Al Gore says while we're at it lets close down all the coal fired power plants too. And this does what for us? Seems bizarre. He wants to shut down 72% of our power capacity?
Posted by: david burgdorff

Posted by: Warren Heath

I don't understand people who think Al Gore is a fake of some kind. All he is doing is putting the scientific studies into a form the "non-science" community can understand.

I think we should try out Al Gore's plan. I live in Utah. We have coal in many forms. The government keeps trying to tell Utah that we need to be more friendly to our environment. Which means we have to cut jobs for those who work at the coal sites. I think we should pay for those who would lose their jobs, going to this "green power", by giving those people education to work at the new "green power." The same areas where Utah has coal is the same areas where we have a lot of sun and geothermal.

Let's do something! I'm tired of hearing, "We can't do that." We need to have the glass is half full approach to our problems. I'm for those who criticize, but come up with different ideas.
Posted by: john baker

Al Gore may not be everyones friend but he is right ! We need to start working now to reduce pollution. It causes mercury in the air and water as well as high CO2. It may already be too late.

Let's make a positive difference.
Posted by: jim stack

You wonder if the man is really that stupid, that he actually believes that nutty scheme of his will actually work. He said he has ‘’ held a series of ‘solutions summits’ with engineers, scientists, and CEOs ‘’ . I bet, more like CEOs of Solar & Wind Companies and the engineers and scientists employed by them.

Charles Barton on the true costs of Wind Energy

Charles Barton talks about the poor performance of Wind in California:

‘‘…"Furthermore the reports shows that monthly average capacity factor of wind during periods of peak demand will reaches its maximum in January at 25%. The average monthly peak demand capacity factor for the other 11 month is under 20%. The monthly peek demand capacity factor for wind is under 10% four months a year and is only 2% for 2 of those 4 months. Despite its truly terrible performance California investors plan to add more than 4,000 MW of new name plate wind generation facilities, despite the worthlessness of such facilities to meet peek electrical demand, The only reason why investors put money into such facilities is because electricity produced by them is subsidized by the US Government. Because California needs reliable electricity all of the wind generators must be backed up fossil fuel burning generations plants, that must be constantly kept online burning fossil fuels in case the wind would drop. As a method of fighting global warming building more windmills in California is about as useful as licensing rickshaws in Los Angeles would be." …’’

Unlike Gore’s Fantasy, Nuclear Power Plants, can be installed at existing Coal Or NG Power Plant nodes, replacing the aging power plants when they are retired. No new electrical infrastructure needed. The existing substations, transmission lines, and even steam turbines & generators of the Coal Plants can be reused by the new Nuclear Power Plant.

A further fundamental problem, that makes Al Gore’s scheme so entirely absurd, is the huge amount of materials needed by the Solar & Wind installations. Wind Turbines use about 10 times the steel and 5 times the concrete of GenII Nuclear Power plants and GenIII and GenIV plants will use 20-50% of the materials per MW of the GenII plants. And you can at least double that ratio with the additional triple oversized transmission lines, pylons and substations needed to carry the Wind Peak energy. Solar being even worse than wind with 6 fold oversized power distribution needed. Wind turbines have full life cycle carbon emissions of 10-48 gms, Solar PV 100-280 gms vs Nuclear of 9-21 gms CO2 per kwh. This not include the additional CO2 released from the 3-6 fold oversized Power Distribution Infrastructure needed for the Solar and Wind and this especially does not include the additional, at least 50% of average total output, of fossil fuel backup power plants. Add to that Solar PV when retired after 20-40 years is classified as toxic waste. And much of the materials, 10 to 40 times that of Nuclear per kwh of output, are high petroleum input as well as very environmentally unfriendly in their manufacture.

And this brings up an absolute killer of the Gore fantasy hype plan. Not only has exploding demand from China, India and others created a petroleum shortfall, but most other raw and manufactured goods as well. Just take one example, steel. Wind installations require at least 20 times the steel of Nuclear Power Plants, including additional transmission lines (aluminum over steel core), pylons and substations. Steel production is already maxxed out. To increase it, you need new Iron and other materials to be mined. It takes typically >15 years to develop an orebody, including exploration. To expand production in existing orebodies, you need heavy equipment, also made of steel. There is about a 4 year waiting list now, to get basic large milling equipment like Ball Mills, Cone Crushers, Jaw Crushers, Rod Mills built. And then once you have the raw steel and other materials production ramped up, after 5-10 years, then you have to build multi-billion dollar factories to expand production of the Wind Turbines, and for that more materials are needed and more production of heavy cranes and foundries. Transmission lines and substations have to build, using more materials that need expanded factories requiring more materials. And then you have to get into the extraordinary amount of labour needed to complete this undertaking. This is no Moonshot, that used trivial amounts of materials and manpower. You would have to have a major expansion of labour, much of it highly skilled, with minimum 4 years or more of training, start with geologists to locate orebodies, to construction people to build mines, to mineworkers, already in extreme short supply, to linesman ( again already in short supply) and other highly skilled power distribution workers, to electrical engineers, and then of course the wind turbine factories (already like 4 year backlog in orders for the large wind turbines) and construction crews. And just what industries are going to be sacrificed to get all of that skilled manpower, when the U.S. infrastructure is already in urgent need of repair. See:

