The limits to nuclear: McCain shouldn’t try to follow French disaster

[jpak]

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2008/05/12/the-limits-to-nuclear-mccain-shouldn-t-try-to-follow-french-disaster.aspx

"If France can produce 80% of its electricity with nuclear power, why can’t we?,” asks U.S. presidential candidate John McCain. Nuclear power is a cornerstone of Senator McCain’s plan to combat climate change, which he is unveiling this week.

McCain thinks he is asking a simple rhetorical question. As it turns out, he is not. His question is technical, with an answer that will surprise him and most Americans. Nuclear reactors cannot possibly meet 80% of America’s power needs — or those of any country whose power market dominates its region — because of limitations in nuclear technology. McCain needs to find another miracle energy solution, or abandon his vow to drastically cut back carbon dioxide emissions.

Unlike other forms of power generation, nuclear reactors are designed to run flat-out, 24/7 — they can’t crank up their output at times of high demand or ease up when demand slows. This limitation generally consigns nuclear power to meeting a power system’s minimum power needs — the amount of power needed in the dead of night, when most industry and most people are asleep, and the value of power is low. At other times of the day and night, when power demands rise and the price of power is high, society calls on the more flexible forms of generation — coal, gas, oil and hydro-electricity among them — to meet its additional higher-value needs.

If a country produces more nuclear power than it needs in the dead of night, it must export that low-value, off-peak power. This is what France does. It sells its nuclear surplus to its European Union neighbours, a market of 700 million people. That large market — more than 10 times France’s population — is able to soak up most of France’s surplus off-peak power.

<more>

[Vincardog]

1. Not to mention that France has a habit of dumping its' nuclear waste into the north sea.

story here

sorry bad link

[NNadir]

2. Fundies really shouldn't claim to understand power generation.

There are ZERO anti-nuke fundies who understand what percentage of American power is coal based.

This is because there are ZERO fundie anti-nukes who know anything about the heat capacity of water, or spinning reserve or any other subject connected with reality.

Similarly there are zero anti-nuke fundies who understand that France has the lowest per capita carbon dioxide emissions of any of the world's six largest economies.

There are thus ZERO anti-nuke fundies who understand what coal does, which explains the stupid little posturing about wind power and solar power which cannot do what coal does, since unlike coal, they are intermittent forms of energy. Note that saying as much - stating the inconvenient truth - does not make coal acceptable.

Only dumb ass fundies go around trying to put lipstick on the coal pig with ridiculous "sequestering" fantasies, which are exactly the equivalent of fundie wind as base load energy fantasies.

No sequestering facilities are planned. None are built. None are on the drawing board. This is exactly the state of affairs with say, the wind hydrogen schemes pushed by Utsira wishful thinkers, or the equally stupid and impracticle "compressed air" daydreams.

There are, among the coal apologists like say, the fundie anti-nuke Gerhard Schroeder, who recognize that coal plants have the highest capacity utilization of all power plants after nuclear. Coal's capacity utilization in the US is 72%. Nuclear is 90% Even the best wind plants are lucky to have 25%, and the best solar plants, in deserts, less than that.

Thus it follows that the potential for nuclear energy can be taken simply by summing the contribution of coal and nuclear in the United States. Nuclear produces 8 exajoules, in spite of dumb fundies misrepresenting what it is, what it does, and why it is the cleanest and most successful form of climate change gas free energy. Coal in this country - which is unacceptable - produces 23 exajoules roughly.

Renewables other than hydro - for all forms of energy in this country - produce less than 0.6 exajoules.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/trends/table1_1.html

This is because there are ZERO fundie anti-nukes who know anything about the heat capacity of water, or spinning reserve or any other subject connected with reality.

Similarly there are zero anti-nuke fundies who understand that France has the lowest per capita carbon dioxide emissions of any of the world's six largest economies.

Apparently in anti-nuke fundie land, it is believed - in spite of all evidence to the contrary - that coal has been phased out.

Not true.

Apparently in fundie land, nuclear power. the world's largest, by far form of climate change gas free primary energy, has been eliminated by renewable energy. This of course, is no different from what dumb fundies were saying on this website almost 8 years ago.

"Nuclear Power IS DEAD!!!!" the screamed 8 years ago.

