Switching off Victoria?

I was quite impressed with myself to discover, the other day, that everybody’s favourite opinionated newspaper columnist, Andrew Bolt, had linked to and cited one of my recent posts.

That’s probably responsible, at least in part, for the significant increase in traffic I’ve seen on this blog over the last week or so - and I’m grateful for that.

Sometimes Bolt is absolutely on the money - but not always.

Here’s a recent blog post of Bolt’s which is somewhat agreeable, but still gets on my nerves a little bit. It’s worth reading, anyhow.

It’s utterly unbelievable that the Rudd Government should be contemplating making bankrupt the stations that provide more than 90 per cent of Victoria’s power:

Yes - it is extremely worthwhile and important to close down the extremely polluting and greenhouse gas emissions intensive brown coal fired power stations that provide more than 90 percent of Victoria’s electrical energy. That does not mean making the energy companies bankrupt - we still need that energy, it just has to come from a different source.

However, I too would have a hard time believing that Rudd would or could actually make it happen.

Although careful to respect the Federal Government’s process, Victorian Energy Minister Peter Batchelor appears increasingly nervous in his public comments. Asked if one of the state’s brown coal generators will be forced to close prematurely, he said: “It depends on the nature of the emissions trading scheme (introduced).”

The purpose of a GHG emissions trading scheme is to mitigate anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions from our industries. Its purpose is not to raise more government revenues or to create more paperwork - its purpose, its reason for existing, is to reduce industrial, anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide.

Therefore, if the “mud-burning” Latrobe Valley stations are not the very first things to close down under an emissions trading scheme, then clearly the scheme is not working.

If it’s one like Garnaut actually recommends - with no compensation to power stations for wiping billions off their value - the generators are cactus. And here is Kevin Rudd’s modus operandi writ large and destructive: process over purpose. What possible good could there be to cause such an economic catastrophe in this state?

But Rudd’s guru has a solution of the kind the Soviet Union would have suggested:

In his report, Professor Garnaut said $1 billion to $2 billion of the emissions trading scheme proceeds should be invested in clean coal technologies, matched dollar for dollar by the companies. If clean coal worked, he said, the Latrobe Valley would heave a “prosperous and expansive future”. If it didn’t, money from the scheme should be used to help retrain workers and to help the valley community survive the brave new world of zero emissions.

Hey, let the Government spend a couple of billion of taxpayers’ money, and another couple of billion of the bosses’, on a yet-to-be proved “solution” many experts say is pie in the sky. And then, $4 billion later, let’s give the unemployed some handouts.

Warning: These people now have their hands all over your jobs and paypackets.

Whilst I’m interested - and many others are interested - in seeing the coal fired plants closed down, that doesn’t mean that the electricity utilities are out of business - we still need the electricity, and we will continue to need the electricity.

Ideally, what we would see happening is the construction of new lower-emissions or zero-emissions electricity generators of an energy output comparable to the coal power plants, followed by the decommissioning of the coal-fired plants. [Of course, we don't decommission the coal plants until after the new ones are online.]

The electricity utilities are still operating lower-emissions or zero-emissions generators, there are still people employed, and we’re still getting the energy needed to support developed civilisation. This is where we need to transition to, and where an emissions trading scheme - if it’s done right - might help us transition to.

I agree that investing many billions of dollars in CCS research and development, which is considered by many to be pie in the sky, is a grave mistake. Instead, we need to consider the energy generation technologies that are mature technologies that are available and proven right now, that can replace coal-fired power plants, generating energy at a comparable scale, for less GHG emissions.

Those options are large hydroelectricity, natural gas fired turbines, and nuclear fission.

In Australia, expanding the use of large hydroelectric installations above and beyond what we’ve already got is really not a practical proposition, so we’re left with two options that really could replace coal-fired generators in the Latrobe valley, under an emissions trading scheme - natural gas and nuclear energy. Certainly, what is absolutely not sensible at all is arbitrary, unfair and exceptional, scientifically unfounded legal prohibitions on the development of nuclear power plants by the energy companies who are willing to invest in zero-emissions replacement for coal, especially when their investments may be kick started by billions of dollars in the government’s ETS revenue, which clearly needs to be put back into these zero emissions or lower-emissions technologies.