$1.6 trillion needed to bring U.S. transportation infrastructure up to a FUNCTIONAL level, there’s an Iraq War right there Al Gore.

Al Gore claims: ‘‘…and these nuclear plants only come in one size, extra large…’’ . Neglecting the 200 or so nuclear reactors in ships & submarines, to show how little research the man did, and how little he knows about energy, it took me about 5 mins to come up with this link:

Small Nuclear Reactors – Al Gore learn a little bit about a subject before you commit the USA on a 100 trillion dollar fantasy misadventure

Materials and Labour needed for Wind Power Construction

Nuclear Power – Our only Hope for Green, Clean, Energy Production

The Fuji Molten Salt Reactor

Brian Wong Blows off Gore’s Nutty Plan

Posted by: Warren Heath

There's the hype and the CRAP, for consumption of the unwitting DUPES of the fossil fuel GANG OF FOUR. Then there's the TRUTH:

Minor spill of dilute Uranium Solution, quickly resolved, 800 lbs of Uranium in solution, almost entirely absorbed at sight

Curious how the press & the anti-nuclear Coal Dupes ignore:

Coal Sludge Spill Deaths just a Tiny Tip of a Giant Iceberg

Coal Mining Deaths past 10 years: 80,000 Nuclear Energy Deaths past 10 years: ZERO

Where’s the Press on the 16,000 lbs of radioactive Uranium & Thorium the Average Coal Plant spews into the environment EVERY YEAR, add to that 120,000 lbs of Radiological Materials such as Radon Gas?

Here’s a great commentary concerning the WAY OVERBLOWN PRESS over MINOR NUCLEAR INCIDENTS:

‘‘…To me the book is about prejudice based on wrong assumptions and what Richard Rhodes calls “secondhand ignorance.” In the book (p.184) there is a graph based on a study by Bernard Cohen, Prof. Emeritus, U. of Pittsburgh, about stories by the New York Times of different types of accidents between 1974-78 (prior to Three Mile Island). He compared their frequency with the annual fatalities caused by these accidents. Cohen writes: …’’

‘‘…On an average, there were 120 entries per year on motor vehicle accidents, which kill 50,000 Americans each year; 50 entries per year on industrial accidents, which kill 12,000; and 20 entries per year on asphyxiation accidents, which kill 4,500; note that for these the number of entries, which represents roughly the amount of newspaper coverage, is approximately proportional to the death toll they cause. But for accidents involving radiation, there were something like 200 entries per year, in spite of there not having been a single fatality from a radiation accident for over a decade. …’’

‘‘…Another problem, especially in TV coverage, was use of inflammatory language. We often heard about “deadly radiation” or “lethal radioactivity,” referring to a hazard that hadn’t claimed a single victim for over a decade, and had caused less than five deaths in American history. But we never heard about “lethal electricity,” although 1,200 Americans were dying each year from electrocution; or about “lethal natural gas,” which was killing 500 annually with asphyxiation accidents. (Bernard Cohen, “The Nuclear Energy Option,”…’’

Nuclear, the Safest Energy Production on Earth

As for Al Gore’s Solar Power, even at $1 per peak watt (tell me why are commercial solar PV suppliers demanding that Solar PV be sold for a minimum of $12 per peak watt?), Solar PV for Los Angeles is 167 average yearly watts per pk kw according to the PVWatts Calculator, which is $5.98 per delivered watt, and you can double that when you include labour, invertors, switchgear and other hardware, which is much more than New Nuclear which is expected to be from $1 to $5 per watt, when construction ramps up. And it’s one thing for the homeowner to install them on his roof, it's quite another with Desert Solar, when you have to pay people $30 per hour to install them, troubleshoot, add inverters, switchgear, a huge area of power collection grid and new long distance transmission lines to the existing Fossil Fuel Power Plant's nodes. And vulnerable to hail storms, thunderstorms, wind storms, tornados, dust storms, swarms of locusts and bird shit, mud splashing in odd desert rainstorms, to name a few problems. And you have to add 20-40 year life on the Solar PV, which is then hazardous waste, vs 40-60 years on the nuclear. Operating costs of both probably similar until you talk about the NG or Coal power plants needed to complement the Solar. Other storage schemes like CAES, or batteries, cost as much as nuclear - for one day storage only. What happens when you have cloudy weather for 2 weeks straight?

