack hardwares and such to 75sq meters.

At 20% efficiency that is 1.4kw/sq m * 75 sq m * .2 = 21Kw.

Assume 4 hours of sun a day and that gives you 84Kwh/ day or about 2500kwh/ month. For the average American that is enough for both their electrical consumption and their neighbors.

So yes, if you limit the question to use of electricity, average houses can supply their own power. Is it economical? No, but it can be done, the energy is there.

 

Then you have the problem of power transmission. Electricity is difficult to send over long distances, you loose much of the power in long distance transmission. The Hoover Damn comes up quite short in providing the energy needs of the entire west or even a few large cities.

 

That is why I like solar panels and other distributed systems. It is much more efficient to get the power from panels on my roof than sent through miles of cabling.

As for the power generation of the Hoover Dam, I apologize, I was remembering a tour and it must have refered to all hydro power.

I also did not mean to imply that the Hoover Dam produces 100% of the electricity needed in the west, although looking back at my statement I realize how it came across that way.

What I should have said (after some research) is that hydro power produces a large amount of power and is very steady, thus a good 'base line'.

In the 40s, hydro power generated about 75% of the electrical power used in the western US although that has gone down, it (hydro power) still generates about a quarter (10% of power for the entire US).

Bureau of Reclamation

[Moontanman]

Yes, tall buildings may be difficult to reach self sufficiency. Luckily parking lots would produce much more power than they use, so that would help out. Windows with PV cells build into them are also being worked on which would drastically increase the area that could be used.

 

 

On a sunny day, 1.4Kw/sq meter. Given a 20% efficiency rate it adds up, but again tall buildings would be difficult to provide all their power themselves. Luckily they aren't the average.

 

I don't see it, heating and airconditioning is very power hungry. a big building is worse than a house (see next answer.)

 

Don't move the goal posts unless you allow me to change my answer.

We are talking about replacing electricity, not natural gas, geothermal or other means of heating and AC.

If the home is 2 story, that is about a 25' x 40' foundation or 1000 square feet. Most rooflines are angled, however only half will be efficient for solar collection, so figure 500 sq feet. or about 150sq meters. Let's cut that in half again for vents and other rack hardwares and such to 75sq meters.

At 20% efficiency that is 1.4kw/sq m * 75 sq m * .2 = 21Kw.

Assume 4 hours of sun a day and that gives you 84Kwh/ day or about 2500kwh/ month. For the average American that is enough for both their electrical consumption and their neighbors.

So yes, if you limit the question to use of electricity, average houses can supply their own power. Is it economical? No, but it can be done, the energy is there.

 

Sorry no intent on moving anything just another problem.

 

Again a great many homes these days are all electric, that means heating and air-conditioning, hot water cooking, refrigerators, washers dryers. it takes a lot of power even in a well insulated new home. Solar will not do it. My power bill even in the heat of summer here in the south where the ac runs full blast is only $150 a month. i don't see solar competing with that even if it could be generated cheaply. Average will not be how it works, in the south you get lots of hot weather, cooling is much harder than heating. Up north you get lots of heating, a house there might be able to make it's power in the summer but not the winter. In the south they might be able to make it's power in the winter but not the summer. Catch 22

 

That is why I like solar panels and other distributed systems. It is much more efficient to get the power from panels on my roof than sent through miles of cabling.

 

The panels take up lots of space they are expensive and they are difficult to make with out lots of pollution.

 

As for the power generation of the Hoover Dam, I apologize, I was remembering a tour and it must have refered to all hydro power.

I also did not mean to imply that the Hoover Dam produces 100% of the electricity needed in the west, although looking back at my statement I realize how it came across that way.

What I should have said (after some research) is that hydro power produces a large amount of power and is very steady, thus a good 'base line'.

In the 40s, hydro power generated about 75% of the electrical power used in the western US although that has gone down, it (hydro power) still generates about a quarter (10% of power for the entire US).

Bureau of Reclamation

 

The power from the Hoover dam hasn't gone down the demand has gone up drastically. You can't build more dams even if you had the rivers to do it the ecological damage of a dam is tremendous.

[Eclipse Now]

First i would like to point out that the surface of a building is quite small compared to it's power needs. Take the average 10 story office building. could the roof actually proved all it's energy? How much energy actually falls on such a building? how much surface area would it take to provide that energy even at 100% conversion much less the few percentage points of solar cells?

 

Could the entire roof of a 2000 square foot home provide it's entire energy budget for one year? Air conditioning and heat, lights? I don't think so.

 

Been happening for 30 years with Earthships. It depends on the type of house. Build the house so it doesn't need as much heating & cooling (or ANY heating and cooling, even in the desert heat & snows of New Mexico), and then efficiency takes over as your major first action.

 

 

 

No utilities bills EVER again.

 

So here's the thing: that's just the type of home. What about the type of city? Just think how much energy we could save if we really became committed to walking distance communities with everything you need just 10 minute walk outside your door? (New Urbanism, Ecocity designs, Village-Towns, etc).

