I'm not buying into this dream of 40-50% of the world's energy being supplied by solar and wind. That's a massive amount of solar panels, windmills, and batteries needed to stabilize everything. There's also a massive amount of production, installation, maintenance, replacement, disposal, and reclamation (where feasible) involved. I still want to see wind and solar power contribute, however. I just don't believe it will be producing more than 30% of the world's energy 50-100 years down the road.

I'm a nuclear power fan, despite the problems that were created by old-tech nuclear plants. These newer designs will be impervious to natural disasters, won't melt down, won't need enriched uranium, and will use nuclear waste (a big plus). Not only that, they'll be flexible. That means they'll be able to balance the imbalances in the grid caused by the unpredictable nature of wind and solar power, thereby reducing the need for batteries.

Of course, even these newer designs will be seen as dinosaurs 50 years down the road. Russia has a lot of weapons-grade plutonium to get rid of and a mixture of plutonium and thorium in thorium reactors appears to be the answer. Thorium reactors will also dispose of uranium-235 or uranium-233 when they run out of plutonium, according to Russian scientists. There's 3 times as much thorium as uranium on the planet. All of this gives scientists plenty of incentive to advance thorium nuclear plant technology. And then there's fusion. Will fusion power be practical 50 years down the road?

When I analyze all the data on nuclear power, I realize its enormous potential. Nuclear power can do what no other energy source can do, and it doesn't need a lot of space to do it. It will soon consume nuclear waste and produce much less waste in the process. I suspect even that waste will be usable.

John Weaver, who contributes on GTM, has a fantastic little write up on PV Magazine where he makes the conservative (small 'c') case for 1.5 cents / kwhr solar by 2022. Utility capital cost of 70 cents / watt! There is a blizzard of new efficiency improvements coming now that the industry has scale and money to do what ever it wants. Keep in mind per my spreadsheet, that at 58 cents / watt that will drop to 1 cent / kwhr, new project!

He concludes and I concur 'A reckoning is coming.'

Thanks for sharing that article. Let me copy some of the important parts across. If John is correct then things are really about to undergo a huge shakeup.

"GTM Research did the math in a new report, Trends in Solar Technology and System Prices, which projects that utility scale fixed-tilt systems could reach 70 U.S. cents per watt by 2022.

....

For this analysis, pv magazine chose to increase the system cost above to 75¢/W to account for single-axis tracking. Our opinion is that this price is actually giving an extra penny or two, considering efficiency gains.

For capacity factor – we started with the 30.2% that we’re getting in California single-axis trackers last year and the year before, and we added 12.5% for the bifacial panel gain. That brought us to a capacity factor of 34%.

Next, we brought the capacity factor to 38%, an increase of about 11.8%. We did this because 20% bifacial solar panels mean an increase in panel efficiency of 17-25% from today’s product, and 38% seemed conservative.

Next we adjusted O&M costs to $7.50/kW to align with increases expected here as well. Currently, there are contracts sneaking out at $8-10/W – some influenced by the tax credit, some by super dense installation areas.

That leaves us with a simple, levelized cost of renewable energy at 1.5¢/kWh. This price does include profits for the utility scale developers.

And, if the solar power developer were to partner with a strategic tax equity investor who discounted the tax credit and depreciation by 25% – lowering the effective capital cost to 52¢/W to install, we get a price of 1.1¢/kWh. The cheapest electricity on the planet...."

https://www.pv-magazineDOTcom/2018/05/25/the-path-to-us0-015-kwh-solar-power-and-lower/

While I agree with the spirit of the analysis, I think there are only a few spots where you'll actually see a 12.5% bifacial gain as an annual average. I think 8-10% is more likely for "good" locations.

I don't really get the increase in capacity factor from gain in efficiency. Capacity factor is based on the power rating of the module. Increase efficiency by 10% and you increase rated power by 10%, so a 10% increase in energy production yields no change in capacity factor. The efficiency increase typically affects spectral response, but then the impact on capacity factor depends on where the module is deployed -- and it can be negative just as easily as it can be positive. Sometimes the efficiency increase comes with an improvement in temperature coefficient, and then capacity factor is always positively impacted (well, provided you're not deploying your modules in the Arctic or something), though the magnitude of the impact is dependent on where the module is deployed.