Posted by: Warren Heath

I certainly can't. A wave of emotion that would put Shakespeare to shame washed over me as I read the comments here. Surely these aren't my EV comrades speaking? So much about how we can't accomplish this plan because of this or that reason, usually ending-up back at 'I dunno....' Quoting articles that morph in relevancy in step with world affairs, many of you seem to have missed the underlying message he was conveying: We have no choice! We must get started on the inventing and implementing of a plan to stop pumping clean-carbon into the air. The time to act is yesterday.

Yes, it is a huge undertaking, but 'we have no choice!'. Why not think of ways to help, to solve, rather than ranting about why we should keep burning carbon?

My few cents:

Build a high-voltage DC network underground. This uses somewhat less material than the archaic transmission lines we see today, and solves many 'problems' that have cropped up here. In fact, why not build a combination high-speed rail link / Power cable along some corridors? 'spensive, yes, but not in the long run.

We seem to have solved the battery problem in most ways but cost, with the latest batteries good for the lifetime of a car, and only destined to get better. Since we will be building a distributed renewable energy generator, why not also build a distributed battery? Every house would be equipped with a battery good enough for a couple of days of power consumption if needed. The grid would behave like data-flow on the internet, shunting power around the nation, in and out of these home-batteries, plug-in EVs and HEVs, pumped hydro, CAES etc. at the optimal levels, taking into consideration power usage patterns, distance from point of generation, weather forecasts, and a 'strategic charge level' ;).

Again, this will cost a great deal, but costs be damned in light of the alternative, and imagine how much cash will stay in the country? (Trillions) Think of the up-front cost as 'prepaid power', good for generations to come.

Oh, and Al Gore probably drives that truck for security reasons, not to blow gas! It may be armored?? Either way, he offsets his output, so please stop sounding like you'll all miss Bush, and give some thought to ways we can accomplish this 10 year undertaking.
Posted by: Mick Smith

Perhaps when armoured phev's become available and Gore continues driving his Town Cars, there's a point in him not walking (pun intended).

Regarding the content of what the man has to say: the 100% - 10 year plan is technically, logistically, financially, doable.

And what's perhaps even more important: its the ethical thing to do.

We, the fossil benificiaries, have screwed up energy supply and emission wise for an array or reasons (1st part of my thesis) and shift the burden of this to all children of all species of future times.

Unless we start loving them, we will come up with an array of reasons why this course of CCS, nuclear, hydrogen, bio fuels etc is inevetable.

To me it's bordering on the criminal as well as systemic. That's why it's so easy to see empty halves of glasses, especially when living in zones and time slots of comfort.

The solutions are staring us in the face (see David Mills, Joseph Romm, Jan Heetebrij, Vinod Khosla, Deepak Chopra and a host of other clear thinkers on http://www.bigpicture.tv/)

How about mustering all hands on deck and make the next UN climate summit ( http://www.cop15.dk/en ) a succes.

What would facilitate this significantly is some collective soul searching for our decision makers > http://presencingglobalclassroom.com/index.shtml

I've followed the course and these are exactly the skills we need in decision makers.

Indeed, this comprises the 2nd part of my thesis.

Emil Möller PhD researcher 'Decision making processes in a transition towards a sustainable energy regime'

U Maastricht

Netherlands
Posted by: Emil Möller

NP processing cycle requires the use of halogens of flourine gas which have thousands times more heat trapping capabilities than CO2.
Posted by: John Boyd

Public support for Nuclear Power in the U.S. is 70% in 2005 and growing. Opposition is the exceedingly vocal 24% and falling. Interesting that the Anti-Nuclear Coal Stooges, feel they should determine Energy Policy – screw everybody else. See:

Public Support for Nuclear growing, in spite of the Fanatical Efforts of the Pseudo-Environmentalists and the Environmental Wahhabi’s

Announcements for new Combined Construction and Operating Licenses (as of July, 2006), in the United States:

