California?

Or Greece?

AmoryLovins, “abating climate change for fun and profit” and death

During the late spring and early summer a virtual firestorm of criticism against Amory Lovins, following the publication of his essay Amory Lovins wrote the Nuclear Illusion. So far I have focused on David Bradish's criticism of Lovins, but Bradish was not the only source of telling and unanswered criticism of Lovins. Internet futurist, Brian Wang, examined data which Lovins used to support his long standing contention that nuclear power was collapsing. Wang noted:

Lovins has been claiming nuclear collapse since the 1970s

And then Wang reported,

Since 1980, nuclear power TWH has increased by over 400%. So Amory Lovins is wrong about nuclear energy being a collapsing industry.

Lovins had argued, using data primarily from the last decade, that the growth of "micropower" demonstrated the collapse of nuclear power. Wang observed

The "micropower" is mostly [75%] diesel, biomass and natural gas of small and big sizes. Natural gas has 4 deaths per TWH (Externe source). So 2500 Twh (to displace nuclear power) would be 10,000 deaths per year. The diesel (oil) portion is 35 deaths per TWH. The biomass about 10 deaths per TWH (35,000 deaths per year if diesel was the main source). The blended rate of deaths per TWH from micropower is over 12 deaths per TWH. Far higher than the 0.65 deaths per TWH calculated by Externe for nuclear power. Even if the micropower deaths per TWH was cut in half for lower distribution losses the number is still far higher. Diesel and natural gas are not renewable. Over 75% of the power that Lovins is talking about is diesel, natural gas and biomass.

Wang illustrated the problem with this chart:

Clearly nuclear is far safer than "micropower. " Wang noted that the increase in Micropower that Lovins advocated, would lead thousands of deaths.

Brian Wang was not the only Lovins critic to note Lovins' curious preference for natural gas and diesel burning "micropower" generation over nuclear. Karen Street stated:

OK, I agree with the portion about how it is OK to stack solutions on top of each other on a graph, but I don't understand at all why someone my age or younger would prefer small fossil fuel over any size low-GHG.

Then Street added:

Please explain.

Needless to say Lovins has not responded with the requested explanation. Wang and Street's comments are so telling against Lovins, because the reveal that not only does Lovins not have a real plan to combat global warming, but the courses of actions he recommends are actually making it worse. Since Lovins has ducked out of any response Wang and Street, it is safe to say that Lovins does not deny the fundamental flaws which they point to in his thinking about energy.

Other prominent Internet critics of Lovins include Rod Adams, Nuclear physicist and Arms Control expert Alexander DeVolpi, who observed:

Because Lovins renders no substantive academic or acquired nuclear credentials, the analyses he presents ought to be held to a strict standard of scientific credibility, such as that described by the Daubert U.S. Supreme Court decision. . . . This is in lieu of granting him interim benefit of doubt, a courtesy often extended to individuals who have an established scientific reputation . . . In other words, I would advise treating Lovins’ renderings on nuclear issues with healthy, but not dismissive skepticism. His presentation and publications should be judged by standard scientific criteria, no more, no less....

l though Lovins seems to have completed some courses in experimental physics at Oxford University in England, he lacks any laboratory experience in nuclear physics or engineering. His vetted degree credentials are vague enough to induce caution, caveat emptor. Such a shortcoming has not prevented him from writing numerous articles, giving many briefings, and speaking frequently about nuclear technical policy. . . . Lovins has been a widely praised proponent of the so-called “soft-energy path,” as well has having been an habitual and readily available critic of nuclear energy.

. . . expertise alleged should not be considered credible simply because of personal experience, widely publicized image, or self-declared credibility — which can be crafted as concatenating substitutes for substantive technical analysis and publication. The individual being challenged should follow the same established guidelines for scientific analysis and peer-reviewed publication as the rest of us have during our professional careers.

..,his extrapolation from laboratory model to production product is unrealistic, being deficient in practical marketplace engineering. Faulty reasoning and extrapolation often reflect a lack of hands-on construction experience. Lovins did not put into evidence anything he actually built or was responsible for constructing, other than a viewgraph of a fancy banana greenhouse situated on his Aspen, Colorado, property.

Other Lovins critics include George Monbiot who published a critique of Lovins' distributive "microgeneration" concept as applied to renewables in The New Scientist titled, "Small-scale renewable power - Low wattage thinking? Other prominent critics of Lovins include the late Alvin Weinberg, Professor Paul Joskow, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Peter Huber, Mark Mills, and Professor Vaclav Smil. Smil remarked,

Inexplicably, Lovins retains his guru aura no matter how wrong he is.

And,

Amory has become a celebrity after wholesaling his fairy-tale of “soft” decentralized small-scale energies as THE solution (with its deep counter-cultural, Berkeleyish appeal), and it is the first law of celebrity-hood that, right or wrong, coherent or not, you retain the status. Combine that with the just-noted mass scientific ignorance of the population and with Amory’s sleek offerings of no-pain solutions (nothing will cost anything, or as he famously put it, “abating climate change for fun and profit”) and you have new believers signing up every time he speaks.

David Bradish is not the only critic Lovins abandoned the field to. Following Robert Bryce
well-known Energy Tribune critique of Lovins, Lovins wrote him claiming

the article suffers from many errors small and large.

Lovins added

When time permits, I'll write a corrective letter. Would you then like to post it on your website? It will be on ours in any event.

Bryce notes:

I assured Lovins that we would be happy to post his letter whenever he found time to write it. Eighteen months later, I am still waiting.

Amory Lovins in the Buff

In previous posts on David Bradish's debate with Amory Lovins, I noted that Bradish had posted a multi-part critique of Lovins online and that Lovins had responded to the first two parts of Bradish's critique. Lovins was unwilling to respond to criticisms of his defense by Bradish and others. When Loving failed to produce promised defenses of three further phases of Bradish's critique, he gave every appearance of abandoning the field to Bradish.

I wish to now consider the third part of Bradish's critique and the implications of Lovins failure to respond to it. Bradish pointed to a short essay titled "Forget Nuclear" in which Lovins and his associates had argued

An even cheaper competitor [to new nuclear plants] is end use efficiency (“negawatts”)—saving electricity by using it more efficiently or at smarter times.

There was nothing new in this statement. Lovins had repeated the same views on efficiency on numerous occasions for well over three decades. What was relatively new was the extent that scholars had attacked Lovins view on efficiency during the last decade. These attacks were summarized in the Energy Tribune by writer Robert Bryce in the fall of 2007. Bradish quoted Bryce:

The final – and most important – area in which Lovins has been consistently wrong is his claim that efficiency lowers energy consumption. And when it comes to arguing the merits of energy efficiency, Lovins’s prime nemesis is a dead guy – William Stanley Jevons – a British economist who in 1865 determined that increased efficiency won’t cut energy use, it will raise it. “It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuels is equivalent to a diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth.” And in the 142 years since Jevons put forth that thesis, now commonly known as the Jevons Paradox, he’s yet to be proven wrong. . . .

But when it comes down to brass tacks, energy efficiency doesn’t necessarily mean less energy use, it usually means more energy use. And that usually means more carbon dioxide emissions. Thus, the idea of “saving the climate for fun and profit” may be just a bit more complicated than Lovins claims.

Bradish pointed out as evidence against Lovins views on efficiency:

Below is a chart that shows the electric intensity vs. electricity consumption per person for the U.S. The chart shows that the U.S. became more efficient with its electricity (electric intensity) starting in the 1970s but continued to consume more electricity per person. If efficiency supposedly curbs demand, then the chart should show the red line following the blue line after the 1970s (or at least some change in that direction). It does not.

