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PeakOil is You

PeakOil is You

Nuclear or Renewables?

Discussions of conventional and alternative energy production technologies.

Would you adjust your lifestyle and embrace a shift to renewables or more nuclear power

Yes
44
71%
No
18
29%
 
Total votes : 62

Nuclear or Renewables?

Unread postby MonteQuest » Tue 13 Dec 2005, 23:12:45

Nuclear power production is a big dog, but it has a history of being stillborn and is still fraught with problems, real or imagined.

Given the choice, would you adjust your lifestyle and embrace a shift to renewables over building more nuclear power plants to meet our energy needs?

Are we as a society willing to cope and adapt to a changing energy environment brought about by a myopic dismissal of the reality of living in a finite world and refusing to prepare for it?

Or must we let the nuclear genie haunt us for all time so we can maintain the status quo or give us the dubious power to transition to renewables with just a blip on the radar?

If we go the nuclear route, will it ensure we will transition to renewables?

We transitioned to coal and we didn't develop renewables. We transitioned to oil and we didn't develop renewables.

Are we hoping for a transition from fission to fusion, bypassing the renewable route?

The biggest problem with this mindset is that it has no recognized ecological "limits", which solar, biomass, wind, tidal, etc, do.

The received solar flux will set the supply, not demand.
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Re: Nuclear or renewables?

Unread postby Slowpoke » Tue 13 Dec 2005, 23:19:59

BOTH.
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Re: Nuclear or renewables?

Unread postby MonteQuest » Tue 13 Dec 2005, 23:32:28

Slowpoke wrote:BOTH.


Both? Meaning adjust your lifestyle, embrace renewables and build nukes?
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Re: Nuclear or renewables?

Unread postby Slowpoke » Tue 13 Dec 2005, 23:49:38

Yup.
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Re: Nuclear or renewables?

Unread postby LadyRuby » Wed 14 Dec 2005, 00:23:54

Slowpoke wrote:BOTH.


Same here. From what I understand we're really going to need this, that, and the other (for any Seinfeld fans).
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Re: Nuclear or renewables?

Unread postby aahala » Wed 14 Dec 2005, 00:31:22

Large increases in nuclear power will delay the transition to renewables,
perhaps for decades.

In the US, large increases of nuclear power is unlikely until 2015 or later
and the energy demand will not wait--so with higher energy prices in the
mean time probably means a good decade for renewable growth, delaying
large scale increases in nuclear. A really good decade of renewables may
result in killing nuclear growth for a long time if not permanently.
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Re: Nuclear or renewables?

Unread postby orz » Wed 14 Dec 2005, 00:53:57

Are we hoping for a transition from fission to fusion, bypassing the renewable route?


Fusion is infinite energy relative to our lifetimes.
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Re: Nuclear or renewables?

Unread postby Ibon » Wed 14 Dec 2005, 01:51:42

Going for renewables would be mankind's wisest choice. Odds at this point are against that we will impliment this wisdom though since it seems that in our attempts to mitigate peak oil and create strategies to preserve our way of life we will be too tempted to reach for a nuclear solution.
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Re: Nuclear or renewables?

Unread postby cube » Wed 14 Dec 2005, 01:55:14

I firmly believe the energy source of the future will be whatever energy source that is the "cheapest". With that said coal, nuclear, and hydroelectric will dominate the 21st century. Yes I know this is where the greenies will protest. But lets be serious here folks, when you get your monthly electricity bill does anyone here honestly think running off a solar panel or windmill will give you lower rates?

EXACTLY

For anybody who thinks windmills and solar panels are cheaper perhaps they should "put their money where their mouth is" by propping one up in their back yard.
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Re: Nuclear or renewables?

Unread postby MonteQuest » Wed 14 Dec 2005, 01:57:39

orz wrote:
Are we hoping for a transition from fission to fusion, bypassing the renewable route?


Fusion is infinite energy relative to our lifetimes.


Therein lies the problem.

It will allow us to continue to ignore the ecological limits.