If power plant operators wish to pursue either of these options, which will finally actually put a stop to the ever-expanding use of coal-fired generators, and finally put a real dent in GHG emissions, then they are to be wholeheartedly encouraged in doing so.

Obviously the nuclear energy option is completely superior to natural gas in terms of greenhouse gas emissions - however, in practical terms, one must grant that gas turbines are already in widespread use in Australia today, and they are more politically acceptable in some political circles than nuclear power - however that may change as concern over greenhouse gases, even at the somewhat reduced levels from natural gas generators, grows.

However, that said, given the importance of making real cuts in GHG emissions within the next 3-10 years, if the generators want to build combined-cycle natural gas turbines, technologies with which they’re more familiar, straight away, then they shouldn’t be discouraged. Natural gas could offer some benefit as a stopgap measure for last-ditch replacement for coal fired plants in the absence of nuclear power.

The Garnaut climate change review draft report.

As many of you will know, Professor Garnaut’s much-awaited Draft Report on the implications of anthropogenic climate change in Australia was recently released. Let’s take a look at it.

[There's a mirrored host here, courtesy of the GreensBlog. Please be aware that that's a direct link to a very large PDF file.]

I haven’t read the entire thing yet, and I don’t expect that many of you have, either.

“In some industries, notably aluminium smelting and some steel production, indirect emissions in generating electricity would need to be taken into account. These emissions could be assessed according to a simple and robust approximation, based on the emissions intensity of the systems from which they draw their power, and made subject to the sectoral emissions tax. Indirect or embodied emissions that fell below a threshold would not be considered, in the interest of simplicity.”

“Chapter 9 suggested that under a reasonable set of assumptions about the threshold ratio and the permit price, only a limited number of industries might clearly satisfy the emissions intensity eligibility criteria. As the permit price rises, they may include — assuming an economy-wide emissions trading scheme — aluminium smelting, cattle and sheep products, cement production, and iron and early stage steel manufacturing.”

It all sounds terribly complicated, doesn’t it? I’ll be the first to profess that I’m not an economist, however.

The example of the aluminium production industry is one that gets bought up again and again in the context of high-GHG-emissions industries, and it raises an interesting question.

An aluminium smelter itself does emit a little bit of carbon dioxide and other GHGs, but not all that much by comparison to most other large industrial chemical and metallurgical engineering.

What an aluminium smelter does do, however, is consume large amounts of electrical energy, and this is where this notion about the aluminium industry being responsible for vast amounts of GHG emissions comes from.

The aluminium producer buys their electricity from the grid from the electricity generating utility. If we assume that this utility is predominantly operating coal-fired plants, then the utility is paying a high price for its large carbon dioxide emissions, under an emissions trading scheme.

The utility will inevitably pass this cost onto electricity consumers - so, is an industry such as the aluminium industry or steel industry being expected to pay for the carbon dioxide intensity of their energy use twice - once in the price of their electricity, and again simply because they’re using that electricity? That’s what the above passage seems to imply, doesn’t it?

The same scenario applies to every one of us, with regards to household electricity consumption. Could you reasonably be expected to pay for “your” carbon dioxide emissions corresponding, even after you’ve already paid them in the form of the bill from your electric utility?

Just like aluminium smelters or electric arc furnaces in industry, light bulbs or plasma TV’s aren’t responsible for significant direct greenhouse gas emissions - it’s fossil fuel combustion power stations that are.

Now, I’m pleased to note that there’s at least some mention of nuclear energy in the report, and it’s interesting to take a look at that, too.

This renewed demand arises from a combination of influences from climate change, energy security and relative costs. With more than one-third of currently estimated global uranium resources, Australia is well placed to benefit from this growth.

Doesn’t this sound - coincidentally - very much like the “Nuclear energy is fantastic for Australia - just as long as it isn’t actually in Australia” policy of the federal government?

The 2006 Uranium Mining, Processing and Nuclear Energy Review for the Commonwealth Government concluded: ‘Although the priority for Australia will continue to be to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from coal and gas, the Review sees nuclear power as a practical option for part of Australia’s electricity production. This conclusion was based on a cost of nuclear power of $40–65/MWh, which is within the range of the $35–80/MWh estimate of the Nuclear Energy Agency and the International Energy Agency from 2005, but below ranges specified in the more recent official UK publications of $60–80 MWh. Nuclear power stations will have been disproportionately affected by the recent increases in capital costs on account of their exceptional capital intensity, and will have been rendered less competitive by this development. Newer-generation nuclear technologies indicate potentially lower costs.