Bradish pointed out that Lovins had attempted a previous attempt to defend his views against Bryce and others, but had committed to what amounted to an Freshman level blunder in Economic theory:

RMI and Amory Lovins are well aware of the Jevons Paradox and the Energy Tribune article. They attempt to rebut the two by citing the improvements in refrigerators, the implementation of hybrids, and the reduced energy consumption per-capita in California and Vermont. The Paradox describes macro-level behavior. Micro-level data on refrigerators and hybrids do not refute it. For example, the energy savings from refrigerators could simply have gone to plasma-screen TVs, XBoxes, computers or other electrical equipment. The energy savings from hybrids could simply have gone to a new lawn-mower, boat or car

In addition to David Bradish, the blogger who goes by the title "the Sovietologist" focused on the problem which the Jevons paradox issue confronted Lovins:

Lovins isn't on very firm ground on this point. RMI's earlier attempts to rebut Bryce were unimpressive, to put it mildly. Indeed, the "Rebound Effect" is not something that can be debunked in the sense that Lovins is implying, as it derives directly from the basic economic principles accepted by free-market economists. In order for the "rebound effect" to be a myth, neoclassical economics must be fundamentally wrong.

The basic principle on which orthodox economic theory rests is the idea of utility. It is no coincidence that Jevons was an important figure in the development of the concept of marginal utility. Neoclassical economics, also known as the "marginalist" school, explains economic decision-making in terms of marginal utility. Utility is defined as "a measure of the relative satisfaction from or desirability of consumption of goods." Early concepts of utility, such as that of Jeremy Bentham, regarded utility as a concrete, quantifiable thing, but later economists moved away from this idea. Economists argue that people consume goods to the extent that gives them the most satisfaction for their expenditure.

What implication does this have for Lovins' efficiency theories? Far from having "no material effect," Lovins' arguments dating back to The Soft Energy Path are incompatible with neoclassical economics. Increased energy efficiency increases the marginal utility of consuming a particular amount of energy. If consumers are rational maximizers, the ability to produce a greater amount of satisfaction from consuming energy will, all other things remaining equal, increase energy use.

The Sovietologist's comment suggests why Lovins has never responded to Bradish. Simply put, Lovins, a college drop-out, is over his head in issues dealt with in Freshman economics.

Lovins failure to defend his view from criticisms by Bradish and numerous others should have destroyed Lovins' reputation, and it has among people who think seriously about energy. But it hasn't for the sort of "energy expert" who offers pat answers. Lovins is way too useful to far too many people. Lovins provides easy answers for politicians, and of course the energy foxes of the Energy Collective, many of whom make their living parroting Lovins discredited views. The Emperor may be unclothed , but lots of people would prefer to ignore that.

Hog Heaven

Energy Collective Foxes

The rule of the Energy Collective is that it is ok to pose as an expert while being ignorant, and it is ok to lie about your data, but it is not ok to be rude as a response to ignorance or lies. British self designated "energy expert" Vicky Portwain, regularly posts on the Energy Collective, and offer one sided, pro-renewable, anti-nuclear comments on energy issues. In her latest Energy Collective posts, Portwain tells her readers:

A large sector of the UK population remain sceptical about nuclear energy, how to deal with the waste and who is to pay being as yet unanswered questions. On the other hand the UK population as a whole does not appear prepared to make sacrifices by way of serious energy demand reduction and alternative energy committment. Overall we seem happy to sacrifice other peoples’ standard of living i.e. those living in the areas near where waste will be disposed of or the standard of living of the next generation. The result is a highly likely continuation of our energy addiction fed by expensive nuclear energy.

Of course Portwain assumes that there is such a thing as nuclear waste. The term waste suggest that something is not wanted, but for some users, post reactor nuclear fuel is highly desirable. My suspicion is that were the United Kingdom to offer to sell, what Portwain calls "nuclear waste", it would find a ready buyer. India has recently had a shortage of fuel for its Heavy Water reactors. heavy water reactors can turn the U-235 and plutonium in nuclear waste into nuclear fuel. Since Indian reactors have recently been operating at 50% of capacity, due to a shortage of nuclear fuel, and for the Indians, the UK's nuclear waste is a source of electrical generation energy. So Portwain's use of the term "nuclear waste", is falls far short of telling the whole story.

Secondly, Portwain tells us that how to deal with the waste is an unanswered question. This would seem to suggest that there is no known solution to the problem of nuclear waste. But as I have pointed out there is no problem of nuclear waste, simply because post-reactor nuclear fuel is desired by India, and therefore is nor waste. The whole problem comes about because of a political decision to not recycle post-reactor nuclear fuel in reactors, and tonot sell it to anyone who does. Thus post-reactor nuclear fuel becomes waste for political rather than technical reasons. The solution to the problem would be a political decision to change the way post reactor fuel is treated in laws and regulations.. Thus the solution to the politically created problem of nuclear waste is to change the laws and regulations concerning post-reactor fuel.

Portwain's third alligation is the claim that resorting too nuclear power will

sacrifice other peoples’ standard of living i.e. those living in the areas near where waste will be disposed of or the standard of living of the next generation.

Note that for Portwain it this is so obvious that she does not need to explain how the living close to "nuclear waste" would impinge on anyone's standard of living. If Portwain is a typical "Green", she believes that living close to nuclear waste will lead to cancer. But repeated research on cancer rates in areas surrounding nuclear plants that has not produced any evidence that living close to nuclear plants where "nuclear waste" is stored produces any health consequences. Portwain should tell us the whole story.

There are areas in the United States where nuclear waste associated with the military use of nuclear materials was mishandled during the Cold War. Communities like Hanford, Washington, Oar Ridge, Tennessee and those communities near the Sevannah River Project were polluted by the uncontrolled cold war dumping of radioactive nuclear materials.

I grew up in Oak Ridge, and since my parents lived in Oak Ridge from 1948 until my father's death in January 2009 I have been kept aware of area health issues by the comments of my parents. Yet despite numerous studies of public exposures to radioactive materials during the 1940's and 50's, and of area cancer rates, no conclusive evidence has emerged suggesting that Oak Ridge area radiation related cancer rates exceeded the national averages. Research in areas surrounding American reactors show the same thing. There is no evidence that radiation related cancer rates increase in the proximity of reactors, despite the presence of stored post-reactor fuel on site. Thus it appears that Vicky Portwain expressions of concern about nuclear waste are offered without an attempt to establish an objective foundation for them.

Climate Wizard

Climate Wizard

The Nuclear Hedgehog

My little discussion of energy hedgehogs and energy foxes has brought my attention to the world's cutest animal, the hedgehog.

I think this adorable creature is perfect symbol for the LFTR.

Anticipated climate change, 21st Century

The wind is always blowing somewhere

For those of you who believe that the wind is always blowing somewhere, please note that no wind sourced electricity was being generated in either Germany or the American Pacific North West at midnight today. It would be interesting if you can come up with data from other places.

The Silver Bullet, Energy Collective Foxes, and the Nuclear Fix

A true nuclear hedgehog believes, contrary to conventional thinking, that there is an energy silver bullet. That bullet is one or more forms of nuclear technology. Rod Adams and I both believe that small reactors are essential to the nuclear fix. As Tyler Hamilton notede about a mini-reactor design:

Efficient. Flexible. Safer. Transportable. Scalable. Swappable. In the world of nuclear energy, small could end up becoming the new big.

Small can be built in factories. Factory production of reactors is a key to lowering nuclear cost. It is not however the only key. The view of the nuclear hedgehogs is that by fixing the reactor, by solving the problems that raise objections to nuclear power in the first place, the energy problem can be solved. The Energy Collective foxes, dismiss this as nonsense, and stop paying attention, because they are convinced that the nuclear fix is impossible.

The energy collective foxes have some tricks, but the tricks add up to expensive and limited electricity, a greatly diminished standard of living for ordinary people,and an American national economy that is not competitive with the emerging Asian economic powers. The foxes expect the American people to make due by thrift.

The Foxes seldom talk about energy costs, except to claim that nuclear power is too expensive. Too expensive compared to what is never explained. When future levelized costs are compared, nuclear costs turn out to be equal too or lower than renewables. Energy researcher Mary Hutzler notes the an obvious but often overlooked effect of wingmill construction on future wind cost.