Still, I'm nitpicking a bit. If I did the same analysis I might not arrive at 1.5 cents, but I would probably still arrive at the cheapest electricity on the planet....

10% increase will get you increased production on the shoulders and lower output periods. But yes you may not get a full 4% add on. More like 2% maybe with increased clipping.

I can't address the 12.5% bifacial gain as I know too little about this. Perhaps one or both of us could dig a bit and see if there's any data.

I think I see what you are talking about with changes in efficiency increasing CF. "That brought us to a capacity factor of 34%."

Perhaps the best approach would have been to start with an installed cost per watt and calculating a LCOE. Then bring in the efficiency increases via 12.5% bifacial panels, then 20% bifacial panels, adding in any additional cost for bifacial panels if there is any. Adjust the LCOE downward as appropriate.

Am I on the right track?

I think the analysis would have been better had they used a range of CFs covering sunny places like the SW and less sunny places.
Something like Zones 2 and 5 from this solar map. About a 23% decrease in Z5 which would drive up the price of electricity from 1.1 to 1.6 cents per kWh.

https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

Reposted to modify the link

OK, LCOE
Financing 20 years at 5%
Installed cost per kW = $750
Capacity factor w/single axis tracking sunny area = 30%
Opex = $7.50
Cost of electricity $0.026/kWh

Found this -

When bifacial modules are installed on a highly reflective surface (like a white TPO roof or on the ground with light-colored stones), some bifacial module manufacturers claim up to a 30% increase in production just from the extra power generated from the rear.

https://www.solarpowerworldonlineDOTcom/2018/04/what-are-bifacial-solar-modules/

Keep the costs the same but use 30% more efficient bifacial panels and the cost per kWh drops from $0.026 to $0.02.

Check logic and math please.

OK, LCOE
Financing 20 years at 5%
Installed cost per kW = $750
Capacity factor w/single axis tracking sunny area = 30%
Opex = $7.50
Cost of electricity $0.026/kWh

Found this -

When bifacial modules are installed on a highly reflective surface (like a white TPO roof or on the ground with light-colored stones), some bifacial module manufacturers claim up to a 30% increase in production just from the extra power generated from the rear.

https://www.solarpowerworld...

Keep the costs the same but use 30% more efficient bifacial panels and the cost per kWh drops from $0.026 to $0.02.

Check logic and math please.

Solar at 1.5 cents and wind at 2 cents.

Remember how Jacobson and Delucchi talked about global low carbon energy within 20 years back in their 2009 Scientific American article? They stated that the technology needed mostly existed at the time. With a World War II type effort we could change the world away from fossil fuels and onto renewable energy. I'm thinking very low electricity prices like that would do the job.

Those solar and wind costs would be well under the fuel costs for coal and natural gas plants. They'd make driving an EV a super bargain compared to purchasing fuel. They'd create a stampede to develop new ways to switch loads to times during which power is coming directly from turbines and panels (including turning EVs into dispatchable loads).

Private money would start dumping huge amounts of cash into these new wind and solar facilities that would be taking over the market. We'd see the equivalence of a new Liberty Ship being launched daily.

Hey - it is nice when we can have our cake and eat it too. But it is unreasonable to expect it. Is our goal really to reduce energy costs? Are we all entitled to cheap energy at any cost? I think far too many believe this to be true. This may play out over time, but we all owe Germany
a debt of gratitude for pioneering renewable energy, for which they are
paying today. Unlike countries run largely by capitalistic principles,
or thoroughly corrupted to support incumbent industry at any cost,
Germany decided to use ethics to plan the future of energy, so energy
cost was not the driving factor for the "energiewende". It was not even climate change
initially, it was the removal of nuclear energy due to the disaster in
Chernobyl. Fortunately Germany also provided the world a path to also
deal with an even larger disaster due to climate change. So it is not
about money all the time...

200 GW of wind energy in Europe reduced to a dribble by a huge high pressure system.

This is no way to do grid planning.

https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

Of course, you already know that that's a ridiculous, dishonest argument. Why are you doing this? Financially or nostalgically attached to the nuke industry or afflicted by bigmanlymachine bias or arch conservativeness? Or all of the above?