Less competitive with what? Less competitive in the presence or in the absence of an emissions trading scheme? How less competitive?

Increases in capital costs affect all energy systems - nuclear energy, fossil fuel combustion, solar, wind… you name it. In terms of the relative sensitivity to capital costs of nuclear power plant construction for a given amount of energy generated, nuclear energy is indeed quite competitive.

“Australia has better non-nuclear low-emissions options than other developed countries, especially (but not only) if carbon capture and storage is commercialised within the range of current cost expectations. Australia is a major net exporter of a wide range of energy sources, notably coal, liquefied natural gas and uranium. Transport economics should favour local use of those fuels in which the gap between export parity and import parity price is greatest (first liquefied natural gas, then coal). As a consequence, Australia is not the logical first home of new nuclear capacity on economic grounds.”

This sounds like the oft-encountered yet worrisome “fossil fuel combustion is the cheapest source of energy - so just use that instead, without bothering with those more expensive sustainable low or no emissions alternatives” reasoning.

Is that perhaps what we have to expect when we put economists in charge of preparing a review for the government of the impacts of anthropogenic greenhouse effect forcing in Australia?

Without real attention paid to the environmental impacts of fossil fuel combustion, the health impacts, and the energy security impacts, no energy system is competitive with cheap, abundant coal and petroleum on economic grounds.

“In Australia, as well as in most other developed and developing countries, public acceptability is an important barrier, that would need to be recognised as a constraint and a source of delays and increased costs by any government committed to implementation of a nuclear power program.”

“Given the economic issues and community disquiet about establishing a domestic nuclear power capacity, Australia would be best served by continuing to export its uranium and focusing on low-emissions coal, gas and renewable options for domestic energy supply. However, it would be wise to reconsider the constraints if:

• future nuclear costs come in at the low end of the estimates provided above
• developments in technologies reduce the need for long-term storage of high level radioactive waste
• there is disappointment with technical and commercial progress with low emissions fossil fuel technologies, and
• community disquiet eases.”

Many who support nuclear power already believe that the failure of fossil fuel combustion with CCS technology to deliver truly competitive and truly low-emissions energy is a foregone conclusion for the next several decades at least.

As for dealing with used nuclear fuel and high level radioactive waste efficiently, sensibly and safely, the efficient recycling of nuclear fuels and the deep geological permanent disposal of unusable long-lived radioactive wastes are already scientifically and technologically solved problems - only political debate remains as the “unsolved problem”

Ongoing developments in the design and construction of Generation III, III+ and IV are working to address concerns over the economics of nuclear power, as do rising natural gas and fossil fuel prices. The introduction of GHG emissions trading schemes increases the economic acceptability of nuclear energy still further, relative to other energy systems. It is always essential to approach these issues in the context of meaningful comparisons to other forms of energy generation - or realistic degrees of reduction in demand, or the slowing of demand growth. The energy, ultimately, has to come from somewhere.

This leaves public acceptance of nuclear power - supposedly - as the overwhelming issue preventing nuclear energy use within Australia.

Does this supposed community disquiet truly exist to a significant degree, or is it merely the meaningless noise of a vocal, fervent and dogmatic minority?

Acceptance of nuclear energy amongst the public may be swayed by dramatically increased energy costs, and failures to achieve desired reductions in GHG emissions, if real alternatives to coal and fossil fuels are not deployed in a meaningful way.

The 2007 McNair Gallup poll found 53% of Australians were opposed, 41% were in favour of the construction of Nuclear power plants and 6% were uncommitted.

It seems from the 2007 McNair Gallup poll that the need to consider nuclear power as an alternative energy source is considered increasingly popular amongst Australians, with more Australians conceding the need for nuclear power plants to be built in Australia.

The 2007 results contradict Peter Garrett’s claim that “Australians are very clear that they don’t want nuclear energy and nuclear power in this country.”, with 41% of Australians in favour for the construction of nuclear power plants.