In the case of the revised AEO 2009, more wind capacity is built earlier in the forecast than in the AEO 2009 without the stimulus (10 gigawatts more by 2010 and 33 gigawatts more by 2020). As more wind units are constructed, the better wind sites are used up earlier, and wind becomes more expensive due to access and resource availability issues.

in comparision, building reactors makes future nuclear has a negative impact on future nuclear costs because ofd the learning curve. Mary Hutzler's observation is beyond the sophistication of Energy Collective foxes who seem completely oblivious to reneewable cost issues.

The Energy Collective foxes are also completely ignorant of the basic facts of nuclear technology. We have Tyler Hamilton , so utterly and completely ignorant of nuclear technology, that he does not know that the problem of nuclear waste, as he understands it, could be eliminated by switching from a uranium fuel cycle to a thorium fuel cycle. Should competent energy writers know this? Yes, absolutely! Do most energy writers know this? Absolutely not! Lets face it, most energy experts are nuclear illiterates. Most of the so called energy experts whose writings appear on the Energy Collective, know so little about nuclear energy, that they are lack basic competence on many energy issues. What is worse, they seem to lack the will to learn.

By switching nuclear technology, by altering things like reactor size, fuel cycle, and reactor design and operation details, radically different nuclear technologies are possible. It is possible, by changing the rules of the nuclear game. It is possible to build reactors that are cheaper, lower priced, safer, and more far efficient. By adopting new nuclear technologies, reactors can produce from 60% to 80% of the energy required by society. Nuclear power is the silver bullet that the Energy Collective Foxes do not understand.

Energy hedgehogs, Energy foxes

πόλλ' οἶδ' ἀλώπηξ, ἐχῖνος δ'ἓν μέγα ("The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing"). - Archilochus (c. 680 BC – c. 645 BC)

The philosopher Isaiah Berlin divided thinkers into two categories, Foxes who know many little tricks, and hedgehogs who know one big trick. This division is somewhat artificial, but still useful. My quarrel with the Energy Collective is really a quarrel with the foxes of the energy collective, who may know a lot of tricks but none of them are very good. The supporters of nuclear power like Rod Adams and Dan Yurman are the hedgehogs of the collective. They believe that their one trick, nuclear power works better than all of the tricks of The Collective's foxes.

The Collective's foxes deny the very possibility of the Collective's hedgehog's trick. "There is no such thing as a silver bullet," they say knowingly. They tell the rest of us that nuclear power is too expensive, without ever noting that other low carbon energy sources, for example solar and wind, are even more expensive, and are far less reliable. The Hedgehogs notice that much of what the Foxes talk about does not make sense or is unproven. The Foxes seem to hold the Hedgehogs trick in contempt.

If only it wasn't nuclear.

Collective fox Tyler Hamilton says, when nuclear hedgehogs demonstrate how neatly their trick works with small reactors. Hamilton adds

The fact is the units would still produce nuclear-fuel waste – a football-sized amount for each reactor

Mind you, each reactor produces a huge amount of waste, A football size amount! And Tyler lets us know he is on the side of righteousness:

a large part of the population believes it immoral to create and leave behind highly toxic waste for future generations.

perhaps we should call him Saint. Tyler demands to know:

Can a company like Hyperion be trusted .. . ?

in the end Tyler acknowledges the message of small nuclear

Efficient. Flexible. Safer. Transportable. Scalable. Swappable. In the world of nuclear energy, small could end up becoming the new big.

But then he drops the bomb,

If only it wasn't nuclear.

It would help if Tyler would have interviewed NASA engineer and nuclear blogger Kirk Sorensen about how radioactive post-reactor LFTR fission products are after a few years, and what their uses are. But typical of Collective foxes, Tyler in not really interested in whether the problem of nuclear waste is real, or if it whether the alleged problems of nuclear power can be solved. Like most Collective foxes, Tyler clearly loathes nuclear power and and wants to have nothing to do with it. Tyler is in the eyes of the nuclear hedgehogs not a fox at all, rather he is an ignorant ass, who is satisfied to remain ignorant about the possibility of making nuclear power our big trick. Should we suffer fools like Tyler gladly when his ignorance puts the future of humanity at risk?

Unfortunately many of the so called energy experts who writings are featured on The Energy Collective are every bit as ignorant as Tyler, and every bit as willfully so. We are not going to win the fight against global warming if we listen to the voices of idiots.
The world of the Energy Collective Foxes: Recent German wind electrical output.

There are 19,460 wind turbines in Germany with a total capacity of 22,247 MW installed. Note that wind generation output dropped to zero on August 22, and still had not recovered at the end of August 25.

Update 8/27/09: The Capacity Factor has posted another critique of Tyler Hamilton, futher calling into question his professionalism.

How wind power let the BPA down

Link here.

Kirk Sorensen on Graphite Moderated Two Fluid LFTRs

Graphite moderated two fluid LFTRs have some significant advantages over unmoderated LFTRs. The primary advantage is that the graphite moderated reactor requires a much smaller fissionable charge, and therefore the graphite moderated LFTR fuel for a project anticipating a rapid deployment of large numbers of LFTRs can be carried out without a major increase in the production of fissionable materials. Thus with graphite moderated graphite LFTRs current stocks of fissionable materials are sufficient to start a very large number of LFTRs.

My last post on however came to negative conclusions about the graphite moderated two fluid reactor design. I knew that Kirk Sorensen probably held differing views, but Kirk has yet to demonstrate that he can solve the problem raised by David LeBlanc.

Yesterday Kirk posted a new discussion of the two fluid graphite moderated reactor, this one based on research being conducted at the Nuclear Research Institute at Rez in the Czech Republic. Czech researchers Jan Frybort and Radim Vocka have taken another look at the ORNL-4528 type reactor using contemporary computerized reactor research tools. Their findings, reported in a paper titled Neutronic Analysis of Two-Fluid Thorium Molten Salt Reactor. Kirk suggested.

In part 7 of the paper, they mention the second key issue with a two-fluid reactor--the problem of the blanket void coefficient. Since the original ORNL design had the problem, and since they modeled only parametric variations on that original design, it's no surprise that the problem still shows up. It must be fixed, probably through a new design approach to the two-fluid reactor. I have some ideas, most all of them based around physical situations where a loss of blanket fluid leads to a loss of moderation. I anticipate that this could be done by floating moderator elements (graphite) in the blanket salt, so that as the level of the blanket salt falls, the moderation decreases more than the absorption decreases from the loss of blanket. These ideas definitely need more modeling, but I think they are essentially sound.

Thus Kirk believes that a different approach to the graphite design might work, and that he himself might hold the solution. Kirk has concerns about patent rights, so he is reluctant to say too much. Thus it is too soon to write off the graphite moderated two fluid reactor yet, but we two fluid reactor that is need to have an alternative available. Fortunately David LeBlanc has designed an unmoderated two fluid reactor which has a very simple and low cost core. Thus David's reactor design would serve as an acceptable, easy and cheap to build alternative to an ORNL-4528 type reactor. Kirk, unlike David LeBlanc, is unwilling to write off the graphite moderated two fluid reactor yet.

Two Fluid Molten Salt Reactors with Graphite

I have remained interested in the two-fluid graphite-moderated molten-salt reactor approach to the LFTR. ORNL two-fluid graphite MSR designs were plagued by what is called the "plumbing problem". In the classic ORNL two-fluid design, liquid salt flows through the reactor core through interlaced graphite tubes or cells. ORNL 4119 which also described the two fluid design stated:

The core of the reactor is made up of 336 cylindrical graphite fuel cells mounted as close together as tolerances permit to form essentially a cylindrical array approximately 8.3 ft in diameter. The graphite cells are extruded cylinders with center holes 1 1/2 in. in diameter, surrounded at 120° angles with three 7/8-in.-diam holes. At the top of each cell there is a graphite cap machined to provide a smooth communication between the four holes of the cell. Figure 9.6 shows the arrangement of one of these cells.