-- 26 plants (5 dual unit AP-1000’s and 2 dual unit ABWRs)

-- In 2004, average production cost of nuclear electricity reaches 1.7 cents/kWhr, average capacity factor 90.7%, 70% fraction of all non-fossil energy produced in United States

-- 36 New Nuclear Power Plants under construction in the World as of May, 2008

-- 93 New Nuclear Power Plants planned

-- 218 New Nuclear Power Plants proposed

I’ve also written before about how abandoning Nuclear Power R&D and plant construction for over 30 years now, is going to come back to bite us in the butt and the high initial costs, in the United States, of the new generation Nuclear Power plants just proves my point. Were it not for Corrupt Politicians, Environmentalist Dupes, and the Fossil Fuel Gang of Four, we could be EASILY be producing standardized Thorium reactors in dozens of large Aircraft Type High Efficiency, Low Cost, Assembly Lines Right Now. We either bite the bullet and make up for all those lost years of opportunity or get ready for the SHITSTORM. Peak Oil is happening, runaway Global Warming is happening, extreme Agro-crisis brought on by both global warming & the Biofuel scam is happening. Massive resources that could solve the problems are being diverted to energy negative Agrofuels, the wacky Hydrogen economy scam, the nutty Clean Coal scam, the Gang of Four’s Iraq Oil Seizure War and Environmental Fantasies about so-called renewables being able to produce our base load - get this – IT AIN’T GOING TO HAPPEN.

Also regarding nuclear waste, which is actually 95% clean nuclear fuel, according to the multi-billion dollar Clean Coal Scam being shoved down our throats, coal CO2 emissions can be sequestered. Well the entire stock of spent fuel nuclear waste from all the 441 nuclear reactors in the world is equal in weight to five minutes of coal based CO2 emissions (which of course is of much higher volume and much more difficult to contain than the metallic nuclear waste). In volume, the annual production of High Level Nuclear Waste from all of the reactors in the World, equals 22 milli-secs of CO2 emissions from Coal Power Plants. And CO2 emissions from Coal are just the tip of the iceberg of noxious Coal’s environmental destructiveness. And don’t forget that leaky CO2 from the billions of tons of reservoirs proposed in the Fantasy Scam, is ABSOLUTELY INEVITABLE, and unlike natural gas leaks the CO2 will hug the ground suffocating any animal or person in its path, and this danger, unlike for nuclear waste, will persist until the Earth is burnt by the Sun.

And by the way, the cost of building Coal Power Plants has skyrocketed, so much so that dozens of purported ‘’ Clean Coal ‘’ power plants have been cancelled. And the DOE cancelled building their partly completed showcase FutureGen ‘’ Clean Coal ‘’ Demo plant when it realized that it will fail so miserably that it might jeopardize the entire Scam.

As for the costs of Nuclear Cleanups of Ancient Nuclear Reactors, they are driven by absurd regulations, put there by pro-Coal pseudo-Environmentalists, and the Environmentalist Dupes and Wahhabi’s. Nutty requirements like cleanup must be several times below the radiation levels found in common natural environments. Whereas Coal gets a completely free ride in that area, allowed to dump billions of tons of RADIOACTIVE & POISONOUS materials into the atmosphere and in giant landfills, with complete impunity. Where are the pseudo-Environmentalists on that glaring HYPOCRISY? Read the book by Gwyneth Cravens – to learn the absolute stupidity and hypocrisy of Nuclear Cleanups:

The Power to Save the World, The Truth About Nuclear Energy

A few quotes from futurepundit.com, regarding rising Power Plant Costs – remember what I said about how material shortages are going to severely restrict any sizeable expansion of Wind & Solar, due to their 10 to 40 times greater supply chain inputs:

Future Pundit on the high initial Costs of new Nuclear Power Plants

‘…Wind Turbine Costs Up …’

‘‘…If you are waiting for alternative energy sources to become much cheaper, well, keep on waiting. …’’

‘‘…Shell's decision to sell its stake in London Array shows how difficult it will be to meet those goals. After the announcement on May 1, Skaerbaek, Denmark-based Dong Energy and Dusseldorf- based E.ON, Germany's biggest utility, said they may reduce the size of the project …’’

‘‘…``Rising costs of materials,' including steel and turbines ``are the reasons for reassessment of our position,' said Shell spokeswoman Eurwen Thomas. …’’

‘‘…The price of offshore turbines rose 48 percent to 2.23 million euros ($3.45 million) per megawatt [that’s about $11 per avg watt] in the past three years, according to BTM Consult APS, a Danish wind power consultant. By comparison, land-based rotors cost 1.38 million euros per megawatt after rising 74 percent in the same period. …’’