Of course, even 8 years old this rhetoric came after 20 years of similar dumb denial and fraudulent interpretation. Quoth the dumb fundie fossil fuel apologist Amory Lovins in 1980:

In fact, the global nuclear power enterprise is rapidly disappearing. De facto moratoria on reactor ordering exist today in the United States, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, Ireland, and probably the United Kingdom, Belgium, Switzerland, Japan and Canada. Nuclear power has been indefinitely deferred or abandoned in Austria, Denmark, Norway, Iran, China, Australia and New Zealand. Nuclear power elsewhere is in grave difficulties. Only in centrally planned economies, notably France and the U.S.S.R., is bureaucratic power sufficient to override, if not overcome, economic facts.

Lovins, Dumbshit <em>Foreign Affairs</em>, "Nuclear Power and Nuclear Bombs, Summer 1980, page 1138.

Of course, nuclear power did not die the death predicted by Lovins, whose knowledge of "economics facts" is strictly limited to collecting checks from right wing fossil fuel dependent corporations.

In fact the outcome of the "nuclear is dying from economics" rhetoric which has been consistently hallucinatory for almost 30 years is belied by data:

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

Since Amory "Dumbshit" Lovins predicted the death of nuclear power on "economic grounds" in 1980, nuclear power production has grown by a factor of 4, despite having started on an 8 exajoule scale.

I note that shrill anti-nukes who couldn't give a rat's ass about dangerous fossil fuel waste, dangerous fossil fuel war, dangerous fossil fuel terrorism, or for that matter, climate change, wouldn't need to be so shrill if nuclear power really was going away.

I also note that the "renewables will save us" crowd, with their arbitrary attention to reality, have not contemplated whether the bases of wind plants are made of concrete, whether their rotors are made of copper, whether their structure is steel, etc, etc, etc.

They wish to view nuclear energy in isolation from everything else.

I note, with contempt, that the "renewables will save us" biofuels posturing is having the shit kicked out of it by almost everyone who thinks about the subject.

Finally I note, with grave and sober satisfaction and a full and realistic measure of the tragedy underway, that both remaining Democratic candidates have wholly realistic views of nuclear energy.

It ain't the view point of yuppie coal apologists.

We are NOT going to have a piece of shit like Gerhard Schroeder in this country.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/09/AR2005120901755.html

Nuclear energy doesn't need to be perfect to be better than everything else.

It merely needs to be better than everything else, and it is.

Tell us about it again Amory:

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

If Amory Lovins had any intellectual integrity, which he doesn't, he would apologize to all humanity for the hundreds of billions of tons of dangerous fossil fuel waste he has caused to be dumped in the atmosphere because of his abysmal ignorance going back to 1980.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tableh1co2.xls

Ignorance kills.

[bananas]

4. So you're voting for McCain?

Why am I not surprised?

[NNadir]

5. Draw extreme conclusions much?.

Misinterpret shit in a self-serving way much?

You do?

Why am I not surprised?

The anti-nuke fundie cult seems to have declared itself the arbiter of Democratic energy policy. In fact, it is not now, and never has been the official policy of the Democratic party to embrace paranoid mysticism.

Personally I know one fundie anti-nuke dope who is always trying to tell everyone he's Al Gore.

I have always assumed that Dick Cheney he was the world's largest exponent of the "uranium = war" theory of the universe, second only to the fundie anti-nuke community.

That same fundie community is now trying to ratchet up war in Iran with the nuclear power = bomb equation.

It won't work.

Both Democratic candidates have reasonable nuclear policies.

In fact, the only Democratic nominee in the last century who did not have a reasonable nuclear policy was Michael Dukkakis.

I voted for him anyway, but like the great Democrat Glenn Seaborg, Nobel Laureate and discoverer of plutonium, americium, curium, berkelium... ...I more or less despised Mikey as an anti-science fundie twit. It really was "lesser of two evils" vote.

Now, why don't you tell us all about how Arabs can't have nuclear power because they're Arabs, Dick? Or are you still running around telling everyone you're Al Gore?

I intend to vote for Barack for President, and I have full confidence that since he is hardly a dogmatic freak, he will put nuclear power on the path to do whatever it can - which will surely be the largest of any form of climate change gas free energy, as it has been for several decades - to fight climate change.

I note that the only person making extreme statements about Iran and uranium in the campaign is Johnny McCain.

Now why don't you offer us a chorus of "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran?"

Ignorance kills.

[jpak]

6. So I take that as a "yes"

:rofl:

[Systematic Chaos]

7. ZOMG!!1!11 Taht's jes soooooo funnyz!!!1!11

He clearly stated that he's supporting Obama but let's just post something snarky and put a :rofl: at the end of it, because we're just sooooooo fucking SMART!

If DU ever had a "Waste of Bandwidth" award, you'd be in contention every time you logged in.

