Will Energy Woes Help Wind Power?
President Bush and Senator McCain have both called for renewed offshore oil and gas drilling. With gasoline prices inching above $4 per gallon, political opposition to such development may be on the ebb. What about opposition to offshore wind development? The WSJ investigates. While there is no formal moratorium against offshore wind power, environmentalist and NIMBY opposition has stalled every sea-based wind project proposed in the U.S. thus far. Europe, on the other hand, has over 20 offshore wind farms in operation.
No. Birds might be killed occasionally.
Too many are no longer willing to accept any risk or penalty for energy. Why?
France, with only about 20% of the population of the U.S., has 59 nuclear plants - many of them modern - up and running. The U.S. has 103, and they are all old. Electricity produced by nukes is the cheapest of any alternative.
The only reason for the coming huge increase in electric rates is the refusal of Congress to allow construction of power plants.
Now come on Smokey, while it is true that no member of the public has been killed by radiation from a nuclear power plant, people have been killed in industrial accidents at the plants, although I would imagine that the nuclear power industry's safety record is probably better than comparable industries (if only because plants are more likely to be unionized). The production cycle (mining, enrichment, and fabrication of fuel rods) is responsible for many deaths, both from ordinary industrial accidents and radiation--especially from direct exposure to miners and to the general public from uranium mine tailings.
Of course, because New Mexico blows and Louisiana sucks ;)
Sorry, couldn't resist.
That's right, it's too cheap to meter.
If you are going to argue for nuclear energy, do not argue on basis of cost. Without massive government subsidies at every stage of production nuclear cannot compete. While it is true that fossil fuel plants also receive significant government subsidies and externalities (e.g., CO2 production) are not factored into the cost, I doubt that even if we could factor in those costs, nuclear would be competitive.
JFT, your lack of reading comprehension is equal to the sources you never seem to cite. Flinging out a half-baked opinion is easier, right? Try re-reading the comment you quoted. Look for the word "disaster." See? It's there.
Nuclear power is actually cheaper than other power. And anyone who thinks solar power, wind power, etc., are not heavily subsidized is a fool.
If we use electric cars, trucks and trains or if we use it to make hydrogen gas.
\limousine liberal
"The U.S. has not built a new nuclear power plant in over 30 years, due entirely to obstruction by the environmentalist lobby."
And when someone gets serious about constructing large solar power generating installations in the desert, there will be opposition based on potential threats to endangered plant and animal species (e.g. desert tortoise and Mojave ground squirrel). Tidal turbines will be blamed for killing fish and harming whales and dolphins (whether they actually do or not). Any alternative to fossil fuels will face equal or greater environmental opposition than oil drilling or coal mining.
JFT, we've been through this one before. Any serious analysis on this issue has to account for the ridiculous cost of the regulatory burden on nuclear power before calling the current incentives "subsidies." Moreover, private industry has repeatedly tried to engage in the enrichment business - but, like new reactor facilities, was strangled by NIMBY regulatory litigation - and the government entered the waste disposal business as a market participant. I also seem to recall that you consider knowledge gained from government expenditures for its own benefit, e.g., naval reactors and nuclear weapons, to be a "subsidy" for the nuclear industry.
Besides, I'm sure we'd just go to war for Uranium instead of Oil.
The Comanche Peak Nuclear Plant in Texas only went online in 1990 with the second part going online in 1993. And the Watts Bar reactor came on line after that. No new plants have been started in over 30 years, but several have been "constructed" in the last 30 years. Part of the reason it took so long for some of the plants to be finished was because of environmentalist obstruction.
Now if only we reverse the Carter era policy of refusing to recycle nuclear waste and start following Japan, England, and France's example in this area we would be getting somewhere.
That said, too many people make the perfect the enemy of the good when it comes to energy policy. Will wind ever be our primary power source: no? Will it be a non-trivial source of electrcity in the future that can survive on a roughly level playing field with other electricty sources: yes?
Along those lines--and speaking as someone who has been tangentially involved in the Galveston offshore project mentioned above--it's not all bad that Europe is ahead of us on offshore wind power. Our engineers have learned a lot from the mistakes the Europeans have made, e.g. how to properly scale the much larger off-shore blades, the properties the turbine and blades need to be able to withstand the corrosiveness of seawater and the torque generated by the ocean winds, etc.
This is a case where the first-mover advantage hasn't paid off for the Europeans. We can now build better offshore wind farms than them without having made the expensive mistakes ourselves. We just have to go ahead and do it.
A highly deceptive graph that shows the cost of delivered power does not prove your point. Running the plant is the cheap part. The capital cost of construction and decommissioning (and the as yet unrealized cost of disposal--which is entirely borne by the government) is what kills nuclear energy's competitiveness.
Yeah, J.F, nukes totally suck! Cause they need government subsidies, which are much worse than being at the beck and call of our friends the Saudies.
I didn't say that. It's you guys who usually argue that any government involvement in the free market is inherently evil. I just find it hilarious that when it comes to nuclear power you are all so willing to throw out your libertarian principles.
I actually think that we should build more nuclear plants as a stopgap measure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But it should be a part of a comprehensive energy policy that stresses massive R&D for other alternatives.
And remember, when we are discussing electric generation, for the most part we are really discussing alternatives to American coal, not imported oil.
JFT, we've been through this one before. Any serious analysis on this issue has to account for the ridiculous cost of the regulatory burden on nuclear power before calling the current incentives "subsidies."