The tube design was slightly different in the ORNL-4528 reactor design. In both reactor core designs, the liquid salt flowed up each tube and when it reached the top it flowed through a channel that made a 180 degree U turn. and flowed back down again. Tubes carrying fertile thorium carrying salts surrounded the the inner set of U-233 carrying fuel salts. There was, however a problem with this design Graphite exposure to high energy neutron radiation over a period of time leads first to graphite shrinkage and then swelling, as energetic neutrons knock carbon atoms from their original location in the graphite lattice. ORNL 4528 states

The effect of neutron irradiation, however, is to first shrink and then swell the graphite to cause an increase in porosity and, we expect, a deterioration in physical properties. The dimensional changes occur slowly, and their effects on the neutronics of the reactor can be accommodated by gradually adjusting the fuel-salt composition, although at a small detriment to the nuclear performance. The radiation damage to the graphite, however, limits the useful life of the reactor core.

The swelling causes components made of graphite to change dimensions. Thus if reactor plumbing components are made of graphite swell because of exposure to high energy radiation, there are multiple consequences. First as the dimensions of graphite tubes increase the amount of fertile and fissionable material they carry is sufficiently altered to effect the performance of the reactor. But the effect of the swelling on plumbing fit is an even more significant problem.

ORNL reactor researchers understood that core graphite swelling limited the time that a graphite core was useful. ORNL-4528 states:

the limited performance of the graphite undoubtedly restricts the design and imposes a maintenance penalty, . . . The major concern was whether mechanical failure of graphite tubes in the reactor core would cause the effective lifetime of the core to be significantly less than the eight years imposed by the effects of irradiation on the graphite.

ORNL-4528 explained

Neutron irradiation produces substantial changes in length of the graphite elements, and the difference in expansion of the graphite and the metal parts of the reactor vessel with temperature changes can also be large. These effects must be accommodated without overstressing the graphite. We propose to accomplish this by making the graphite elements in the form of concentric tubes connected to the reactor vessel at only one end in order to provide freedom for axial expansion and contraction. The fuel salt would flow in and out at the same end of the elements, and the connections would be to tube sheets at the bottom of the reactor vessel to allow the salt to drain completely.

Because of the irradiation effects, the graphite tubes will have to be replaced periodically. . . . . The reactor vessel and intemals will be highly radioactive after a short time at high power, and with the graphite elements brazed to a tube sheet in the bottom of the reactor vessel, individual tubes could not be readily inspected or replaced. We concluded that the most practical way to renew the graphite in the core would be to replace the entire reactor vessel and its contents. Suitable provisions would be required for remotely operated tools and viewing equipment to cut, weld, and inspect joints in the piping system. Provisions for handling and disposing of spent reactor vessels would have to be included in the plant.

Eventually ORNL reactor researchers sought to extend graphite core life by a radical alteration of the design of the MSR. ORNL-4528 proposed to build 4 small reactors rather than one large reactor. The small reactors could taken out of service for core replacement one at a time. Thus the MSBR facility would be assured of 3/4th power almost all of the time. However ORNL reactor designers took the even more radical approach of completely scrapping the two-fluid reactor design, in favor of a one-fluid design. This approah, of course, lead to a new set of problems.

It should be noted that the graphite swelling problem continues to be of interest to nuclear scientist who continue to evaluate new graphite materials for improved resistance to neutron swelling.

Recently Canadian physicist and reactor designer David LeBlanc noted a further problem with the graphite-tube two-fluid design

The "plumbing problems" of interlacing fuel and blanket salts within the core is probably still nearly insurmountable if for no other reason than the shrinking and expanding graphite tends to dramatically change the ratio of the two fluids within the core (and the work on using metal looked even more hopeless). Hopefully we can convince them of the merits of a new simple geometry of tube within tube that only needs one barrier, not thousands. The old ORNL Two Fluid design also has a positive temperature reactivity coefficient for the blanket salt which they rarely mentioned. If your blanket salt is only surrounding a core of fuel salt, it ends up to also have a negative temp coefficient since it acts as a reflector (hotter=less dense=less neutrons reflected back)

David added in another comment which he noted in a communications to me:

I also agree with other posts and the paper in rightly worrying about the safety issues of losing blanket salt (something ORNL didn't really mention much). That is one of the huge benefits of switching from the old idea of interlacing fuel and blankets salts within the core and the new concept of only having the blanket salt outside a small diameter core (and going to a modestly long cylinder or tube if you want to get a healthy total core power). With the blanket only outside the core, it is acting as a very weak reflector of neutrons back into the core, thus if it drains away or gets less dense by heating up then you actually lower reactivity because the core is now losing some of these reflected neutrons. As a point of clarification, this assumes that you don't put any sort of good reflecting material within or outside the blanket zone because you could then also end up with a positive void/temp coefficient for the blanket salt, i.e. you can have graphite in the core but avoid using much in the blanket or at the outer vessel wall.

David's comments would seem to write the obituary for the ORNL version of the two-fluid design, but would leave it open for his own greatly modified two-fluid concept.

Amory Lovins Discredited: Lovins Refuses to Answer David Bradish

Amory Lovins writingson Energy have been subjected to repeated and harsh criticism. David Bradish has offered a long and detailed criticism summerized with numerous links here. ’

During the two Gristmill “debates” between Lovins and Bradish, http://www.grist.org/article/nuclear-deterrence/
And http://www.grist.org/article/nuclear-deterrence-part-two/
Lovins and Sheikh offered no response to numerous critical comments from Bradish or others.

At the end of their second Gristmill post, Lovins and Sheikh stated: “We will address Mr. Bradish’s forthcoming posts on “nuclear and grid reliability” and “costs” as they appear.” In fact those responses never appeared. I take the Lovins and Sheikh refusal to respond to comments on their two Gristmill posts and their failure to post the promised responses as abandoning the field.

Points raised by Lovins critics, and unanswered:

A. David Bradish and numerous others

1. Incongruity of data and conclusions:

After digging into the numbers from their Excel spreadsheet and the methodology (pdf) for the above graph and paragraph, I found the story is much different than what the paper claims. According to the graph above, nuclear’s “true competitors” are already beating nuclear … except that they aren’t.

With the exception of nuclear, the data for the chart aren’t actual generation numbers. . . .

By far the largest non-nuclear source of electricity in the above chart is decentralized generation (the big orange block) which the Excel file calls “Non-Biomass Decentralized Co-Generation.” The paper assumes an 83 percent capacity factor for this source. The problem with the 83 percent capacity factor is it is twice as high as what it should be.

http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2008/06/amory-lovins-and-his-nuclear-illusion_05.htm
Bradish goes on to demonstrate the error and its source. Lovins and Sheikh responded to Bradish on their first Gristmill post. Bradish responded to the first Gristmill post:

You said: Finally, where possible, we compared calculated output to estimated output from other sources to verify that our calculations were realistic.

I never read any comparisons in any of your documents. Did you do this internally? Did I miss it? What other sources verified that your "calculations were realistic"?

WADE's economic analysis of cogen on p. 5 of the cited World Survey of Decentralized Energy 2005 uses 7,500 h/y, equivalent to 85.6%.

And it also uses 5,000 hours and 8,100 hours. The table you cited are only assumptions to show the "impact of gas price changes." This isn't "empirical" data.

Average capacity factor of all decentralized plant types cannot be validly applied to cogeneration or any other type in the mix:

Yes it can for this situation. You calculated in your excel file that "decentralized non-biomass cogen" makes up 266.3 GW out of WADE's 281.9 GW in 2004. This means that 94 percent of decentralized capacity is cogeneration. If the surveyed countries reported a total capacity factor of 40.1 percent from decentralized capacity, then the decentralized cogen's capacity factor is somewhere around 40 percent. It's as simple as that.

His claims that "it is impossible" for cogen to have an 83% capacity factor, since it makes up "the majority of the decentralized capacity," overlooks that our micropower data include many types of renewables that WADE excludes.

I never said "micropower." I said "non-biomass decentralized co-generation plants" and as I said above, the 40 percent capacity factor for that category is accurate because it DOES make up the majority of the decentralized capacity.

Our methodology derives our stated average capacity factor from the empirical capacity factors for each source.

Quoting Michael Brown does not mean it's "empirical" data.

Small sample of countries may not represent the whole:

What do you mean "small sample"? Your methodology on page 5 and WADE's 2005 survey on page 32 states that "world decentralized energy totaled 282.3 GWe at the end of 2004." Yet when you add up the "small sample of countries" in the WADE survey, it comes out to 341.6 GW. Now that doesn't make sense.