For those more honest readers interested in facts rather than cheap lies, of course Europe has many sources of clean safe renewable energy in an increasingly well harmonized grid--hydro, distributed energy onshore and offshore wind, many forms of solar, geothermal, some biomass, small but increasing amounts of tidal and wave power. With losses of only 1-2% per thousand miles, solar energy from the Sahara and Middle East can be used in Europe (and vice versa--there's more solar falling just on Saudi Arabia's Empty Quarter than the whole world could use, and almost enough wind to match it, along with the choice between batteries and interconnections to other distributed generation for whatever else it needs.

The places with dispatchable hydro connected to the places with dispatchable 24/7 solar thermal (CSP) connected to the places with wind with a capacity factor of 65% (and up?), connected to the places with some of all of those mean the world can rely on 100% clean safe renewable energy. If we act rationally, within a decade there will be no need for any other source.

Wind was low. But solar sure wasn't. Germany produced about 20 GW that day. Same with UK. It lasted a day or two. Much ado about nothing. If you add hydro, biomass, and cogeneration, it becomes a different story.

https://uploads.disquscdn.c...https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

Nice rant. Maga!

You put up a lie and got called on it, John. Trying to insult my presentation of facts doesn't change that reality. You have nothing but lies. Those lies extend to every topic and have made the US many things--stupid, mean, r@cist, destructive, violent, and many other things, all of them bad.

You put up a lie and got called on it. Trying to insult my presentation of facts doesn't change that reality. You have nothing but lies. Those lies extend to every topic and have made the US many things--stupid, mean, r@cist, destructive, violent, and many other things, all of them bad.

Brilliantly argued. Everyone here under 8 is convinced. I understand you're afraid of climate catastrophe, but the way to deal with it is to face it, not deny it. Please, for your own sake, find a good psychotherapist to get help doing it.

See you at the polls!

Cherry-picking irrelevant information as usual.

The name is a cover for the original. Already blocked.

Give me a break. Germany is pumping more CO2 into the air now than ever, thanks to their decision to close nuclear generators. It takes massive amounts of coal to make up for 60 GW of idle toy windmills when a high pressure settles over Europe. Chernobyl? NOT! It was the massive tidal wave that killed 22,00 people in Japan in 2011 that motivated them to go "green". How many people have died as a result of the nuclear accident? ZERO.

Germany has decreased it CO2 emissions which is something nuclear had failed to do even after decades of deployement... Nuclear power plants are owned by the very same guys who own the coal powerplants, why would you believe they will ever hurt their margin by replacing them with nuclear ? Renewable is the power of the people and only the people have an interest to get rid of fossil fuels, a community can't build a nuclear power plant only Big Grid can do that.

A multi billion dollar wind farm is not owned by very many of "the people"

In the US and the world corporations and a very few rich people own most of everything. The richest 3 people in the US own as much as the poorest half of the country; the richest 3 people in the world own as much as the poorest 48 countries. That's a huge cause of the ecological crisis that will destroy civilization unless we stop it. So one major solution to climate catastrophe is equality, with everyone living at a level that keeps total human consumption within the means of the biosphere. Public utilities, public power, public EVs, distributed, ie household and commercial solar PV, clothesline paradox energies and similar politically and economically democratic policies, programs and technologies are among the most important solutions to the ecological crisis. Those changes may not be able to keep up with the needed deployment of clean safe renewable energy, but will need to follow that up soon or it will be unlikely civilization will survive this crisis.

The lunatic extreme right that's now ruling the US, btw, has used its control of media to link the word public to people of color, using the implicit bias of most white people in the US to disparage the power of democratic government to unite people for worthy and necessary goals. People on the right should understand that this crisis will only be solved by government-coordinated actions and stop such despicable propagandizing.

Great, just what the world needs, Joseph Stalin 2.0, minister of the environment.

Of course nuclear decreased CO2 emissions. And you'll see them rise again when the last German nuclear is shut down rapidly in the 2020-2022.

What's the community size limit, then? Nuscale is going for up to twelve-packs of 50 MW reactor modules. A 50 MW reactor covers the demand from a community of roughly 30,000-40,000.

Power to the people!

You're conveniently forgetting the 25 years of anti-nuclear activism following Chernobyl.

My wife has spots on her arms where the "black rain" destroyed the melanin in her skin when it fell on Lithuania. (She'd moved from just outside what is now the Exclusion Zone in the northern suburbs of Kiev to Vilnius only two weeks before the accident.) So do a lot of Northern and Central Europeans.