‘‘…Some of that price rise might be due to strong demand for wind power. But materials cost increases played a role too. Higher commodities prices have pushed up prices for steel, aluminum, copper, and other materials used in wind tower construction. So far the only energy source which looks like it might be getting ready for big price drops is solar. But it is also one of the more expensive ways to generate electricity. So it has plenty of room for improvement. The future costs of energy look pretty inflationary to me. …’

‘…Brian Wang, on rising Construction Costs on all Power Plants, including Wind …’

‘‘… “Although the PCCI has been on an upward trend since 2000, a surge that began in 2005 has pushed costs up 76 percent in the past three years,” according to Scott. “The latest increases have been driven by continued high activity levels globally, especially for nuclear plants, with continued tightness in the equipment and engineering markets, as well as historically high levels for raw materials.” Excluding nuclear plants, costs have risen 79 percent since 2000, she noted. . …’

‘‘… From the Sept 2007 Batelle, Edison foundation report. Nuclear power costs have been staying more stable than other kinds of energy. Nuclear is the lowest line, which means prices moved the least. . …’

‘‘… China contracted for $5.3 billion for four AP1000 in 2007. Construction started. The contract was for $1,130/kw. …’

‘‘… four AP1000 in the USA, contract in 2008 $13.7 billion, $2927/kw. …’

‘‘… The overnight costs quoted in the FPL are from $6.7 billion, or $2,444/kW, to $9.8 billion, or $3,582/kW. . …’

‘‘… In March 2008 Progress Energy published estimates for building two new Westinghouse AP1000 units on a greenfield site in Florida. If built within 18 months of each other, overnight capital cost for the first would be $5144 per kilowatt and the second $3376/kW. The costs include land, licence application, initial core load, cooling towers, owner's costs, insurance and taxes, escalation and contingencies. This would appear to be a wider scope for overnight capital cost than usual. Interest adds about one third to the combined figure - $3.2 billion, and infrastructure - notably 320 km of transmission lines - about another $3 billion. The units are expected on line in 2016 and 2017 and are expected to save customers some $930 million per year relative to natural gas-fired generation. . …’

‘…Wolf-Dog Explains how the pro-coal pseudo-environmentalists sabotaged nuclear power…’

‘‘…The new types of nukes such as the Pebble Bed Reactor, Molten Salt Reactors, were sabotaged by various groups, (government funding discontinued). The current expensive estimates are understandably based on the expensive and very clumsy pressurized water reactors that require a very costly reactor container and a very advanced water pumping system. …’

‘‘…But let me elaborate more about the other reactors and the pros and cons: …’

‘‘…1) The Pebble Bed Reactor is very cheap and very fast to build due to its simplicity ( it can be built in less than a year and it would surely cost far less than $1 billion per Gigawatt), and its operation is also very cheap due to its low maintenance, so that it would generate electricity at 5 cents per kWh. But on the DOWNSIDE this kind of reactor is rather inefficient for burning uranium, and the resulting waste would accumulate at least as much as the pressurized water reactors, and the world is running out of uranium. Thus although the Pebble Bed reactors should definitely be developed and quickly built (thanks to their modular design that makes it possible to build these at the factory and ship the complete pieces to be mounted at the intended sites), it must be noted that in order to reprocess the nuclear waste from Pebble Bed Reactors, new kinds of waste transmutation reactors or reprocessing plants must be built, since the whole point of the Pebble Bed reactor was to build thousands of these reactors in the world, not hundreds, and then the nuclear waste would accumulate unless it is reprocessed. Also uranium would run out in the world if thousands of inefficient reactors are built, and Pebble Bed is not efficient for fuel conservation, even though its operating expenses make it possible to yield cheap electricity at 5 cents per kWh. …’

‘‘…2) The Molten Salt reactors (and the related integral fast breeder reactors) have the advantage of being nearly 100 times more uranium fuel efficient because they would burn the long term nuclear waste as new fuel, and this means that they would breed new fuel from the nuclear waste. Since less than 1 % of uranium is the fissile version, this means that nearly 100 % the mined uranium would become fuel for these reactors, and the waste problem would also be solved. But on the downside, unlike the Pebble Bed reactor which is very simple to develop, this molten salt reactor is more complex, and a lot more money and at least another 5-10 years would be needed to commercialize this, even with new government money, although the feasibility is demonstrated. …’