"There is [no] ... methodology" for RMI's projections of micropower growth during 2008-2010.

This is the second time you've mis-quoted my words. Here's what I said in my post: "According to the RMI paper, the "non-biomass decentralized co-generation" projection is a "target" based on personal communications with WADE. There is no model, study, or methodology mentioned to support the projection." Where is "micropower" mentioned here?

Nuclear power's share remains stuck at about 2%.

Try 15 percent in 2005.

"Is Coal Included in the 'Non-Biomass Decentralized Co-Generation' Data?" Yes, but not much.

Um, your response still didn't say how much. In fact the DGTW source you brought up said "the 2004 fuel mix is unknown."

Here's what the 2005 WADE survey says on page ii for those who haven't seen it: "Global installed DE capacity stood at around 281.9 GWe at the end of 2004, the great proportion of this consisting of high efficiency cogeneration systems in the industrial and district heating sectors, fuelled by coal and gas and, to a lesser extent, biomass-based fuels."

Needless to say such a detailed critique required a detailed answer. Lovins and Shekh did not respond to Bradish's questions.

In Part 2 of Bradish's critique of Lovins and Shekh, Bradish argues that

RMI’s “micropower” data don’t fit their own definition of “micropower”. Not only that, small plants aren’t the only way to go especially since bigger power plants in general yield greater efficiencies and economies of scale.

Bradish quoted the Lovins and Shekh definition of Micropower

1. onsite generation of electricity (at the customer, not at a remote utility plant)—usually cogeneration of electricity plus recovered waste heat (outside the U.S. this is usually called CHP—combined-heat-and-power): this is about half gas-fired, and saves at least half the carbon and much of the cost of the separate power plants and boilers it displaces;
2. distributed renewables—all renewable power sources except big hydro plants, which are defined here as dams larger than 10 megawatts (MW).

Bradish concluded if there was a 10 MW limit on hydro micropower, then micropower could be defined as any generation unit with a rated output smaller than 10 MWs. Lovins and Shekh responded

Our 10 MW limit applies only to small hydro, distinguishing it from big hydro using the most conservative criterion. . . . [the] definition, which we've adopted, includes onsite units up to somewhat over 180 MWe for gas turbines (though few actual units are over 120 MWe) and up to 60 MWe for engines

Bradish responded

I still don't understand the definition of "micropower." The word micro obviously implies very small plants. The average power plant unit size in the U.S. is about 60 MW. So "micro" plants (at least in my opinion) should be much smaller than 60 MW. Yet according to the WADE data you provided, it includes plants over 60 MW.

As well, if the "micropower" data includes other plants greater than 10 MW, why put that limit on hydro then? According to you, I wrongly assumed "micro" was less than 10 MW, but there was nothing else to go by.

And indeed it would appear that Lovins and Shekh have a confusing definition of micropower that limits the use of the term to generation units smaller than 10 MWs in some cases, and as large as 180 MWs in others. They really do do not explain these seeming inconsistencies and make no response to Bradish's comment.


In his second post on Lovins, Bradish, quoted Peter Huber and Mark Mills,

Bigger systems are easier to keep hot because they have less surface per unit of volume, and because they can be surrounded by materials like concrete and steel that can both contain and survive the heat. There is, of course, much more than that to engineering efficient power plants. But first and foremost, the rule is simple: bigger can be hotter, and hotter is more efficient. So, decade by decade through the first century of electricity, power plants grew bigger, and in so doing grew more efficient.

Thus counter to Lovins small and efficient do not always match. Huber and Mills had a great deal to say about Lovins Jevons paradox, although Bradish did not bother to include that in his rather brief post.

Lovins and Sheikh wrote an extensive response to the contention by Huber, Mills and Bradish, that bigger could be more efficient:

An efficient plant discarding 2 GWt of waste heat -- too much to use in most sites -- has a lower fuel-to-useful-work efficiency and a lower economic efficiency than a small cogenerator matched to its thermal and electrical loads and achieving roughly twice the big plant's system efficiency

Bradish did not respond to this point in the rather short comment section on Lovins and Sheikh's second response. Perhaps he saw no point, because it was clear that Lovins and Sheikh would not to respond to his comments.

Bradish discussed Lovins' Jevons' Paradox problemn in his third post. Jevons' paradox, named after the 19th century British Economist William Stanley Jevons, in reviewing the effects of improvement in steam engine technology on British coal consumption postulated that increasing energy efficiently lead to increased rather a decline in energy use. Jevons' paradox fits well into classical economic theory and has beeen acpted by economists for almost 150 years. Amory Lovins has large ignored Jevons paradox in his work on the effects of efficiency on energy consumption. As Malcom Slessler noted in his 1999 review of the Lovin et al book, Natural Capitalism

The allure of this argument is indeed compelling for it banishes the doom and gloom merchants to their dismal cellars; but it is misleading, for there is one thing they have over-looked: human greed. The evidence is that when you get more from less, you just take advantage of the slack. Economists call this the 'rebound effect', and it is well documented. Is it significant that neither 'rebound effect' nor 'thermodynamics' appear in the index of a book that is astonishingly rich in allusions to energy?

Slessler's point is that Lovins failure to address the question of Jevons Paradox, a problem which pointed like a dagger at the heart of his efficiency thesis, was either due to the limits of his knowledge - that is shallow knowledge of his subject - or to an elective choice to not address a troubling problem. Since Slessler pointedly brought up the issue in 1999, and Lovins did not exactly jumped to a vigorous defense of his efficiency thesis, there is no question of an elective choice. So now the question becomes did Lovins attempt to finness the Jevons Paradox issue from the start, or was he ignorant of it right from the start and begin dodging a response when the issue began to emerge later? During the last decade the Jevons Paradox issue has been raised by serious people including Vaclav Smil and Huber and Mills. Robert Brice brought the whole thing to a head in a famous Energy tribune article Green Energy Advocate Amory Lovins: Guru or Fakir? Brice quotes Smil

[history is] replete with examples demonstrating that substantial gains in conversion (or material use) efficiencies stimulated increases of fuel and electricity (or additional material) use that were far higher than the savings brought by these innovations.

Brice ask Lovins if Jevons was wrong, and Lovins responded,

Broadly, yes.

Given that his major thesis disagreed with a noted economist whose hypothesis on energy efficiency has withstood numerous empirical tests, it would be incumbent on Lovins to support in detail his assertion that Jevons is wrong. So far Lovins' Rocky Mountain Institute has offered one paper on increases in refrigerator efficiency, but respond in detail on energy efficiency. Bryce observes,

One of the main problems with efficiency arguments like those put forward by Lovins is that engineering efficiency doesn’t necessarily equal economic efficiency. . . . sales numbers show that American drivers love the concept of energy independence and hate the fact that the U.S. buys foreign oil. But when it comes time to strap on their seatbelts, they aren’t as interested in efficiency as they are in the comfort, size, and convenience offered by larger vehicles.

Americans just like big. They like big vehicles, big houses, and Big Macs. And those big appetites have resulted in increased per-capita energy use even while the amount of energy used per dollar of GDP has fallen. Since the early 1980s, the amount of energy used per capita in the U.S. has risen.

At any rate Bradish summed up the Jevons Paradox controversy in his third post and noted,

I agree with RMI that promoting energy efficiency is important and valuable. However, I disagree with RMI on where increased efficiency leads. It does not necessarily lead to decreased consumption.

Lovins and Shekh in their second response stated

Mr. Bradish has posted part three of his critique, claiming that RMI has overlooked Jevons Paradox, which undoes and reverses the intended energy savings from more efficient end-use. We have rebutted this invalid claim in a response to Mr. Bradish's cited primary source -- an article by Robert Bryce in his newsletter. Completion of our response was delayed by travel, but we expect to finish it shortly, and will then post it on RMI's website, in this blog, and (Mr. Bryce has assured us) on his site.