[jpak]

8. He also claims he's a "scientist", invented a molten salt breeder reactor

and recently attended a made-up "scientific meeting" in California.

I don't believe anything he posts here

talk about yer waste of bandwidth

[madokie]

11. I agree with you jpak

We're wasting time kicking this dead horse called clean nuclear energy and that I know for a fact. Same as I knew the first go round.

[NNadir]

19. You "take" lots of things in a strange way. For instance, you think wind is an alternative to

coal.

You also think that solar is a non-trivial form of energy.

Given that you are so desperately wrong on every energy policy, it is hardly surprising that you are wrong about Democratic political policy.

Last I looked, the only fundie energy policy in the Primaries belonged to John Edwards.

The party seems to have rejected him overwhelmingly.

I guess it's time for all our fundies to announce they're taking their 1% of the vote and going home - who was it in 2000? - oh yeah for Ralphie "Dr. Strangelove" Nader, the original fundie anti-nuke.

Don't worry, your precious bodily fluids are safe from both fluoride and tritium.

Duck! Jump under the table! There goes a GMO plant!

[Imperialism Inc.]

9. Is there somewhere in your screed where you bothered to address

the actual information that was posted? It would seem that none of what you wrote has anything to do with the subject of the article. As far as I can tell that is more or less par for the course for you. However, just in case a little reason might somehow slip past your pro-nuclear shield, would you mind actually addressing the subject matter posted?

[madokie]

10. Other than calling people names I haven't read anything by you as to enlighten anyone

about the virtues of nuclear power. Figure out what to do with the radioactive waste and then WE can talk, until then all I can say to you is have a good day. except'n of course I don't really mean that ;-)

It must be hell being you :rofl:

[crimsonblue]

20. how many did you say?

[excess_3]

3. the electric car is coming .n/t

[losthills]

12. Why can't we produce 80% of our electricity with nukes?

Because it's economically impossible. The last two reactors built in the US cost 4 billion apiece. There ain't enough trillions in Grampa Cheney's bank to build enough reactors to produce 80% of our electricity with nuclear power, Mr. McCain. Sorry John, but you're a psycho.

[FREEWILL56]

13. Though I understand the jist of what you are trying to say,

it would be unfair to say this, "Unlike other forms of power generation, nuclear reactors are designed to run flat-out, 24/7 — they can’t crank up their output at times of high demand or ease up when demand slows." Nuclear power plants can cut back the reactions or increase them which would cut back on or increase the steam needed to generate the electricity. I believe you should've stated that a nuclear plant you can't shut off as the reaction, though slowed, canot be stopped until its fuel is spent. Also note that the generators don't have to be inline so the power itself can be shut down much like disconnecting an engine from the transmission in a car.

[Dead_Parrot]

14. Good grief

Reducing your carbon footprint by 2/3rds would be a disaster?

If a country produces more nuclear power than it needs in the dead of night, it must export that low-value, off-peak power.

Well, you could do that. Or, you could use it to charge your PHEVs and EVs and switch your transportation network, as well as your electrical grid, from fossil fuels.

I'd gently remind everyone that letting bean-counters dictate energy and environment policy is the reason we're in this shit in the first place.

[losthills]

15. The McCain supporters here were not hard to predict....

[phantom power]

17. I would remind you that Cheney is my main man.

[jpak]

18. LOL!!!!!1111

you kill me PP

:rofl:

[phantom power]

16. Off-peak energy storage only works for renewables.

Or something.

[FREEWILL56]

21. You are almost right about that because when they see people

using almost as much power at night, they will raise the price of electric at night. You are wrong because the sun doesn't shine at night and the winds blow when they feel like it.

[kristopher]

22. No, they blow as the laws of physics dictate.

[FREEWILL56]

25. Or if everybody in DC talks in 1 direction.

:hide:

[Eagle_Eye]

23. Nuclear reactors are designed to run flat out?

Coal fired steam generation plants have so much thermal inertia it requires days to bring them up and days to bring them down.

Electricity generator turbines act no differently if the steam is heated by a fission reactor or the combustion of coal.

Bringing a new generator on line requires hours of controlling the RPM in order to synchronize the phase of generated current to the phase of the grid. It isn't like at 6:45 in the morning the boys at the power station just throw a switch cut in an additional generator.

Being able to generate stable electricity over long periods of time is a plus to power industry. That is why constantly varying sources like wind and solar do not garner much favor in the eyes of and industry that produces megawatt-hours of energy.

[kristopher]

24. They are just going to have to learn to live with it...