Fusion Power; Blessing or Curse
http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic2133.html
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Re: Nuclear or renewables?

Unread postby MonteQuest » Wed 14 Dec 2005, 02:05:11

cube wrote:I firmly believe the energy source of the future will be whatever energy source that is the "cheapest". With that said coal, nuclear, and hydroelectric will dominate the 21st century. Yes I know this is where the greenies will protest. But lets be serious here folks, when you get your monthly electricity bill does anyone here honestly think running off a solar panel or windmill will give you lower rates?

EXACTLY

For anybody who thinks windmills and solar panels are cheaper perhaps they should "put their money where their mouth is" by propping one up in their back yard.


Depends on how you measure the true costs. Solar/wind at any price is less costly in an ecological sense, and it is sustainable.
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Re: Nuclear or renewables?

Unread postby Devil » Wed 14 Dec 2005, 05:03:01

Your poll is silly. You have 2 options, one OR the other. The only real option is to use variable renewables up to ~20% of peak demand, backed up by fixed renewables and nuclear, in that order.

Just to illustrate the point. On this island, we are just entering our sixth consecutive week without significant wind (the strongest gust in that time was 2.9 m/s, as it happens, yesterday) http://www.cypenv.org/weather/wx.htm. We have had some minor gusts around midday most days, but nothing sustained nor sufficient to start a turbine turning. On a number of those days, we also had thick cloud cover (today is cloudless, as it happens), so solar would also have been a no-no. So, we must have backup, to wit, oil generation in this country. But fossil fuels are a no-no, IMHO, which leaves nuclear as the only viable future back-up.
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Re: Nuclear or renewables?

Unread postby Doly » Wed 14 Dec 2005, 05:41:38

Devil, that's more or less what I would have said. Considering that you're the expert on these things, I'm glad my amateur guess was close to the mark.
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Re: Nuclear or renewables?

Unread postby EnergySpin » Wed 14 Dec 2005, 07:28:48

This poll simply makes no sense.
People need to make the distinction between their own socio-political agenda ("we cannot continue business as usual etc") and sound engineering factors.
We need both renewables+nukes .... My rationale was detailed in a post in another thread: http://peakoil.com/post229670.html#229670
But even if the arguments had been presented in a single post, I believe that some people would still have a hard time to follow the rationale. However let me try and make it clear (at least to you)
Your post does reflect a probably oversimplified (I do not want to use the word myopic) interpretation of the "pro-technology" people (what ever that word may mean). It is implicitly assumed that the only reason to propose a certain technical solution, is to maintain the "status quo" , the culture of consumerism etc. But this is not necessarily the case ... there are engineering reasons to go for a certain solution which have nothing to do with the status quo. Even though I have heard people claiming that "renewable/distributed micro-grids" are the way forward, I am not aware of any study that has shown that such microgrids can support an industrial activity that can recreate these micro-grids if they fail. Show me a factory that can reliably generate wind turbines/solar panels based on wind turbines/solar panels and I may reconsider. These industrial processes need reliable and stable electricity generation , something that the renewables cannot do YET but they might be able to do in the future. Therefore a renewable based society is not a technically sustainable society YET. This has nothing to do with powerdown/powerups/wasteful lifestyles but everything to do with the nature of the technologies we are considering. IT does no matter how much you powerdown when brown-outs fry your equipment. Unfortunately people (including Greenpeace) do not get this simple fact and will likely never get it because of ideological bias.