Meanwhile, readers should know that the claimed "rebound" effect -- phenomena that make net energy savings smaller than gross savings -- is real but generally very small, and has no material effect on our conclusions. This is firmly established in the empirical literature, and is well-known to knowledgeable energy economists but evidently not to Mr. Bryce, Mr. Bradish, or the theory's current standard-bearers, Dr. Peter Huber and Mr. Mark Mills.

it is quite clear that Mr. Lovins promised response to Robert Bryce

delayed by travel

has never appeared, and the promise was largely forgotten until I resurrected it. Nor was Lovins promise to

address Mr. Bradish's forthcoming posts on "nuclear and grid reliability" and "costs" as they appear

been kept.

This has been a very long post and I am by no means finished with my account of Amory Lovins failure to answer his critics. I will review other criticisms of Lovins in a future post and then offer some thoughts on Lovins reputation as an innovative thinker, and his motives for ignoring his critics. There can, however, be no doubt that Lovins, by his refusal to respond to numerous critics, and his failure to provide promised responses, has damaged his credibility.

The future cost of nuclear power considered.

Critics of nuclear power keep up a constantly attack focusing on the alleged cost of nuclear power. Recent critics have pointed to the cost of Canadian estimate of nuclear cost as proof that nuclear is too expensive. But such cost estimates are based on projections of the inflation in all power plant construction costs from 2002 to 2008 into the middle of the next decade. Between 2002 and 2007 the cost of wind generation facilities double. However inflationary pressures on materials and labor costs collapsed in 2008-2009. The 2002 to 2008 trend can be demonstrated by the following chart of the cost of wind turbines between 1997 and 2007 which demonstrates the effect of the inflation on wind costs:
Installation cost increases for wind installations also kept pace during the same period. Offshore wind is even more expensive than on shore, and if anything even more subject to inflation. Rod Adams points out that the recently completed German off shore Alpha Ventus wind farm, built for $357 Million and having a pathetic name plate capacity of 60 MWs, and a capacity factor that would be

- roughly the same amount of power that could be generated by a 20 - 25 MWe nuclear plant -

would seem to suggest that wind inflation, at least continues into 2009.

Secondly, I would like to point out that renewables are more vulnerable to materials and labor cost inflation than nuclear is. Last year in Bratislava two European energy researchers, J. Mišák, and F. Pazdera reported on the materials inputs into various energy technologies. (Comparison of Electricity Production from the Nuclear Energy and from the Renewable Energy Sources) They reported on materials input in kilograms per GWh of electricity produced in a year. The money figures were as follows
Technology Iron Copper Bauxite
kg/Gwh kg/Gwh kg/Gwh

Nuclear 457 6 27

PV 4969 281 2189

Wind (case 1) 3066 52 35

Wind (case 2) 4471 75 51

The Mišák & Pazdera report did not include concrete, but it is known that 500 tons of concrete go into the base of a 1.5 MW wind generator. The cost of construction materials reversed its historic upward trend in 2008. A future return of materials inflation would clearly impact renewables cost far more than nuclear cost.

Data om energy related labor input into the construction of power generating facilities is not easy to come by. I have seen estimates that conventional nuclear facilities require 10,000,000 to 20,000,000 hours of on site labor per billion watts (GW) of reactor capacity. Wind project labor input is difficult to come by. I reviewed the scheduled labor input for the Kittitas Valley Wind Power Project, a 181 MW wind facility built in Washington state in 2003. My interpretation of the Kittitas Valley facility labor plan suggests about 1300 hours of on site labor for every 1 MWs of wind generation capacity installed. The data for nuclear power suggests that about 10,000 labor hours are required per nuclear MW. This would suggest that wind has a significant labor cost advantage over nuclear but this is far from the whole story. First onsite manufacturing patterns are different for nuclear and wind. Many componants of wind systems, including the generator, the turbine blades, and the tower structure are manufactured off site. Labor input into component manufacture is not included in this assessment. A second issue is durability. While wind facilities can be expected to produce power from 15 to 20 years existing nuclear facilities are projected to produce power for 60 years, and it is anticipated that new nuclear facilities will produce power for 80 or even 100 years. A second consideration is te average time of power production. Typically nuclear facilities produce power 90% of the their generation capacity, while wind turbines typically generate power for a little less than 30% of their generation capacity. When these two factors are taken into consideration the labor input advantage for wind seems less obvious. There are significant issues of wind reliability, and in order to make wind generating facilities approach the reliability of nuclear facilities added investments involving large labor inputs would be required.

There are actually two reliability issues for wind power. The first is the intermittent nature of wind generation, and the hact that it cannot produce electricity on demand. The second is the relatively short lived nature of wind generation technology, the fact that wind generators need to be replaced every 15 to 20 years. We have seen that the first issue tends to increase wind related labor costs. The second issue means that there will be an unrelenting cycle of wind rebuilding with attendant labor costs. Renewables plans featuring large wind deployment, seldom include the cost of energy storage necessitated by the use of wind. The never include the cost of unceasing rebuilding of wind generation facilities of up to 5 times in a century. Thus in the long run the labor costs of wind construction will hugely exceed the labor costs that of nuclear power construction per MWh of power produced.

Nuclear however, does require a large number of skilled laborers to build. Compared to the relatively simple construction tasks required to build wind facilities, the tasks required to build conventional nuclear facilities are large and complex. In 2005 the NRC published a report on resource and labor inputs into new nuclear construction. This report indicated that of the 2400 workers who would be employed in the construction on a new nuclear plant, only 10% would be common laborers.

The rest included:
Boilermakers
Carpenters
Electricians/Instrument Fitters
Iron Workers
Insulators
Concrete Masons
Millwrights
Operating Engineers
Painters
Pipefitters
Sheetmetal Workers
Teamsters

This would not be all of skilled professions represented on the site. Vendors and subcontractors will require their own staff on site. Quality control inspectors and Nondestructive Testing specialist required at each construction site.

Nuclear plant construction represents a monumental organization task. Past studies have indicated that almost 27% of worker's time on reactor sites is lost because of labor disorganization. The NRC report assumed

five year construction schedule from site preparations to commercial operations is assumed for each plant with 12 to 18 months for site preparation, 36 to 42 months for construction (first concrete to fuel load), and 6 to 12 months for testing and commissioning activities.

Thus labor costs present a mixed picture wit short run labor costs for wind running lower than nuclear, but long term labor cost running significantly higher. Furthermore, the introduction of off site reactor manufacture would create a revolutionary change in the nuclear labor cost picture.

Thirdly numerous nuclear critics have charged that the cost overruns problems of the Finnish Olkiluoto-3 reactor prove that nuclear power is too expensive. But does arguing from the Finnish experience in the construction of one reactor to all future reactors is to commit the logical fallacy of hasty generalization, and to discount the learning curve for nuclear construction.

Fourthly the Asian reactor construction experience suggests that reactor construction with reasonable cost is the rule rather than the exception. For example the cost of the South Korean Generation 3 APR-1400 currently runs $2330 per kW of capacity. Unlike the Finns, the South Koreans have built 12 reactors during the last twenty years, suggesting that the learning curve is alive and well in South Korea.

Fifthly I will argue that new reactor construction approaches now being developed in Asia - factor assembly of reactor modules and field assembly of modules - will lower reactor construction price and time. The American firm of Babcock and Wilcox, an old hand at reactor manufacture, plans to factory manufacture small reactor, saving both time and money in the process.

Sixthly, we need new rules on reactor financing that will lower interest costs. Electric companies should be allowed to charge customers for capital investment funds prior to the building of reactors. This would actually save customers money in the long run, and the need for new carbon free energy is urgently required to fight global warming.

Finally, the trend to smaller reactor will open multiple routes to cost lowering, and a shift to Generation IV reactors will accelerate this trend.

Who is in charge?

Brook-Lang on Solar Photovoltaics

The Brave New Climate debate on the Brook-Lang wind thesis (see also) has largely wound up. Wind advocate Neil Howes, confronted with the seemingly intractable problem of electrical demand during the summer period of weak wind conceeded:

For peak summer demand, mothballed coal plants could be used for a few weeks until the time that another another 400GW of nuclear, 100GW to replace existing and 300GW to replace most of the coal-fired.

