Curve fitting the wind.

[NNadir]

I have a little spreadsheet that does this calculation:

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/LeastSquaresFittingExponential.html

As we all know, wind, solar, geothermal blah, blah, blah always grows super duper whoopla woopla exponential prudential providential.

If one graphs the energy curve for wind power - the bestest, mostest, most tremendulous, absolutely, studpendamostistic form of energy there is.

I have just graphed, the incredibly, vast, speediest, quickliestnestess, speedygonzalesist, blinkofaneyeyist growth of wind energy from the beginning of 2002 to the end of 2006, 5 years.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/prelim_trends/table1.xls

Because wind is so exponential we can curve fit this equation as described in the link above to find that the growth of the greatest discovery of all time, wind power, is modeled by the following equation W = W₀e^0.at = 0.07446e^0.237t where t is the time in years from the date we set out on this wind quest that will solve all of our problems which makes us wonder why we ever could have thought it was a problem in the first place.

From this it is easy to calculate how long it is before wind provides all of our energy, given that our super bestest conservationist conserverly conserving will work just like a charm.

First we take the ratio of US energy demand to super wind and find this demand was "only" 367 times as large as wind. We take the natural log (ln) and then subtract the natural logarithm of 0.0744 and then divide by the constant, a, in the exponential function and find that wind power will be producing all of our energy in 36 years.

This is even faster than the Walmart genius Amory Lovins predicted, faster than the Gazprom executive Gerhard Schroeder predicted, and faster than even our friends at Greenpeace predicted.

It sort of makes you want to go out a big screen TV to watch whatever it is people watch on their big screen TVs.

:puke:

Excuse me, but I think I'll run out tonight and buy myself a diamond mined by Rio Tinto in the arctic, I feel so goodlyiest and environmentalish. In fact, to show how environmental I am, I think I'll buy all new stuff tonight, Energy Star, of course.

[GliderGuider]

1. Or wind and nuclear could look like this:

With the rest of that big-ass curve filled up with coal, oil, gas and hydro...

[GliderGuider]

2. Curve fitting the nukulars

This is a closer look at the nuclear portion of the graph above. Makes me feel positively snuggly, it does...

[Massacure]

3. That looks like a bunch of bull.

What indication is there that nuclear will fall until 2030 and then pick up until 2065 and then fall again? What is that based on?

[GliderGuider]

4. Here's how I plotted that graph

I gave a basic description when I first posted it here, but I'll run through it again in more detail.

The graph is the result of a data synthesis I did over the last couple of days. I started with a chart of reactor ages from this presentation to ASPO (PDF), the table of historical nuclear power production numbers from The BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2007 (an Excel spreadsheet) and this table from the UIC of reactors that are installed, under construction, planned or proposed.

The interesting thing about the reactor ages is that the vast majority of them (361 out of 439 or 82% to be precise) are between 17 and 40 years old. The number of reactors at each age varies, but the average number of reactors in each year is about 17. The number actually goes over 30 in a couple of years.

I was prompted to do the graph by two things. One was the realization that reactors have a finite lifespan (an average around 40 years seems reasonable), so a lot of the world's reactors are rapidly approaching the end of their useful life. The second was that the replacement rate inferred from the UIC planning table given above is only about three to four reactors per year for at least the next ten years, and probably the next twenty.

These two facts mean that within the next twenty years we will have retired over 300 reactors, but will have built only 60. So by 2030 we will have seen a net loss of 240 or more reactors: over half the present stock. Since these reactors are are all very similar in size (a bit less than 1 GW on average) that means we can calculate the approximate world generating capacity at any moment in time, with reasonable accuracy at least out to 2030.

Now in my graph I got generous. I assumed we would build 3 GW of capacity per year for the next ten years (about what is under construction now), 4.5 GW per year for the next 10 (the reactors in the planning stages that will probably end up being built), and 6 GW/year for the 20 years following that from the reactors that have been proposed. I assumed a rising construction profile because I figured we would start to get desperate for power in about 20 years - this is the reason reactor completions double over that period compared to today.

The fall in capacity between now and 2030 is the result of construction not keeping pace with the rapid decommissioning of large numbers of old reactors. The rise after 2030 comes from my prediction that we will double the pace of reactor construction in about 2025 when a) the energy situation starts to become visibly desperate and b) we realize most of the reactors from the 1970-1990 building boom are out of service.

There's no magic to it. It's very similar to the logistical considerations driving Peak Oil - the big pool of reactors is about to be exhausted, and we're not building enough replacements. In fact, to stay even with the rate of decommissioning of our current reactor base we would need to build 17 new reactors a year (more than 5 times the number that are now on the books) forever. I personally think that's very unlikely given the capital, regulatory and public relations environments that the nuclear business is now operating in.

There are a number of places where you can argue with my assumptions. We could make reactors last somewhat longer than 40 years, for instance, and we might increase the pace of construction into the future to some extent. I claim that neither of these materially affects the main conclusion I draw - that we are at Peak Nuclear Capacity right about now, and will see a significant decline over the next 10 to 20 years.

By the way, the final decline after 2065 comes from my personal conclusion that we will start losing global industrial capacity in a big way in a couple of decades, and by then we won't have the capability we would need to replace all our aging nuclear reactors. Again, you can dispute that but it doesn't affect the main thrust of my argument.

[NNadir]

5. Sigh...

[GliderGuider]

6. I understand the feeling.

It's so disappointing when a cherished dream founders on the rocks of reality...