The safety risks of nuclear power have undoubtedly been overstated, but it's quite understandable why a lot of folks in Europe would say "screw this" in the wake of Fukushima Daiichi.

I'm not conveniently forgetting anything. I'm responding with facts to yet another inaccurate post about nuclear power on the internet, not supposition and emotion.

With all due respect to your bride, a little skin discoloration isn't much of a price to pay for 70 years of CO2 free nuclear energy. The Chernobyl accident was a senseless disaster that was fully preventable, and really doesn't reflect on the operational safety of nuclear power. They were engaged is a ridiculous experiment at the time, and that accident shouldn't have happened.

you are responding with lies to facts. nuclear energy is not free. it is cheaper to build new wind/solar farms than to continue to run old nuclear plants
building new nuclear plants is ridiculous proposition, it takes ten billion dollars and ten years to build gigawatt reactor

Electricity that turns on and off randomly is not useful to society.

>>With all due respect to your bride, a little skin discoloration isn't much of a price to pay for 70 years of CO2 free nuclear energy.<<
Good example of the problem with trust of the nuclear industry.
Not a reasonable price to pay if you can get the same drop in CO2 using Wind, Solar, Batteries, and Pumped Hydro... at lower cost.

yeah well we tried nuclear power and it failed. No place to put the waste, too many accidents, expensive as hell. Game over. Next in line is renewable with storage. As has been shown in Ta'u and Kauaii solar and storage works great, now much bigger scale. far better solution with no downside (no waste). old equipment is easily recycled. It is so obvious that this is the future. https://www.youtube.com/wat...

Yes, absolutely. Chernobyl and Fukushima, TMI, Brown's Ferry and thousands of other near-disasters could easily have been prevented. (And we all could have profited financially as well as all the other ways by doing it.) The next nuclear accident, that may kill millions and render another valuable part of Earth uninhabitable for generations, can be prevented the same way:

Don't build any more nukes and shut down the ones we have as the energy they produce (less and less as they become less and less economically viable) is replaced by efficiency, wiser lives, and clean safe renewable energy. Climate catastrophe is the priority but we can replace both destructive fuels--fossil and fissile--in less than a decade if we decide to.

"render another valuable part of Earth uninhabitable for generations,"

We've all seen photos of Hiroshima immediately after the attack, the entire city flattened. Not a tree or home left standing.

Hiroshima 1960 https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

Hiroshima today https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

This "unhabitable. ... generations" meme is right out of the comic books, Charleton Heston and the Planet of the Apes.

Total red herring. Are you trying to destroy any credibility you have left?

Yes, he is. An air burst nuclear blast and Chernobyl have little in common. He could educate himself but he chooses to live in ignorance because it doesn't suit his bias. An easy google search answers the dull retort.

" This difference is attributable to three factors:

(1) the Chernobyl reactor had a lot more nuclear fuel;
(2) that was much more efficiently used in reactions; and
(3) the whole mess exploded at ground level.

"Little Boy had around 140 pounds of uranium, Fat Man contained about 14 pounds of plutonium and reactor number four had about 180 tons of nuclear fuel."

Its a seriously stupid argument he's making. Of course, he will go on making it over and over no matter how many times he's corrected. Blocked.

https://gizmodo dot com/why-can-people-live-in-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-now-but-1451250877

Nuclear accidents don't kill millions. They evacuate thousands from exaggerated exclusion zones that are orders of magnitude smaller than coastal areas that will be drenched by melting poles.

Again, why aren't you buying up cheap real estate in the fukushima exclusion zone? Put your money where your mouth is.

Thats not enough. Nuke trolls should all eat food from Chernobyl and live there.

"render another valuable part of Earth uninhabitable for generations"
Answer that part.

"render another valuable part of Earth uninhabitable for generations"
Answer that part.

Ok. Let's disregard for a minute the fact that the Fukushima and Chernobyl long-term evacuations were exaggerated. The Fukushima evacuation zone is along a plume, but just eyeballing the maps, it seems roughly the size of the 20 km radius half circle centered on the plant. So we have pi*20^2 / 2 ~= 600 square kilometers evacuated of the total land area.