Of course the question is, if you are going to build 400 GWs of conventional nuclear generating capacity, enough to supply 80% of American electrical demand, why would you need an expensive wind system?

Barry Brook, has now moved on to the topic of solar photovoltaics (PV), again relying on the research by Peter Lang, presented in a paper titled "Solar Realities. Brook quotes the Abstract of Lang's 17 page paper:

This paper provides a simple analysis of the capital cost of solar power and energy storage sufficient to meet the demand of Australia’s National Electricity Market. It also considers some of the environmental effects. It puts the figures in perspective.

By looking at the limit position, the paper highlights the very high costs imposed by mandating and subsidising solar power. The minimum power output, not the peak or average, is the main factor governing solar power’s economic viability. The capital cost would be 25 times more than nuclear power. The least-cost solar option would require 400 times more land area and emit 20 times more CO2 than nuclear power.

Conclusions: solar power is uneconomic. Government mandates and subsidies hide the true cost of renewable energy but these additional costs must be carried by others.

As you can see Brook and Lang have lined up another Green Myth for trashing. Lang points out the key, and of course extremely obvious realities of solar power:

The key characteristics of solar power that are relevant to this discussion can be summarised as follows:

1. Power output is zero from sunset to sunrise.

2. Power output versus time is a parabolic distribution on a clear day: zero at sunrise and sunset, and maximum at midday.

3. Energy output varies from summer to winter (less in winter than summer).

4. Energy output varies from day to day depending on weather conditions.

5. Maximum daily energy output is on a clear sunny day in summer.

6. Minimum daily energy output is on a heavily overcast day in winter.

Lang then draws the obvious inference:

Backup for solar power is clearly required

Lang focuses on pumped storage systems.

Using empirical data from the Queanbeyan Solar Farm. Lang reports

The Queanbeyan Solar Farm9 has an installed power capacity of 55 kW. The average
power output over 2 years was 7.58 kW. The average capacity factor10 over this
period was 13.7%.

Indeed Lang reported that during two days in a two year period the power output of the Queanbeyan Solar Farm was a dismal 0.8% of its name plat capacity, and that the highest summer output was only 21.9% of rated capacity. The average winter capacityfactor was 9.9%. Lang suggeste:

If we have 90 days of energy storage we will need sufficient solar generating capacity
to be able to generate the 600,000 MWh per day over 90 continuous days (i.e
54,000,000 MWh) with an average solar generating capacity factor of 9.4%.

Suggesting that

Pumped-hydro storage is the least cost option

And noted

To provide the NEM’s [National Electrical Market's] demand from pumped-hydro storage would require pumping 2.3 Sydney-harbour volumes of water up 150 m each day while the sun is shining strongly (a maximum of about 6 hours during winter), and then releasing it to generate electricity each night. This would require pairs of high dams and low dams linked by pipes, pump stations and generating stations. The top dams and the bottom dams would each need a total active storage capacity of 2.3 Sydney harbour volumes of water and would need to have a vertical separation of 150 m on average. The pumps would need the capacity
to pump the volume of water up from the bottom dams to the top dams in about 6 hours in winter.

Lang added

The total area inundated by the reservoirs, for 1 day of energy storage, would
be about 260 km2. For 90 days of storage, 24,000 km2 would be inundated.

Lang calculated the cost of various solar options and concluded

The capital cost of the least-cost solar option is $2,800 billion. That is 2.8 times Australia’s GDP.

in contrast

The cost of providing the NEM’s energy demand with nuclear power would be about $120 billion, or about 4% of the cost of the least-cost, solar power and pumped-hydro
storage option.

Langs conclusions on PV costs are thus in accord with the conclusions of Nuclear Green.

Barry Brook and Peter Lang Blow Windmills Away

Barry Brook with the assistance of Peter Lang has added a new post to his wind discussion, Wind and Carbon Emissions - Peter Lang Responds. The new post contains Lang's responses to the objections that were raised Barry's first post on Lang's assessment on wind. Lang sees the same things I do about wind:

The total electricity generation system must be able to provide peak power when there is no output from the wind turbines. When wind power is zero, or near zero, at the time of peak demand, we need total back up for all the wind generators. This is because electricity demand must be matched by supply at all times.

Lang counts the cost of a wind system

With wind power, we need the full capital cost of 1) the wind farms, PLUS 2) the conventional generators, PLUS 3) the transmission capacity for the full power output for each wind farm (despite the fact they produce, optimistically, just 30% of their rated power output on average), PLUS 4) the enhanced power and stability control systems. The cost of the wind generators does not offset virtually any capital cost for conventional generators in a system that has a substantial proportion of wind generation capacity.

The GHG emissions are the total of the full life cycle emissions from the wind farms, from the operation and maintenance of the wind farms and the enhanced grid, from the embedded emissions in the conventional generator systems, and from the emissions from the fuel combustion in the conventional generators operating in back up mode (which are higher per MWh than when operating at their optimum)

Clearly Barry Brook and Peter Lang has given us a major statement on the cost and effectiveness of wind generation systems.

Wind on Brave New Climate

Barry Brook's blog "Brave New Climate" is one of the best climate/energy blogs. Barry is an Australian climate scientist who is generally clear thinking about climate/energy issues. Barry is a fan of the Integral Fast Reactor. I believe that the LFTR represents a safer, more flexible, lower cost technology that possesses enormous potential. Other than our sometimes raucous disagreement on most favored nuclear technology we seem to agree on most issues.

During the last few days Barry has conducted a debate on wind issues under the title "Does Wind Power Reduce Carbon Emissions?" Barry's position is derived from a study titled, "Cost and Quantity of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Avoided by Wind Generation," by Peter Lang. Lang is a retired engineer who has over 40 years experience on a wide range energy projects and issues, including managing energy R&D and providing policy
advice for government and opposition. The money quote from Lang states:

“These calculations suggest that wind generation saves little greenhouse gas emissions when the emissions from the back-up are taken into account.

Wind power, with emissions and cost of back-up generation properly attributed, avoids 0.058 to 0.09 t CO2-e/MWh compared with about 0.88 t CO2-e/MWh avoided by nuclear. The cost to avoid 1 tonne of CO2-e per MWh is $830 to $1149 with wind power compared with $22 with nuclear power. If the emissions and cost of back up generation are ignored then wind power avoids about 0.5 t CO2-e/MWh at a cost of about $134/t CO2-e avoided. Even if the costs of and emissions from back up generation are ignored, wind is still over six times more costly that nuclear as a way to avoid emissions.

A single 1000 MW nuclear plant (normally we would have four to eight reactors together in a single power station) would avoid 6.9 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year. Five hundred 2 MW wind turbines (total 1000 MW) would avoid 0.15 to 1.3 million tonnes per year – just 2 to 20% as much as the same amount of nuclear capacity. When we take into account that we could have up to 80% of our electricity supplied by nuclear (as France has), but only a few percent can be supplied by wind, we can see that nuclear can make a major contribution to cutting greenhouse emissions, but wind a negligible contribution and at much higher cost.“

Lang's conclusions are truly devistating to the argument that wind electrical generation represents a major solution to the problem of global warming.

In the course of the debate on Barry's blog, Mark Jacobson's work on base wind was touted. Barry responded:

Jacobson’s work on distributed wind and vehicle-to-grid backup have been savaged by Charles Barton at Nuclear Green. . . .

I’d be interested (sincerely!) in knowing where Barton is wrong.

Barry thus challenges wind defenders to answer my criticisms of the Archer-Jacobson wind system. There were a few feble attempts to answer my challenge, which mainly offered alteration to the Archer-Jsaconson rules. For example Fran Barlow suggested

Whatever Jacobson proposes it seems to me that the overbuild for wind need be no higher than the CF would imply for 100% of nameplate.

So assuming a CF of, say 35% (the starting point for feasibility IMO) the overbuild should be no more than 2.84 so that taken together the farm’s reticulated components produce the output almost all the time. Only on those occasions wherea) there was a: decline in output below the anticipated output

AND

b) demand implied the anticipated output

would redundant capacity be brought online. Ideally the sites in question would be highly predictable on 2 hours notice.