Other informal polls, such as those run on the websites of Australia’s major newspapers every once in a while, continually return strong majority support for nuclear power. Some may question the reliability and coverage of such polls - but it is clear that as concern over anthropogenic greenhouse forcing and the use of coal grows, along with concerns of the economic impacts of GHG emissions trading and the need for large scale energy generation also grows, more effort needs to be made to gauge the true degree of community support for a rational, informed and sensible consideration of nuclear energy - along with greater education of the public, which is increasingly desired by the community.

In fact, I am not unconvinced that there is not already majority support for a rational, informed, dogma-free and sensible consideration of nuclear energy amongst the Australian public today.

Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air

Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air is a popular book written by David J.C. MacKay, who is Professor of Natural Philosophy in the department of physics at the University of Cambridge. It’s currently available for download, but it is still at the draft stage.

Read some of this - isn’t it great! I haven’t read the whole thing yet, but it really looks impressive to me, it’s saying the things that I really think need to be said.

How can we replace fossil fuels? How can we ensure security of energy supply? How can we solve climate change?

We’re often told that ‘huge amounts of renewable power are available’ – wind, wave, tide, and so forth. But our current power consumption is also huge! To understand our sustainable energy crisis, we need to
know how the one ‘huge’ compares with the other. We need numbers, not adjectives.

This heated debate is fundamentally about numbers. How much energy could each source deliver, at what economic and social cost, and with what risks? But actual numbers are rarely mentioned. In public debates, people just say “Nuclear is a money pit” or “We have a huge amount of wave and wind.” The trouble with this sort of language is that it’s not sufficient to know that something is huge: we need to know how the one ‘huge’ compares with another ‘huge’, namely our huge energy consumption. To make this comparison, we need numbers, not adjectives.

“I’m not trying to be pro-nuclear. I’m just pro-arithmetic.”

Interesting posts roundup.

A few interesting pieces from the blogosphere over the last week or so:

Fellow Melbourne based blogger Robert Merkel is discussing some, well, nuclear power stuff over at Larvatus Prodeo.

Tim Dunlop’s Blogocracy blog (affiliated with http://news.com.au ) is taking a look at Thorium as a nuclear fuel. It’s good to see some level headed discussion of nuclear energy systems in such a popular media outlet.

Finally, Sovietologist is taking a look at Russia’s proven nuclear “micropower”. I wonder what Lovins has to say about that?

Would you prefer that the Legislature pursue nuclear or coal power in Kansas?

The Lawrence Journal has put this question to the Kansas community. Impressively, the phrasing of the question clearly recognizes that, for the majority of the electrical energy production of the state, in practice, it’s a choice between nuclear energy and burning coal.

Let’s look at the comments from the four citizens interviewed:

“Given a choice between the two, I’d go with nuclear. I think it’s cleaner for the now. You can at least sequester the waste, whereas with coal you can’t. Coal-burning plants seem too archaic.”

This person recognizes coal to be a problem, and nuclear energy is recognised as a clean alternative to replace coal.

“I’ll go with coal. It’s cheaper for the consumer, and the resources are more readily available here.”

This was the first thing that came to my mind as a response to that.

“I’d say nuclear. I think it’s more efficient; it doesn’t consume as many resources, and the output is better for the environment.”

Another person who recognises nuclear energy as something which is important as a realistic alternative to large-scale coal-fired electricity generation, and the grave effects of same.

“I’m definitely against the use of coal-burning power plants, because it seems too much like going backward for a quick fix. But I really don’t know enough about nuclear power to endorse it as an alternative.”

It’s great to see these kinds of comments in the community, too. This woman recognizes the problems posed by coal, but doesn’t pass any judgement on nuclear energy, since it wouldn’t be sensible to do so since she doesn’t know enough about it, and wants to learn more.

The majority of the people interviewed are clearly opposed to coal-fired generation - that’s good to see.

Whilst the, uh, signal-to-noise ratio of the comments on the comment board isn’t particularly appealing, there are still some positive and interesting comments.

I gotta go coal. I just don’t really trust the whole nuke thing… I think leaving all the radioactive waste for later is worse than leaving our kids with a deficit, or dirty air.
Not that I like coal either. There just isn’t any free ride when it comes to energy.

Coal, by God. It’s better for the State’s economy.

Unfortunately, decades of cheap, pollution-ignored coal and fear have held us back from getting to work on improved, refined, and simplified nuclear plants.