Oh, that wasn't what you meant? Then why not share your objections with the class?

[bananas]

10. Your charts remind me of IAEA projections through 2030

I screen-captured these from the 2006 report http://www.iaea.org/OurWork/ST/NE/Pess/rds-1/rds-1%282006%29_charts.pdf
The 2007 pdf is at www.iaea.org/OurWork/ST/NE/Pess/rds-1/RDS-1_Charts_2007.pdf

[GliderGuider]

11. They don't call for the same amount of decline I do

I wonder what their assumptions are about plant life extensions. From this IAEA document it looks as though life extensions beyond an additional 10 years are uncommon in any event. I reworked my projection to take into account 10% of l0-year life extensions, but even didn't alter the shape of the curve particularly.

In any event they're sure not calling for enough growth to stop global warming...

[NNadir]

12. Nothing though, is quite as good as Amory Lovins charts from 1976.

They showed nuclear energy at zero by 2000 and his bullshit pretend "soft energy" at 40%. Oil and gas, according to the shit-for-brains hydrogen hypercar $20,000/day shill, whoops I mean expert would be in huge decline, unless of course, there were lots of fossil fuel companies to pay the shill, whoops, I mean expert a bribe, whoops I mean "consulting fee" to say that whatever the fuck they do is "environmental" and negawatty.

The graph can be found in the shit-for-brains paper "The Path Not Taken" Foreign Affairs Summer of 1976, page 77.

I'm looking at it as I speak.

When marketing his shit-for-brains hydrogen hypercar to assuage the anti-intellectual guilt of the Walmart culture "we want to pretend we're environmentalists!" set, Lovins claimed, in 2001, that he he "predicted" the outcome of the energy equation in 1976. Then he "predicted" (please send venture capital) that the hydrogen hypercar SUV would be in showrooms by 2005.

Similarly I "predicted" that the Mets would win the National League East and the fact that I predicted something must make me as pyschic as "shit for brains." I have a neighbor who often predicts the lottery numbers, and somehow he never wins the lottery.

In fact, the anti-nuclear religion has been "predicting" the demise of nuclear energy with about the same frequency and the same level of accuracy that the Catholic Church has been predicting the return of Jesus.

Two thousand years of wrong predictions have not dissuaded the Catholic Church from continuing to predict Jesus will be back in the next few weeks, and 50 years of being wrong about nuclear energy have not dissauded the anti-nuke religion either from "predicting" the end of nuclear power.

The nuclear production numbers since shit-for-brains' paper in 1980, in the same "physics" journal Foreign Affairs predicting the immanent demise of nuclear energy are clear enough.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table27.xls

In 2005, nuclear energy set a record for production and wrong Amory Lovins predictions as well.

Of course, the world's largest, by far, climate change free gas free form of energy did this in spite of shit-for-brains predictions of nuclear accidents, fuel nuclear depletion, nuclear wars, nuclear terrorism blah, blah, blah, by people who couldn't care less about dangerous fossil fuel accidents, dangerous fossil fuel waste, dangerous fossil fuel depletion and so on.

In fact, even if nuclear energy couldn't do everything, and even if it doesn't do everything, the anti-nuclear religion contains ZERO members who have demonstrated one form of climate change gas free energy that works on the same scale as nuclear energy.

Even so, they come here and bitch and grouse and extrapolate and engage in flights of fantasy and imagination in opposition to nuclear power while they couldn't give a rat's ass about the stuff that actually kills and actually fails.

[GliderGuider]

13. You know you're a lousy ambassador for nuclear power, right?

Crap like this is what drives people straight into the arms of your opponents.

BTW, you still haven't addressed my analysis of the implications of reactor lifespan. I know it's not as much fun as a bilious rant, but it would demonstrate that you can respond to reason with reason. If you can show my why I'm mistaken, I'll even change my mind...

[kestrel91316]

7. How long did you say it takes for the toxic waste from wind power

generation to break down?

[hunter]

9. It takes forever. It's not radioactive.

Damned dead windmill towers everywhere, their rotting composite shells and blades spewing carcinogenic micro-fibers into the air we all breathe.

The copper thieves are swarming like termites today, so hang on, hold your breath, and welcome to the next bronze age where the local warlord is cutting down trees for his furnaces to build a heroic bronze statue of himself out of the inoperative remains of the town's electrical system...

Have a nice day :)

[eppur_se_muova]

8. The dangers of extrapolation have been previously noted ...

Therefore, the Mississippi between Cairo and New Orleans was twelve
hundred and fifteen miles long one hundred and seventy-six years ago. It
was eleven hundred and eighty after the cut-off of 1722. It was one
thousand and forty after the American Bend cut-off. It has lost sixty-
seven miles since. Consequently its length is only nine hundred and
seventy-three miles at present.

Now, if I wanted to be one of those ponderous scientific people, and
'let on' to prove what had occurred in the remote past by what had
occurred in a given time in the recent past, or what will occur in the
far future by what has occurred in late years, what an opportunity is
here! Geology never had such a chance, nor such exact data to argue
from! Nor 'development of species,' either! Glacial epochs are great
things, but they are vague--vague. Please observe:--

In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi
has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average
of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm
person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic
Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower
Mississippi River was upwards of one million three hundred thousand
miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod.
And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-
two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-
quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets
together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a
mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science.
One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling
investment of fact.

http://www.fullbooks.com/Life-On-The-Mississippi-Part-4-.html

Note that the last two sentences are frequently quoted, without the informing context.