But do you really want nuclear power without the "regulatory burden". Besides there are aspects of nuclear power that reduce its cost (i.e., the government indemnifying against catastrophic accidents and complete government responsibility for high level waste disposal).
Moreover, private industry has repeatedly tried to engage in the enrichment business - but, like new reactor facilities, was strangled by NIMBY regulatory litigation - and the government entered the waste disposal business as a market participant.
Really, where and when? The government has traditionally operated their enrichment facilities with contractors. Recently, they sold some of the facilities (e.g., the Paducah, KY plant) to private industry. The story in Europe is pretty much the same. There is simply not enough demand to justify the massive capital investment required to build a private enrichment facility from scratch.
The construction of solar and wind energy generation facilities is subsidized. However, there are no subsidies for producing the fuel. That, in my opinion, is a more important point.
For someone who regularly pontificates (with a great deal of certainy) about nuclear power in these threads, you sure aren't very familiar with the industry in your home state of Louisiana. LES now has a licensing application pending with the NRC for construction of a gas centrifuge facility in New Mexico after being rejected by NIMBY-ism in both Louisiana and Tennessee.
Gee, when you said "private industry" I assumed you meant private industry. Urenco owns LES. Urenco is owned by the British and Dutch governments and the German power industry. It is in no way a private company.
LES started out as a partnership between Urenco - which held the relevant patents - and U.S. energy producers Exelon, Duke Power, and Entergy. After years of unsuccessful attempts to build a facility in Louisiana, the U.S. utilities withdrew (driving up cost via litigation and licensing delays has long been a successful tactic of U.S. anti-nuclear activists, see here, bragging about the success against LES, hence the provision of "litigation insurance" in the Energy Policy Act). LES is now a wholly subsidiary of Urenco, which in turn consists of equal parts private German interests, a Dutch government entity, and BNFL (currently owned by the British government, but in the process of being broken-up and liquidated to private interests). Was LES majority private when it undertook to develop the Homer, Louisiana project? Yes. Is it majority private now? No. Will it be majority private within the coming few years? Yes, assuming that BNFL continues with its liquidation. Try again.
But getting back to the original topic: before you can tie wind power into reducing auto's dependance on oil, you're missing that huge middle step. You have to have a very significant shift from oil/hybrid cars to electric cars before you can say high oil prices should encourage wind farms, and that shift has not happened yet.
It is extremely rare to see 50% of them turning. Most days, maybe 15% - 20% are turning, if that. Often, only one or two are turning, out of hundreds. It is also very rare to see any maintenance being performed. Therefore, they must have been built and sold primarily as tax shelters.
The result is that U.S. taxpayers are again paying for something that doesn't work, and are blocked from getting something that does work, like new nuclear power plants, and drilling for the hundreds of billions of barrels of oil, and the 232 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in U.S. jurisdiction that the environmentalist lobby has forced off limits. Instead, we get windmills.
I am not a fan of plug in electric vehicles, but I do not think raw power is a problem. The railroads operate locomotives that develop 6000 horse power. I think the problem is energy storage: batteries, capacitors, fly wheels, or hydrogen are all alternatives that are not as good as a tank of gasoline or diesel fuel.
How much are you willing to pay for a vehicle with ceramic bearings, Titanium frame and a carbon fiber body? It would be much more efficient and be extremely expensive. making and shaping Titanium, ceramic parts and carbon fiber will be very energy intensive.
Our lives and our efficient technologies are built with cheap plentiful energy.
This is a cop-out. I suggest building more energy efficient homes and buildings that can save us a ton of energy and you trot out the most ridiculous of car designs to say it can't be done. We've built our lives around cheap plentiful energy but there's no reason that we couldn't incorporate energy efficiency and conservation into our lives without it being a major disruptive change in how most of us live. We're willing to subsidize more power even at the risk to our health and the environment but the suggestion that we use energy more efficiently or actually use less and people act like you're asking them to live in the stone age.
Or... "we" could not subsidize or invest in anything, and leave it to the market to sort out. Although the market doesn't react well to shocks, it will adjust inputs and outputs appropriately over time. Will our society eventually adopt more efficient technologies powered other than by oil? Certainly: left to its own devices, society will adopt those technologies when they are efficient to adopt.
The designs are not ridiculous. They are used in bicycles right now. It makes a quarter horse power really move. My point is you can save a lot of energy at the user end, but it costs at the production end. How do you know you have a net energy savings? When did they start measuring energy in tons?
The Future of Nuclear Power, an MIT study by Professors John Deutch and Ernest Moniz, to "Identify Barriers and Solutions for Nuclear Option in Reducing Greenhouse Gases". Pretty balanced, I think.
As far as wind power goes, I'm still trying to figure out what to do when the wind doesn't blow. Is everyone going to move to Texas?
But Smokey, you don't understand. As I sit looking over scenic and undeveloped Cape Cod, I can see pictures of windmills in California not turning and say "Aren't they pretty!" NIMBY means "not in MY back yard", not "not in your back yard."
(Oops. Forgot -- proof read twice, punch "post" button once).
Yes, the more energy woes we face, the more wind generated by gasbag politicians in Washington.
The obvious answer to the rhetorical question is that economically inefficient energy sources such as wind power can become economically viable if all other existing energy costs rise. But why the focus on wind power, which has low efficiency except for local use (such as irrigation pumps)?
2. There are lots of windmills in Germany and Denmark, very few in France.