 

Efficiency is a concept I think we've hardly begun to scratch, and drastically cuts the renewable power you need without sacrificing quality of life or comfort, if you do it right.

[Moontanman]

So ENow, you are saying we should bulldoze down all the homes and cities on the planet and rebuild them as Earth ships? Yeah, that's the ticket! Come on that's is totally not feasible in any human time frame much less from an energy expenditure standpoint. We have to work with what we have and we will be working primarily with what we have into the foreseeable future. It will take hundreds of years to put a significant percentage of the population into Earth ship type homes, what will we do mean time?

[Zythryn]

Moontanman, I am not usine averages in spite of them being averages, I am using them because they are averages.

The averages take into account all the people that use a lot of power in the summer, and in the winter.

No, solar couldn't be expected to generate 100% of the power for every house, but it can for the average.

Following from that, there will be houses above the average and below. Those below have excess energy, those above average electrical use have a deficit.

As for costs and such, yes, it is very expensive. But the question was not, is it cost effective?. The question was, is it possible?.

This was also a question of the baseline power, not peak.

And since electrical power from PV panels could handle the average household, if you add hydro (good point about hydro not growing) wind, geothermal (on a residential scale, not sure how the commercial sized technology is doing), tidal and other renewables we have the technology for, just not the infrastructure and I firmly beleive the needs of baseline power (with advances in energy storage) could be done.

[Moontanman]

Zythryn, I know you are coming at this from the heart and I applaud you for it and I truly hope it happens but just like I don't see a significant fraction of the population in Earth ships in the foreseeable future i don't see every square foot of roof space covered by solar cells either. The actual expense of doing it negates the possibility. Most people will not be able to afford it! Energy from Nuclear power plants is far cheaper and more reliable. The problem will be getting people to understand that nuclear is far cleaner and safer than coal power. Switching to renewable power will take far longer than we have other sources of power to exploit other than coal and nuclear.

[Eclipse Now]

So ENow, you are saying we should bulldoze down all the homes and cities on the planet and rebuild them as Earth ships? Yeah, that's the ticket! Come on that's is totally not feasible in any human time frame much less from an energy expenditure standpoint. We have to work with what we have and we will be working primarily with what we have into the foreseeable future. It will take hundreds of years to put a significant percentage of the population into Earth ship type homes, what will we do mean time?

 

1. I'm not talking about installing ONLY Earthships to replace everything, but used that as an example of efficiency.

 

2. Cities are never 'finished' but are always evolving. If we REZONE and let natural attrition take it's place, the majority of the work could be done within 50 years.

 

3. If we really get stuck into retrofitting much of the built infrastructure with more insulation, rezoning critical suburban cores around public transit systems, etc etc etc, we could do the majority of the work in 20 years.

Worldchanging: Bright Green: My Other Car is a Bright Green City

 

Leaving energy efficient cities for now, I just wrote the following blog post.

 

Questions about 100% renewable grid « Eclipse Now

 

*****from blog*****

 

Can Wind Power Be Stored?: Scientific American

Among the leaders is a Massachusetts company that plans to use hundreds of “flywheels” to store 20 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 200 homes for a day. Beacon Power Corp. is working with a $43 million federal loan guarantee for its $69 million storage project in Stephentown, N.Y., which is scheduled to break ground by year’s end.

 

Now, while I’m not very technical and mainly blog to store various links and generate discussion with my more technical online friends, it strikes me that the pro-nuclear advocates would point out that $69 million to store only 20 megawatts for one day means $3.45 billion to store a gigawatt for one day. Which, if baseload power is the thing we are after anyway, could probably build maybe 1.5 – 2 nuclear power stations if they are getting as cheap as the pro-nuclear guys are saying. However, I’m wondering if that isn’t a straw-man because while the wind mainly blows at night, there would also be a mix of solar and geothermal and CETO-ocean power during the day. In other words, we are not talking about building a 100% wind grid. Many of these power sources complement each other quite nicely and dovetail their supply around when the other source is about to tail off. So at a guesstimate, with NO back of the envelope calculations and just to illustrate the point, the equation is probably not:

 

100% wind power + 100% expensive storage = very expensive electricity, but

 

40% wind power + 20-30% storage + mix of other renewables = mildly more expensive grid than we have now.

 

Sorry about that, I’m not a technician and I’ve stated clearly that these rough numbers were just for illustrative purposes anyway, to get the concepts out there.

 

Now here’s the real kicker that makes me consider nuclear in another light, and is part of a discussion I’ve had down at Dr Barry Brook’s blog Brave New Climate which supports Gen3 and Gen4 nuclear power plants.

 

IF it takes the same amount of money to build a wind farm of a certain hypothetical output as it takes to build ONE nuclear power plant of the same output, and then we have to add a solar power plant to cover daytime power as well, AND still add some storage for smoothing, why wouldn’t we just build the nuclear power plant instead?