‘‘…Now let me mention HOW the new integral fast reactor was sabotaged: …’

‘‘…A) After UC Berkeley demonstrated the feasibility of the fast breeder integral reactors (which burn their long term nuclear waste as their own fuel), the Bill Clinton government immediately discontinued the funding. The fear of the anti-nuclear groups was that this new progress, would cause a new wave of interest in nuclear power, even though this new reactor promised to clean up the nuclear waste that the antinuclear people were against. …’

‘‘…B) The Oil and Coal industries (which employ tens of millions of people) evidently did not like this new reactor, since it would take business away from these industries. …’

‘‘…C) The Uranium Mining industry and the Uranium Fuel Manufacturing Industry did not like this new system because it would be 100 times more fuel efficient (requires only 1 % of the uranium fuel used in a similar pressurized water reactor with the same output), and also because its fueling would be a new system of molten salt, instead of the already standardized fuel pellets which are shipped from the fuel factory in a convenient way, and the uranium industry did not want to develop the molten salt type fuels since it is more work for them. …’

‘‘…In other words, for once in their lives, the interests of the above-mentioned 3 mutually incompatible groups that hate each other, actually converged, and they all opposed the future research and development on advanced reactors. …’

As a result, with current technology, there is only a limited amount of uranium ore in the world that is rich enough to allow more energy to be produced by the whole nuclear process than the process itself consumes. This amount of ore might be enough to supply the world's total current electricity demand for about 6 years.

Morover, because of the amount of fossil fuel and flourine used in the enrichment process, significant quantities of greenhouse gases are released. As a result, nuclear energy is by no means a climate friendly technology. If the public understood these problems I doubt that there would be much enthusiasm for continuing to build NP plants.
Posted by: John Boyd

‘…Warren I get the feeling someone works or is a "dupe" of the nuclear industry. Reading a little too much Patrick Moore? …’

What Patrick Moore Really Stands For

Patrick Moore Laments at How some in the Environmental Movement have gone Fanatical

‘…no one here supports the Coal or the Oil industries, so please quit it with the strawman arguments. …’

1) There really is only one viable alternative to Coal as our main energy supply, at least for the foreseeable future, and that is nuclear. So supporting the fantasy Mega Solar, Mega Wind idea is a tacit support of Coal, and that has been proven in Germany & Denmark.

2) I got a big problem with the hypocrisy of those who ignore the pain & punishment that Coal has brought to the Earth & its people, but jump on any minor problem with Nuclear Energy. So nuclear cleanups must be done with a fine tooth comb, to radiation levels well below natural background, but coal can dump billions of tons of toxic & radioactive waste into the environment with complete impunity. A perfect example is the carbon sequestration idea. Environmental fanatics, are quite happy with, for instance, the failed FutureGen plan of 3 meager years of monitoring. If the same standards as nuclear were applied to CO2 sequestration, even one project, like FutureGen would require a 10 billion dollar study, with zero probability of leakage for the next 1 million years. If environmental fanatics, truly believed in the environment, they would give clean, zero emissions Nuclear a free ride, and focus there energy on stopping coal. PURE HYPOCRISY, it’s that simple.

3) As T.Boone Pickens admits, Wind requires Coal or NG to run in parallel, to make up for the variations, unreliability and unpredictability of the Wind Energy. So supporting Wind or Solar means supporting Coal or NG – pick one – but NG supplies are limited, and most of Canada’s NG is going to wind up in the Tar Sands, converted into dirty Crude Oil (thanks to the No-Nukes Fanatics since Nuclear would replace the NG), so that means you’re left with Coal Power plants running in parallel with the Solar & Wind installations, and since Coal takes much more time to develop boiler heat than NG turbines, the Coal Plants will be constantly running at their most inefficient, spewing out GHG’s and Toxic Waste.

‘…quoting an Oil company about the price of windpower. I don't think Shell would be the first source I would pick. …’

The Failure & High Costs of Danish Wind Industrial Power Plants

Denmark, the highest Power Rates in Europe, 40 cents per kwh

‘…noticed you didn't have an answer to the shortage of ultra-large forgings steel that nuclear plants. …’

‘…Other companies able to make the large forgings required for reactor pressure vessels include: Russia's OMZ, which is upgrading to be able to manufacture three or four pressure vessels per year;[30] South Korea's Doosan Heavy Industries;[31][32] and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which is doubling capacity for reactor pressure vessels and other large nuclear components.[33] The UK's Sheffield Forgemasters is evaluating the benefit of tooling-up for nuclear forging work. …’