The surface area of Three Gorges dam is comparable, some 1000 square kilometers, and it evacuated more than a million people. And that's renewable energy of the type that we need much more of to enable intermittent RE.

Anyway, since the important isotope, cs-137, has a 30-year half-life, any evacuated area can be halved every 30 years at most. In reality faster, since the cesium sediments, is washed away and so on, and therefore the halflife of the activity that humans are exposed to falls much more rapidly. Now, since this is roughly equal to the rate of nuclear accidents, in fact the total evacuated area across all accident sites will be bounded and fairly small even if we have these regular accidents.

Nuclear evacuation zones are very much dwarfed by regions potentially put under water by sea level rise due to AGW. E.g. a sea-level rise of just 400 mm in the Bay of Bengal would put 11 percent of the Bangladesh's coastal land underwater, creating 7–10 million climate refugees. It is estimated that a sea level rise of just 200 mm could make 740,000 people in Nigeria homeless. And a 6m rise would put fair parts of Florida out of action, more than 20,000 sq km. Not to speak of the general area of New Orleans.

So sure, while hurting those evacuated, nuclear evacuation zones are not that big, and certainly not unaffordable in the grand scheme of human existence. Dams, mines, biomass extraction areas to support RE energy are easily comparable. One upside of nuclear evacuations is that they're not permanent at all, and they act as thriving wildlife refuges, some of which we arguably need more of anyway.

Not a good answer. Dams and biomass extraction areas are being used for something, Fukushima and Chernobyl sites are not. Animals and plants there still be harmed by radiation at those sites.
Yes, those sites are like some mines, permanent toxic waste zones. Not a good idea to do that to arable land in an over-populating world. You make it sound like those sites are a good thing. Yet another example of pro-nuclear blindness to consequential problems. This is why public trust is so low, why there are so many law suits, and partially why nuclear is so expensive in the USA.
Nuclear zealots ignore the obvious and continue to sew distrust. You are one of the sources of the problem you despise and call unfair/unreasonable. Blindness.

Dams and biomass extraction areas are being used, Fukushima and Chernobyl sites are not

Still, nuclear footprint is far smaller. And the ecosystems within the former get quite devastated, unlike the latter.

Animals and plants there still be harmed by radiation. Yes, those sites are like some mines, permanent toxic waste zones.

Nonsense. For ecosystems, tiny increases in cancer rate among long-lived species and individuals doesn't matter for the balance and abundance within. It matters for humans, as we kindof expect to live forever and value each life individually. Scientists agree that nuclear exclusion zones got enormous boosts from an ecosystem perspective.

Not a good idea to do that to arable land in an over-populating world.

Insignificant areas, as I've demonstrated. Also, nuclear net saves arable land, even as accident zones are evacuated. Less lignite mines, less mines for RE materials, less solar fields, less dams, less production for biomass combustion, less fracking. These things easily dominate.

You make it sound like those sites are a good thing.

Not for me. For a green, they should be, as the evacuation protects the environment from humans. Btw, imagine if emissions to the sea had been higher, so that overfishing would stop. That'd be great for the fisheries. Alas...

This is why public trust is so low, why there are so many law suits, and partially why nuclear is so expensive in the USA.

Nice try. The fault is yours and that of your comrades in arms, the fossil lobby. Not mine, nor other nuclear proponents.

Nuclear zealots ignore the obvious and continue to sew distrust. You are one of the sources of the problem you despise and call unfair/unreasonable. Blindness.

I speak the truth and provide balanced viewpoints. You perpetuate anti-nuclear propaganda and scientific fraud. If the truth set us back, then so be it. I won't back down.

So today your choice of fallacy is false dichotomies with a side of straw. Nice variety.

This is not a choice between fossil fuels and others; fossil fuels have to be eliminated as fast as possible by a global US-WWII-type climate mobilization. See theclimatemobilization dot org. We also have more than enough other dispatchable and harmonizable renewables to eliminate both fossil and fissile fuels. The wildlife refuge argument is an even more despicable false dichotomy. Contaminating an area with both severe short term and long-lasting radiation as a way to help nature. Insane. A clear indication that noosters (nuke boosters, aka spent fuel rods) and the whole industry are insane and shouldn't be trusted with matches in a flood, let alone dangerous nuclear technology.