And, for those who aren’t aware, Lawrencians get about 100 times the radiation dose from Uranium and Thorium emitted in the flue gases and only nominally restrained ash piles at our KPL coal plant than the people of Coffey County do from Wolf Creek.

But, given these limited choices, I’d pick nuclear over coal.

As always, do consider leaving your comment, if you’re interested.

“What comes out of the stack is, basically, a moist air”

“Moist air” !? How stupid do they actually think people are?

No, unfortunately - I’m pretty sure this one isn’t satirical. I wonder how much mercury will end up in those fish?

If the embedded video player doesn’t work for you whatever reason, here’s the direct YouTube link.

” Nuclear’s CO2 cost ‘will climb’”.

The BBC is reporting that:

The case for nuclear power as a low carbon energy source to replace fossil fuels has been challenged in a new report by Australian academics.

It suggests greenhouse emissions from the mining of uranium - on which nuclear power relies - are on the rise.

Availability of high-grade uranium ore is set to decline with time, it says, making the fuel less environmentally friendly and more costly to extract.

A significant proportion of greenhouse emissions from nuclear power stem from the fuel supply stage, which includes uranium mining, milling, enrichment and fuel manufacturing.

Others sources of carbon include construction of the plant - including the manufacturing of steel and concrete materials - and decomissioning.

You can read the rest of the original BBC article here.

Perhaps more significantly, you can download the original academic paper in question here.

I will quote a couple of paragraphs worth:

Overall, the data clearly show the sensitivity of sustainability assessments to the ore grade of
the uranium deposit being mined and that significant gaps remain in complete sustainability reporting and accounting. This paper is a case study of the energy, water, and carbon costs of uranium mining and milling within the context of the nuclear energy chain.

In summary, the extent of economically recoverable uranium, although somewhat uncertain, is clearly linked to exploration effort, technology, and economics but is inextricably linked to environmental costs such as energy, water, and chemicals consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and broader social issues. These crucial environmental aspects of resource extraction are only just beginning to be understood in the context of more complete life cycle analyses of the nuclear chain and other energy options. There still remains incomplete reporting however, especially in terms of data consistency among mines and site-specific data for numerous individual mines and mills, as well as the underlying factors controlling differences and variability. It is clear that there is a strong sensitivity of energy and water consumption and greenhouse gas emissions to ore grade, and that ore grades are likely to continue to decline gradually in the medium- to long-term. These issues are critical to understand in the current debate over nuclear power, greenhouse gas emissions, and climate change, especially with respect to ascribing sustainability to such activities as uranium mining and milling.

So, to summarise exactly what the paper says:

There are some inputs of energy  associated with the nuclear fuel cycle on a whole-of-life-cycle during uranium mining and milling, and in practice at present there are some carbon dioxide emissions associated with these energy inputs.

As reserves of easily recoverable high-grade uranium ore decline, assuming that the greenhouse-gas intensity of the energy inputs into the mining operations remain comparable, the whole-of-life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions intensity of nuclear energy might be expected to increase somewhat.

I think we already know that. Everyone already knows that.

The lead author of the paper, Gavin Mudd, is an Australian academic with a background in geohydrological engineering. He is a nuclear energy skeptic - well, not so much a nuclear energy skeptic as someone who is skeptical of the ecological sustainability of current uranium mining practices. His main area of expertise and interest with regard to nuclear energy is uranium mining.

I use the term “nuclear energy skeptic” because it’s reasonably clear that he’s anti-nuclear-energy - but I think it’s almost uncharitable and unfair to put an academic who puts forward their arguments in terms of reasonably well constructed academic papers in peer-reviewed science journals in the same category as the likes of Wasserman, Gunter or Caldicott.

This paper does not at all say “nuclear energy is unsustainable” or “uranium mining is unsustainable” - once the journalists apply a little spin to it, however, it’s easy to see how many could try and apply this paper, and especially press articles like the above, towards evidencing such a conclusion.

Describing the fact that there are energy inputs associated with uranium - which we already know - doesn’t answer the real question at all - How does the whole-of-life-cycle greenhouse gas intensity per MWh of electricity generation actually quantitatively compare to the whole-of-life-cycle greenhouse gas intensity of other energy generation technologies?