‘…7 new plants in Russia gives me a real warm feeling. I wonder what Ukraine thinks of this. …’

‘…if a nuclear accident occurs the cost will mainly be born by the taxpayer. T. …’

‘…You do not have any storage solution. …’

Permanent, Cheap, Effective, Safe Disposal of Nuclear Waste in Deep Seabeds

‘…Every incident of nuclear weapons proliferation has been the result of nuclear reactors being built in the countries that acquired the bomb. …’

‘…ignored that the $5-7 trillion windpower subsidy figure you used earlier was wrong …’

‘…Based on your numbers, Charles, I can see where the $5 to $7 trillion comes from. The DOE claims that to provide 20% of all energy, 300 GW of wind capacity will be necessary, which would require 1000 GW of installed capacity. That assumes a capacity factor of 30%, which is higher than wind has typically produced. Multiplying that 1000 GW by today's cost of over $2,000/KW would yield $2 trillion. What Lapoin probably did, but apparently did not document in her article, is assign a higher cost per KW and a lower capacity factor. Adjusting the numbers to $3,000/KW and a capacity factor of 20% would yield $4.5 trillion. Add in interest and higher maintenance and depreciation costs, and you get over the $5 trillion mark. …’

‘…you will ignore this post and spew another ton of nuclear propaganda.…’

‘…there is only a limited amount of uranium ore in the world that is rich enough to allow more energy to be produced by the whole nuclear process than the process itself consumes. This amount of ore might be enough to supply the world's total current electricity demand for about 6 years …’

If all our electricity was made with coal, a years supply of coal (14,200 lb) cost $218 in 2005 and is much higher now and climbing. A year's supply of natural gas (115,000 cubic feet) cost $850 in 2005.

To make all U.S. electricity with current reactor designs, we only need 0.72 pounds / year / person.

For uranium to match the price of coal or natural gas, using current reactor technology, the uranium price would be $303 or $1,180 dollars per pound respectively.

Using breeder reactors we need 0.35 pounds / 80 year lifetime.

For uranium to match the price of coal or natural gas using breeder reactors, the uranium price would be $51,500 or $194,000 dollars per pound respectively.

The average American paid $1,100 for electricity in 2005. Uranium cost is a small fraction of what we pay for nuclear electricity, about 0.2 cents per kWh. Uranium price spikes have little effect on our bill.

These numbers come from this paper

http://www.nuclearcoal.com/ENERGY%20REV%20X1.pdf

based on calculations and references from this spreadsheet.

http://www.nuclearcoal.com/ENERGY%20CALCS%20REV%207.xls

My thanks to Jim Holm for hosting my paper on his site.

http://www.nuclearcoal.com/

Reports in the 1970's estimated the cost of extracting uranium from sea water at $1,500 to $2,000 per pound. R&D has reduced that to about $200 per pound, of uranium.

http://npc.sarov.ru/english/digest/132004/appendix8.html

http://www.taka.jaea.go.jp/eimr_div/j637/theme3%20sea_e.h ...

http://jolisfukyu.tokai-sc.jaea.go.jp/fukyu/mirai-en/2006 ...

The oceans contain 4.6 billion tons of uranium, half of which is sufficient to support 10 billion people at the U.S. level for 400 years using first generation reactors and over 30,000 years with breeders. In reality the oceans are continuously supplied with uranium by the erosion of land, so the uranium supply is effectively unlimited.

We do not need breeders for a long time but we should move forward with breeder R&D to reduce mining and waste volumes.

Why are there no sea water uranium extraction plants?

Historically price has been under $60 / pound with a few big spikes.

http://www.uxc.com/review/uxc_g_hist-price.html

http://www.uxc.com/review/uxc_g_2yr-price.html

U3O8 is 85% uranium by weight.

Would you bet your life savings on uranium staying above $200 / lb? I don't think so, and neither do professional investors, however if sea water technology keeps improving the cost may drop enough to make it happen sooner than most people think.

Sea water uranium is very important because it puts a cap of $200/pound on the maximum sustainable cost of uranium for thousands of years.

Sea water uranium does not have to supply all of our uranium in order to cap the uranium price at $200/pound. It only has to replace the percentage of land based uranium sources that cost more than $200/pound, and that percentage is zero for the foreseeable future.