Order of call would be

a)demand management measures

and/or

b)pumped hydro/V2G

and/or

c)NG

Note that NG need not be a fossil fuel — waste biomass from ADs or syngas from CSP usaage are options

Barlow's analysis simply assumes that average wind speed over the entire 17 site array would be constant, and simply by multiplying the generating capacity by the inverse of the capacity factor would give you a reliable supply of electricity. The rub is of course that the average wind speed over the entire array is not constant. Thus more wind capacity replication than Barlow calculates is required to create the base load level of reliability.

My reading of Archer-Jacobson is of course influenced by the fact that their analysis was conducted for Southern Great Planes wind resources. The most likely time for there to be a wind problem would be during Summer days, during periods of peek power demand by Texas electrical consumers. Supplying these demands is very much a quality of life issue, and on very hot summer days, when wind generation can drop to an absolute minimum, a significant public health issue. Demand management would be an extreme measure in these situations. My critique of Jacobson on the rationality of a V2G system was part Brook's challenge, and Barlow cited the use of V2G technology without defending that technology against my critique. She also advocates pumped hydro, but fails to offer a convincing analysis of how pumped hydro would provide a low cost solution to the problem of summer winds on the Southern Great Planes. Finally Barlow falls back on hydro-carbon solution including natural gas. The Natural gas solution of course does what we are trying to avoid, that is adds to the atmospheric CO2 levels. The other Barlow solutions, "waste biomass from ADs or syngas from CSP usage," involve further replications and added expenses. Needless to say Barlow does not stop to ponder the questions that her solutions raise.

Barry Brook has generated a necessary conversation on the limitation of wind, a conversation that will need to be repeated over and over again during the next few years.

Social Engineering and Technological Fixes in the Era of Confusion

Republicans don't believe in AGW, but favor fixing it with nuclear power. Greens like Joe Romm and Greenpeace believe in AGW, but are willing to sacrifice the struggle against it, if it winning the fight against global warming means using any form of nuclear power. Greens profess to believe that nuclear power is too dangerous because it is allegedly dangerous. Greens argue that a combination of efficiency, and solar and wind generated electricity works so well that large amounts of CO2 emitting fossil fuels can and should be burned for energy in preference to use of virtually CO2 free nuclear power.

The key to understanding these paradoxes lies in the role of social engineering in the formation of these positions. Republicans clearly feel uncomfortable with the sort of social engineering they associate with AGW, and in my view confuse scientific views on the role of CO2 emissions on current and future climate change. This view confuses the politics of AGW related social engineering with the politics of science. But the facts are incontrovertible. It is textbook science that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Burning fossil fuels increases atmospheric concentrations of CO2, and the increase in atmospheric levels of CO2 bring with it the incontrovertible risk of AGW. More sophisticated right wing critics claim that some atmospheric mechanism or mechanisms bring prevent the increase in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 from increasing global temperature, but this theory is rejected by most climate scientists for scientific, not ideological reasons.

The Republican theory is that scientists favor the AGW view because they secretly favor a social engineering approach to AGW mitigation. But scientists who acknowledge the reality like NASA Climate Scientist James Hanson, and Australian Climate Scientist Berry Brooks favor approaches to AGW mitigation that utilized advanced nuclear power technology as a technological fix to AGW.

My view is that is the Republicans themselves, who have allowed ideological concerns to creep into their response to what can only be considered good science. Republican opposition to concerns about AGW can only be described as paranoid, and can only serve to discredit the Republican Party as the seriousness of the climate change problem becomes increasingly evident during the next few years. Republicans by their paranoid response to scientific concerns about AGW actually strengthens the hand of "green" ideologues that wish to use the reality of AGW as a pretext for social engineering of an extremely illiberal sort.

The "Green" program of opposition to nuclear power, reliance on "renewable" energy generation schemes and energy efficiency. It is my contention that these solutions are not likely to mitigate AGW, that they could succeed by reliance of large-scale programs of social engineering. Further more the consequences of the reliance on renewables and social engineering will be a significant loss of personal freedom coupled with increased and widespread poverty. Neither of these consequences is consistent with Liberal values, and indeed many Internet supporters of the nuclear technological fix approach are self-consciously Political Liberals, or father to the political left. Bloggers who support nuclear power and who are self consciously Liberal include Rod Adams, Kirk Sorensen, Jason Correla of Pro Nuclear Democrats, The Sovietologies (Edward Giest), Marcel F. Williams, and of course Charles Barton of Nuclear Green. Pronuclear bloggers who associate themselves with Marxist views include David Walters (see also David's Daily Kos blog), and N. Nadir. Indeed none of the prominent pro nuclear bloggers associate themselves with the political right.

The Liberal view does not condems the creation of wealth in capitalistic societies, but it insists that workers can and should be given fair wages that are consistent with a comfortable life style. Thus Liberals support the creation of wealth in human society, because wealth justly distributed brings about vast social benefits. Possession of at least moderate personal wealth increases human freedom to make choices, and improves individual quality of life. Liberals support social policies that lead to the elimination of poverty, not its increase. Liberals passionately believe in human rights, including the human right to make reproductive choices. Thus Liberals liberals oppose both interference with the right of women to choose to terminate pregnancies, and with the imposition of policies, which restrict the human right to reproduce.

For Liberals, population control is a natural result of increasing wealth and its fair distribution. There is abundant evidence that reproductive rates drop in societies as distributed wealth increases. Thus Liberals believe that population growth will be naturally controlled by economic development, fair labor laws, personal access to the medical tools needed to carry out human reproductive choices, and free access to information on reproduction control. For liberals population control through voluntary means increases per capata wealth, and thus is consistent with an improved quality.

Greens support the elimination of human reproductive freedom. Green guru and Amory Lovins mentor David Brower write,

"Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license. All potential parents should be required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing."

In contrast to the humane and humanistic attitude of Liberals, "Greens" appear to be hostile to people and their well being. Greens do not like people, oppose many human rights, including the right to personal wealth, and oppose the enhancement of human powers through access to low cost energy. Green guru Amory Lovins stated,

“Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it.”

The late Paul Ehrlich agreed with Lovins,

Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.

Thus for Lovins and Ehrlich opposition to nuclear power has nothing to do with the alleged dangers of nuclear power, but with the perceived danger of putting low cost electricity into the hands of people. Nothing could be more illiberal, and Loins is in fact an implacable enemy of liberal values. Liberal values support nuclear power because it has the potential to provide us with clean, cheap, abundant energy, something that is highly desirable from the Liberal point of view.

What is not desirable from a Liberal viewpoint is for the control of major social decisions to be turned over to a small elite inner circle. Especially when that inner circle appears to believe,

“The Earth has cancer and the cancer is Man.”

And

"all these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.”

These views are stated in Club of Roma reports. I would not go so far as to attribute them to the Club of Rome or to individual members who have not expressed them.

In contrast, Alvin Weinberg offered a view that a high-energy material civilization was possible, through breeder nuclear technology and substitutions for materials that were in short supply. If anything the picture of resource availability is better than Weinberg offered. For example, the co-recovery of seemingly scarce minerals with thorium mining is possible even at average crustal concentrations seems possible. The break-even point would be the point at which recovered thorium and uranium pays the energy bill and no more. That point would be substantially below the average crustial thorium concentration, and that point would never be reached.

Thus energy for the recovery of mineral resources will always be available from "burning the rocks." And with a burning the rocks approach, there will always be enough phosphate and other minerals available to sustain advanced civilization, without out the Malthusian consequences for the human population of the Earth.

Technological fixes without social engineering work provided the cost of the technological fix is low enough to offer economic advantages that will pay for the fix. Pay back is the name of the game for successful technological fixes. The LFTR fix will be out energy "silver bullet" provided that its cost is low enough to rapidly pay for the substitution of thorium fuel cycle generated electricity for fossil fuels generated energy. There is good reason to believe that LFTR generated electricity can be produced at a price that is only 1/4th that of the cost for electricity produced by current nuclear technology. I invite other analyses to test this statement.