Sure - it’s somewhat reasonable to suggest that these quantities will change over the long term, into the future. Quantitatively, how will they be expected to change?

I should add, finally, that this paper is notable for being - perhaps - the first ever nuclear-skeptical study of the energy and greenhouse gas intensity of the nuclear fuel cycle that does not invoke the work of van Leeuwen and Smith. In fact, in terms of the quality of the source material cited, this paper seems pretty good.

Another very interesting blog.

Please check out Lightbucket.

A selection of recent blog posts of interest:

Energy payback ratios for electricity generation.

A roadmap to magnetic confinement fusion.

Carbon emissions from electricity generation - the numbers.

Looking into Solar Thermal power systems.

Atomic Insights has an interesting recent post asking some pertinent questions about solar thermal energy systems:

What are the steam cycle parameters? What is the overall thermal efficiency?

What is the cooling medium for your condensers?

How much water will the plant consume per unit of power?

Are the mirrors steered so that they track the sun?

What is the installation cost per unit of energy produced each year?

These are good questions - they’re worth asking. I’m very interested in learning the answers to these questions too - so I’ve done a little bit of, well, Google-ing (it seems unfair to call it “research” when it’s so fast and easy, doesn’t it?) and found some interesting information from solar thermal manufacturers. Admittedly, much of what I’ve found doesn’t really come as a surprise.

The Abengoa Solar corporation has several large-scale solar thermal systems in operation and on the drawing board, including this 280 MW (nameplate) plant which will be built near Phoenix, Arizona.

http://www.abengoasolar.com./sites/solar/en/nproyectos_eeuu_arizona.jsp

The schematic diagram on that page clearly shows that a fairly conventional water-based cooling tower is proposed as the basis of the condenser heatsink.

The Arizona system is based on the 50 MW Solnova 1 installation, in Spain. This installation does include a mechanical single-axle drive mechanism for steering the trough collectors.

Solnova 1 has a design power rating of 50 MW. Based on the local solar resource, the plant is predicted to deliver 114.6 GWh of clean energy per year.

That’s a capacity factor of 26%.

Here’s what Adams had to say about the thermal efficiency expected from such a system:

Based on my back of the envelope computations it appears that the steam conditions will be roughly equivalent to those found in the second generation nuclear plants operating today. That implies a thermal efficiency of about 33%, and a condenser cooling water requirement that is comparable to a nuclear power plant on a per unit power basis.

Here’s what the company says:

At peak conditions, the plant converts available solar radiation into heat at an efficiency near 57%. Combined with the efficiency of the steam cycle, the overall plant efficiency is approximately 19%.

The efficiency of the steam cycle based on the manufacturer’s official claims, then, must be 19% divided by 57%, or 33%.

Well, that’s really all that needs to be said on that question!

In terms of efficiency of the energy conversion in these solar-thermal systems, there’s nothing particular special about them - the efficiency, and therefore the condenser water cooling requirement, is comparable to any other typical Rankine-cycle steam power plant.

You’ll sometimes hear this argument about water consumption put forward by the anti-nuclear-power set. It uses so much water, they say. The fact is, the condenser cooling requirements for a typical Rankine-cycle steam power system are all pretty much comparable, per unit of electrical energy output, irrespective of what the heat source is - the heat source might be solar thermal, it might be nuclear fission, it might be coal, it might be oil - it doesn’t matter!

The laws of thermodynamics certainly don’t show any prejudice against nuclear fission heat sources, or against solar thermal heat sources, or anything else.

Some power plants, particularly the common coal-fired power plants, can achieve higher temperatures - and higher efficiency - utilizing supercritical water as the working fluid. A supercritical coal-fired plant, for example, might be able to achieve improved efficiency - and therefore a reduced condenser cooling water demand per unit electrical energy output - compared to a non-supercritical nuclear generating unit. However, the same concept can be applied to nuclear generating units, too. Supercritical light-water nuclear power systems are under serious development.

(Note that that does not mean supercritical in the nuclear physics sense of that word!)

Now, how much will it cost?

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0221biz-solar0221.html

Estimated build cost for the Solana project: 1 billion dollars.