Let's come to a second (far more important reason) for considering and pushing for nuclear power. The name of the game is "Climate Change/Global Warming". If any of the projections made by our coupled simulation runs are to be believed, this world is going to experience a rise in temperatures, coupled with water shortages and a reduction in the NPP (Net Primary Productivity) of both hemispheres. For example HadCM3 predicts that in the case the GS shuts down ....NPP in South America and the Indias will decline by 110% (this means that there will be literaly nothing left i.e. vegetations, animals and humans).
In such an environment a reilable source of energy to desalinate water, and even synthesize ammonia based fertilizers to sustain not only the evil humans but also the eco-systems we are not "ravaging". Renewables will not be able to support such activities due to intermittancy and their reliance on the weather (Wind) for energy harvesting.
(BTW I'd appreciate if people do not start the oil-is-food meme with me on the fertilizer issue. I have researched the fertilizer issue and one can read why we cannot run of fertilizers as long we have electricity , water and nitrogen in the Ammonia thread. )
So Ibon, even though I do agree with many (not all) of the things you have said about the "status quo" I have to take into account the engineering technicalities of the energy issue. And these technicalities made me think (and write) that nuclear is the best bet
"Nuclear power has long been to the Left what embryonic-stem-cell research is to the Right--irredeemably wrong and a signifier of moral weakness."Esquire Magazine,12/05
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Re: Nuclear or renewables?

Unread postby DigitalCubano » Wed 14 Dec 2005, 07:45:06

Devil wrote:Your poll is silly. You have 2 options, one OR the other.


My thoughts exactly.

Devil wrote:The only real option is to use variable renewables up to ~20% of peak demand, backed up by fixed renewables and nuclear, in that order.


Funzone, if you're reading this, Devil provides a perfect example of the opportunity cost argument for the alternatives that I was trying to make last week.

Good post.
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Re: Nuclear or renewables?

Unread postby IslandCrow » Wed 14 Dec 2005, 07:50:23

Would you adjust your lifestyle and embrace a shift to renewables over building more nuclear power plants to meet our energy needs?

YES I would adjust my lifestyle for this reason. I first started in the 1970s after protesting the building of a nuclear power station - since then I have tried to use energy saving bulbs. Recently I have been tracking my electricity use, and have been taking steps to decrease it. But does a 30% reduction from the peak useage more refect the children leaving home than actual savings?

Will I be able to adjust my lifestyle enough? Most likely not. Also in some areas I will need to increase electricity use to switch from oil. If/when I can get the money together I want to replace an oil fired central heating system with a) ground heat-exchange with solar panels and b) have a wood burning stove (with soap-stone sides to retain heat) in the kitchen. Both alternatives involve renewables, but the package means that instead of 2 000 litres of oil I would need an extra 6 000 kWh of electricity (about 1/3rd of what would be needed switching to only heating with electricity).
We should teach our children the 4-Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Rejoice.
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Re: Nuclear or renewables?

Unread postby Doly » Wed 14 Dec 2005, 08:16:28

IslandCrow wrote:Will I be able to adjust my lifestyle enough? Most likely not.


You've hit the nail in the head here. It's all very well and good supporting renewables, but realistically, how many people would powerdown to the levels needed to use only renewables? Very, very few.

I don't see this as renewables or nuclear. I see it like Matt Simmons, we have to go for all the alternatives. Insisting that nuclear is not good enough isn't taking us anywhere.
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Re: Nuclear or renewables?

Unread postby Battle_Scarred_Galactico » Wed 14 Dec 2005, 08:44:51

I voted yes but this is all moot anyway. Without change in the system all nuclear is doing is moving SOME fossil fuels that would have been used to produce electricty, to be consumed somewhere else.
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Re: Nuclear or renewables?

Unread postby funzone36 » Wed 14 Dec 2005, 10:02:40

I support renewables but not fission or fusion.

If we go the nuclear fission route, we'll be in uranium peak in 10 years. It's been proven by 2 scientists.

Nuclear fusion is not technically feasible.

In the end, a combination of renewables that are sustainable is the best route.
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Re: Nuclear or renewables?

Unread postby EnergySpin » Wed 14 Dec 2005, 10:52:25

funzone36 wrote:I support renewables but not fission or fusion.

If we go the nuclear fission route, we'll be in uranium peak in 10 years. It's been proven by 2 scientists.

Nuclear fusion is not technically feasible.

In the end, a combination of renewables that are sustainable is the best route.

Who are the 2 scientists?
Storm and van der Leuwen?
There are no uranium shortages .... read the MIT report
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