 

I don’t know the answer. You’ll have to read the Brave New Climate nuclear V wind post for more. (Forgive any of my ‘left of field, late night ranting’ I may have contributed in the comments section. When I’m cranky my writing can become a little silly).

 

I’m guessing that if wind is to have a chance to compete economically, there’s something about the wider grid that I’m not getting. Remember that coal power is ‘baseload’ and yet even it requires backup for the 10% of the time a coal plant is not running. So that means we build roughly 10% more coal plants than the power capacity rating we need (to put it crudely). But wind is only 30% of its nameplate output. So with these things in mind, lets return to my illustrative figures above because there are some assumptions I’d like to look at again. Think of the 100% power as supplying 100% of a town’s power.

 

100% wind power for the town + 100% solar thermal + some storage = very expensive electricity when compared to one nuclear power station.

 

I changed the formula because the town’s power can’t be 40% wind power at any point, because the town needs 100% of it’s power supply all the time. In other words, there’s no hiding behind the old argument “But the grid will be a mix of renewables” because “mix” assumes you are over-building the grid’s power supply. Instead of “dove-tailing nicely together” aren’t we actually talking about building 100% capacity supply from wind AND 100% supply from solar thermal during the day (even if it has some thermal storage, I hear it is still quite expensive to provide storage ALL night) AND also building very expensive power storage backup systems like the flywheels listed at SCIAM above? Why not just build the one Gen3 or Gen4 nuclear power plant, with walk-away safety, baseload supply, eats a ton of old nuclear waste that would otherwise have to be stored for 100 thousand years and turns it into 100kg of waste that only has to be stored 1000 years, and even eats old nuclear warheads?

 

I’m simply not technically informed enough to come to any conclusions on this. It’s beyond me, so I am just putting out there that these are the questions I’m asking. The only villages I know of that are 100% renewable, at this stage, are various hippie permaculture places that I love but are not really mainstream city power supply situations. So they are either off-the-grid Earth-ship homes, but not supply gigawatts of power to a chemical factory, or they are rural villages in Germany running off biomass plants, but not scalable to running our modern super-cities.

 

I just don’t know the answer, and the debate I’m reading at Brave New Climate is making me question my renewable heroes like Dr Herman Scheer and friends.

 

I will add one other point.

 

Yet on the other hand, we won’t be paying for all our storage capacity as part of an extra utilities bill. Better Place electric cars are going to be V2G. (Vehicle to Grid). When they plug in they will also be connected to the internet and talking to each other every 3 seconds. This enables them to charge during peak supply and sell back during off-peak supply, to help the owner offset some of his electricity bill. Because the Better Place business model allows them to own the battery, they supply drive through automated battery swap stations. This means the cost of replacing new batteries does not fall on the vehicle owner, which spares them forking out $4000 every 4 or 5 years.

 

In other words, with the V2G technology and battery-ownership of Better Place, they are effectively providing free grid backup. We’ll only pay for it in the charge / km price, which is already cheaper than oil today, at an estimated Better Place business model of about 80cents / litre km equivalent energy! If you could find some vehicle that allowed you to buy km’s at an equivalent price of 80 cents / litre worth of energy, you’d do it right? Fuel is about $1.25 to $1.30 nowadays in Australia. Very soon it could be $2 a litre.

 

What are your thoughts?

[Moontanman]

ENow, I'm not sure i am qualified to say what is the best course of action would be but I do know about simplicity. All the dove tailing ideas that keep being knocked around are complex, the meshing of all these ideas is complex.

 

They are also expensive, i live in an area surrounded by nuclear and coal fired power plants, power here is so cheap it's almost unheard of. (we also have great environmental quality as well) People in places like California pay several times what i pay for power. They pay that because they believed in the nuclear devil the greenie types accused it of being. While here Nuclear was embraced.

 

I truly believe that simple and cheap will always win out over complex and expensive. I honestly think that we are more likely to see some sort of miniature nuclear power plants for neighborhoods if not individual houses will eventually be built far before all the complex systems of renewable power come to fruition. of course that's just personal prediction but it's what I expect to happen in the next 50 years.

 

I really don't see the idea of realistic energy efficient cities on a par with the earth ship idea happening in the next 200 years much less the next 50. mainly due to the expense. we are talking about many trillions of dollars to just replace the buildings in one city. 50 years is far to fast to expect the natural replacement of buildings to happen, much less private housing. It's far cheaper to keep old houses up than it is to replace them.

 

I am a nay sayer i guess, when something sounds too good to be true it usually is and renewable and affordable power is far too good to be expected in the foreseeable future. (so is miniature power plants but it's just a prediction, no better than anyone else's)

 

Oh yeah, the old argument that power will eventually get so expensive that renewables will be as cheap if not cheaper is bogus. This can only happen if we fail to allow power plants to be built. That's what happened out west and it can happen everywhere if nuclear power is rejected.