Improvements in Windmills

[progree]

8. Don't blame wind and solar for natural gas. Yes, w&s needs backup, but that can just as

Last edited Thu Aug 27, 2020, 08:20 AM - Edit history (2)

well be provided by nuclear as with gas. It's not true that wind and solar ties us to natural gas. Wind and solar need backup, but there is no reason at all why it has to be provided by natural gas or other fossil fuel. Yes, natural gas is cheaper than nuclear, but that isn't wind and solar's fault.

You've argued that if we do all nuclear, we don't need wind or solar. I agree, but at the current economics, the operating cost of nuclear exceeds that of wind and solar, so a nuclear + wind + solar mix will be more economical than nuclear alone. They aren't incompatible.

And that way, we have a diversity of supply -- no utility wants their eggs all in one basket -- we've learned our lesson with strikes and huge sudden price shocks that affected one of our supplies, but not all of them. Nuclear is not immune to that either -- we had huge runups (quadrupling IIRC) in the cost of nuclear fuel back in the 70's, and in the past decades we've seen a huge increase in the construction cost of nuclear.

In the meantime, on almost all utility systems, a kwh produced by wind or solar is one less kwh produced from fossil fuels.