It's also not a choice between bad tech badly done by undemocratic governments and wise tech decided on democratically. Of course we wouldn't know. The US government is at least as undemocratic and insane, besides.

And let's not forget the fact that after 7 years the Fukushima accident is still happening and even its end date, not to mention its final effects, are unknown.

Right. We know it costs 100 billion and climbing so far with no end in sight. We know there are increased childhood cancers. We know thousands have been evacuated and now need housing. We know TEPCO was largely kept out of bankruptcy by the Japanese government. We know vast quantities of contaminated water are sitting in huge leaky vats. And we know an ice wall has failed to prevent more radioactive contamination from leaking and its leaking into the air. It will take years and billions to put a containment on it. The melted core will probably never be removed, but buried in place just like Chernobyl, a monument to the stupidity of man, thinking he could tame this beast.

Well put.

From what I've read it's already cost $100 billion, and is expected to cost at least $300-500 billion. I think it's likely to cost a trillion plus, once everything is counted. The accident is not over and those and other extraordinary means to keep it from getting phenomenally worse continue to be taken. The usual nuclear fog of secrecy and lies has fallen over the whole deal. Must be that ice being irradiated. Tepco and both the Japanese and US governments have been lying about it since the first day--just like virtually every other fossil or fissile accident in the last 50 years. But as far as I can tell from what's been said, this accident may keep going, and may require those extraordinary measures, for decades, maybe a century. Maybe a trillion dollars is way too low an estimate.

I love the treatment the television masterpiece "The Newsroom" gives both Deepwater Horizon and Fukushima, btw. pointing out some of those lies. Good fiction once again being more truthful than most alleged non-fiction.

You have grasped the essential of it. What bugs people about nuclear is the lie after lie. Its galling. You can't get the truth without a hammer and prybar. And the truth is nasty. Being lied to once is bad. Over and over is just too much to bear.

It is unbearable. But everyone in modern society bears it; it's a function of the disease endemic in society and the inequality it causes.

And thanks. One more thing that occurred to me is the image of that ice wall. Now where else in recent popular culture have we seen the image of an ice wall trying to keep out chaos and destruction? Hmmm...

If you read radical dot com, they have excerpts from a book, I recall. The scientist studied fallout, and found that weather patterns during atmospheric tests determined where the fallout would hit. Had to look at winds and rain. So he traced where birth rates declined and stillbirths increased, based on gestation time and when infants were most vulnerable. The unborn and infants are the most susceptible to radionuclides because fast cell division exposes DNA. Birth rate and those effects can happen quickly after exposure, but cancer has a slower response. Thyroid is 5 years. Other cancers are longer. All those factors have to be taken into account. He found relationships. The nuke pushback was inevitable, even for weapons.

He found a disturbing pause in improved birth rate and at the time, physicians debated the birth rate crisis. He traced it to fallout. After the fallout stopped, birth rates continued to improve.

Then atmospheric testing ceased. There were still other effects. Puzzled, he found a place in North Dakota (from memory)with increased effects. He traced it back to Hanford. A Hanford reactor had the worst airborne radionuclide emissions of any US reactor.

There have been instances of tritium leaks, too.

But since you have to look carefully for effects, but the industry and regulators average over a wide population and declare, nothing to see here. If you don't look, you don't see. And radionuclides are easy to hide, and hard to find. How do you tell if a person has ingested them? How do you know what substances are ingested and where they lodged in the body?

At Chernobyl, they sit subjects in a chair and scan them. If you are that hot, you are in big trouble. And substances like Sr90 are in your body pretty much your whole life.

Studies show that chronic exposure is much worse than a flash exposure that is strong. Its called the Petkau effect. Thats one of the follies of research based on the Japanese bomb survivors. There are others. Alice Stewart chronicled some of these.

The real reason there is such a wide disparity in Chernobyl death estimates is more than LNT. It has to do with estimates of effects. Dose estimates are similar.

And Chernobyl estimates don't include non cancer deaths or deaths outside a limited region. FYI, the real WHO estimate, even given those limitations, is 16,000 excess deaths.

You could write a whole book about the intentional deception and lies. From banana equivalent, to zero deaths, to tritium exposure, to meltdowns, to mining reclamation, and tail pond leaks and disasters.

Its all about, look over there, don't look at this.