Nameplate capacity of 280 MWe. Since it’s using molten-salt thermal energy storage, it’s fair to expect a capacity factor that is superior to the Solnova 1 installation discussed above. But, of course, they just have to be difficult, and not provide any mention of the actual capacity factor expected (or the actual energy output per year), and instead only providing this difficult “supply energy to n homes” stuff.

Solnova 1: 50 MW / 25,700 = 1946 W of nameplate capacity per home

Solana: 280 MW / 70,000 = 4000 W of capacity per home.

Obviously there’s something missing here - the efficient thermal-storage Solana installation should be expected to require less capacity for a given number of homes supplied, but instead it requires twice as much. I guess they assume, maybe, that Americans are going to use more electricity than the people of Spain?

Unfortunately, at this point, without some basis to make reasonable estimates of capacity factor for the thermal-storage solar thermal plant, it’s almost impossible to make any meaningful comparison of the cost.

Almost impossible. We could make the most unrealistically conservative, optimistic, renewable-energy-is-infalliable estimate conceivable. We could estimate, just for argument’s sake, that a thermal-storage solar plant like the Solana facility has a capacity factor of 100%.

Then, the installation cost comes to 3.6 billion dollars per gigawatt of “real” average power output. It’s proportionately higher if you factor in some realistic capacity factor.

And finally, here’s something else that’s interesting - but perhaps not too surprising.

That is enough to supply 25,700 homes and to reduce CO2 emissions by more than 31,200 tons per year. To supplement power generation under conditions of low solar radiation, Solnova 1 is equipped to burn natural gas. This can be used to deliver 12-15% of the plant output.

Emphasis is mine. Obviously this clean, green, greenhouse gas emissions free energy is clearly so much more preferable to any kind of nuclear energy. I’m sure Amory Lovins would be proud of them.

Anti-Nuclear Quote of the Day.

“It has been estimated that every nuclear reactor daily releases thermal energy - heat - that is in excess of the heat released by the detonation of a 15 kiloton nuclear bomb blast. ” [Sourced here]

Let’s see. One kiloton of TNT equivalent equals 4.184 * 10^12 J. 15 kilotons is equal to 6.276 * 10^13 J.

This is the amount of energy which, when released in a single instant, destroyed Hiroshima. That seems like a lot of energy, doesn’t it?

Let’s try converting 6.276 * 10^13 J of energy to a more relevant unit of energy.

6.276 * 10^13 J = 17.4 gigawatt-hours.

But it’s only 17.4 GWh - on the scale on which we generate electrical energy, it’s tiny! It’s not a lot of energy at all - it’s peanuts!

Let’s say that a power plant has an electrical output of 1 GW, a capacity factor of, say, 90%, and a thermodynamic conversion efficiency of, say 33%.

Such a power plant will generate thermal energy equivalent to a 15 kiloton nuclear weapon - every 6.4 hours.

That’s the power output of the plant. Yes, we know what the typical power output of a large power plant is. Big deal!

It doesn’t matter what it is - a nuclear power plant, a coal-fired plant, a biomass burning plant, or a solar thermal plant - 1.16 GWh of energy is the same as 1 kiloton of TNT energy equivalent, irrespective of where the energy comes from.

Moral of the story? The kiloton of TNT equivalent is a very large unit of explosive energy release. As a unit of energy release in general, there’s nothing especially large about it.

Let’s imagine that you could somehow store up all the electrical power that a typical large city consumes over a single 24 hour period  - say, in some kind of hypothetical, enormous capacitor - and release it in one sudden burst, lasting a tiny fraction of a second. The resulting power output would take the form of an explosion not unlike the detonation of a nuclear weapon, with an explosive yield of tens of kilotons, capable of destroying the city. However, obviously, the normal rate at which energy is generated in our power plants is completely safe and controllable. Everybody knows that!

Here’s another laughably ridiculous statement:

“In addition to horrendous direct impact of this heat on aquatic ecosystems, nuclear power contributes significantly to the thermal energy inside Earth’s atmosphere, making it contraindicated at this time of rapid global warming.”

Geothermal, solar thermal, and fossil-fuel fired power plants are all thermal engines, too, you know. They all discharge waste heat into the environment.

If you want an energy-converting engine that operates with perfect efficiency, perhaps you should consider investing in these guys to solve all your energy problems?

You might not like the laws of thermodynamics - but they are not something that applies exclusively to nuclear power.