Posted by: Warren Heath

‘…I'll try to be brief, something you might try some time. You don't convince someone of your arguments by dumping tonnes of data from questionable sources… reliable source, or Shell Oil or the Nuclear industry… you aren't exactly quoting peer reviewed science.…’

‘…I'm sure you think the DOE under George Bush.…’

‘…article by Patricia Lapoint, who made an "analysis" of a DOE article on windpower. As I pointed out earlier Lapoint made up the $5-7 million dollar subsidy.…’

‘…you suggest the shortages with ultra-large forgings steel can be easily solved. But the lesser grade steel needed for windpower.…’

Areva to build another new Power Reactor in France, and the Creusot Forge will be upgraded to supply 100% of the Reactor heavy Steel Components

‘…focus your criticism at windpower. If you had listened to Al Gore he was talking about solar thermal, photovoltaic, geothermal and windpower. He readily admitted you needed other renewable sources of power to balance windpower.…’

Graph of Germany’s Electricity Production by Source, 1991 to 2004

Here’s a quote that demonstrates the extremely low Capacity Credit of even New Wind Energy, which will be higher than when the Grid is saturated with Wind Energy:

‘…Wind power has a very low "capacity credit," its ability to replace other sources of power. For example, in the U.K., which boasts of being the windiest country in Europe, the Royal Academy of Engineering projects that 25,000 MW of wind power will reduce the need for conventional power capacity by 4,000 MW, a 16% capacity credit. Two studies in Germany projected that 48,000 MW of wind power will allow reducing conventional capacity by only 2,000 MW, a 4% capacity credit (as described in "Wind Report 2005," Eon Netz). Similarly, the Irish Grid calculated that 3,500 MW of wind power could replace 496 MW of conventional power, a 14% capacity credit, and that as more wind turbines are added their capacity credit approaches zero. And the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority found in March 2005 that onshore wind power would have a capacity credit of 10%, based on a theoretical capacity factor of 30%..…’

And Solar will not complement Wind very effectively, since Solar is nil at night when Wind is lowest and EV’s will mostly be charging. Geothermal is a long, slow and hard road to travel, judging by Iceland – the Geothermal Capital of the World – only getting 19% of its electricity from Geothermal, the rest from much more easy Hydro. Alaska should be Geothermal Capital of the USA, with the enormous advantage of geothermal CHP, and yet only gets a piddly 400 kw from Geothermal with another 20 MW planned.

‘…f the breeder reactors and storage solution that you suggest as the ultimate solution, have no commercial track record and absolutely no safety record but you want to gamble the future on it..…’

The Thorium Molten Salt Reactor has considerable History

‘…I for one would rather take Al Gore's gamble. Yours is just too risky...…’

Now that I’ve answered your questions, here’s one for you. How would you like it if you owned a farm in the Midwest, been in your family for four generations, and suddenly an Industrial Wind Turbine Power Company comes to your region - usually because it is a poor region and they expect less legal wrangling from impoverished farmers? So your poor neighbor signs up for ugly Industrial Wind Turbines, but he doesn’t want them near his home so he locates them at the edge of his property, near your home. He gets royalties, all you get an ugly eyesore, destroying what was once your beautiful horizon. Then you find your property values have dropped 20% from the wind turbines. And you get instead of a sunset or sunrise or full moon, you get a stroboscope that causes your wife to get terrible Migraine Headaches. And you can’t sleep at night from the annoying low frequency noise of the turbines. And you find dead birds and bats on your property, from collisions with the turbines (the ones that didn’t get scared away), so you have much higher crop damage due to insects that the birds & bats fed upon. And to add misery to madness, the utility company issues you an edict that it will confiscate right-a-way through the middle of your property for a 360,000 volt power transmission line, quadruple oversized, to send the power that the Industrial Wind Turbine Monstrosities produce. And that cuts your property value by another 20%. In addition productivity of your livestock drops off due to the induced ground currents and stray voltages from the ugly transmission line on your property. I wonder how well you would get along with your former friend & neighbor now.

See:

Medical Doctor talks about the Serious Health & Wildlife Consequences of Industrial Wind Turbines

Serious Problems with Wind Power, another Corn Ethanol, H2 Economy, Clean Coal type Greenwashing Scam, while preserving the Status Quo, keep that Coal Flowing

China Expands Nuclear Once Again, leaving the USA to keep the Title – GLOBAL POLLUTION CAPITAL OF THE WORLD

The links between key environmental groups, government and big business.

Posted by: Warren Heath

We are fortunate to have Gore constantly bringing this issue to the front page. If a scientist were to try this, he/she would quickly be ignored. Gore is controversial and that is good. It forces all sides to discuss what could be the future of all life on the planet.
Posted by: John Boyd