----- Original Message -----
From: "J. van Baardwijk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, July 15, 2001 10:36 AM
Subject: Re: Times have changed, 'green' sells products L3
> At 08:44 15-7-01 -0500, Dan Minette wrote:
>
> > > The alternative is a complete net-connected system, which would cost
~USD
> > > 32,000. Still a lot of money, but affordable.
> > >
> >
> >OK, but you see the problem, don't you? A net connected system relies on
> >conventional power plants for those times when the solar cells don't
work.
> >Without storage, the solar cells will only work during the day, will not
> >work very well at all during winter or on cloudy days. Thus, one will
need
> >enough conventional power plants to meet the full load for those days
where
> >solar just won't work.
>
> As I pointed out in an other post, ecological power is not intended (at
> least not for the next few decades) to supply all the energy needed for a
> household, but to reduce the amount of kWh's you need to get from
> conventional power plants that use coal or natural gas. The objective is
to
> reduce the amounts of fossil fuels used, thereby reducing the effect
> burning fossil fuels has on the environment.
>
Well, then you do need to have duplicate power. I've served as finance
elder for my church, which has a commercial power account. The power
company charges the church a rate that has a very strong dependence on the
peak load. The reason for this is that the total power capacity they must
build is dependant on the peak load.
Further, the fact that is only suppose to reduce the use of fossil fuel is,
IMHO, a tacit admission of the problems. Economically viable technologies
have made much stronger inroads in 20 years than a few %. Remember, 10% is
only 3% better than the US is right now and about 6% better than the
Netherlands is right now. Plus, with the present rate of increase in energy
consumption in the Netherlands, even more fossil fuels will be used in 2020
than is used now.
>
> > > >Plus, there would be a significant maintained cost.
> > >
> > > I don't think those costs would be much (if any) higher than an other
> > > system. Basically, you'll need someone to clean the panels a few times
per
> > > year, and check the hardware once a year. A few replacement parts
every
> >few
> > > years, and that's it.
> > >
> >
> >OK, let me be generous 5% of original purchase price in maintenance and
> >replacement. That's about $3,000 per year for a full system. (I can't
see a
> >solar system that goes off line every night and virtually off line for
much
> >of the winter worth considering as a major source of energy.) Plus, think
of
> >the deaths that will occur as millions of people climb on the roof
several
> >times a year. Let me do some quick numbers. If the chance of falling to
> >one's death is 1 in 100,000 every time one climbs on one's roof and one
> >climbs on the roof 5 times a year, and there are 250 million households
in
> >Europe, then if everyone had solar power, it would be responsible for
about
> >12,500 per year.
>
> I can play this game, too. How many people worldwide work in nuclear power
> plants or have work that is related to nuclear power?
One good sized plant in the US employs 425 full time, and about an average
of 300 full time contract workers. That gives a US number for 20% of
electricity generation from just over 100 plants, of about 80,000 workers.
All those people
> (save the occasional telecommuter) has to travel from home to work and
> back, most of them five times per week. There is a certain chance that you
> will be killed in a traffic accident, so one could easily claim that
> nuclear power is responsible for a certain number of deaths in traffic
> every year.
OK, lets calculate that number. :-) Lets assume that, with some car
pooling and days off, etc. that a car is driven about 8,000 miles per year
for each one of these people. That's a total of 640 million miles. At
http://detnews.com/pix/2000/01/04/fron2.gif
one calculates the death rate in autos as roughly 15 deaths per billion
miles driven. So, roughly 10 deaths per year can be attributed to these
folks driving. If all of the household electricity in the US (roughly half
of the electricity in the US) were to come from nuclear, that would increase
to just under 50 driving deaths per year.
That, of course, is high compared to the industrial accident rates. We
expect the workplace to be far safer than the roads, or homes. Climbing up
on a roof is dangerous. Falls kill about 20,000 people per year in the US.
But, they die one at a time, usually, and don't make the papers.
>That is however not an argument to shut down all nuclear power
> plants, just like the chance of falling off the roof is a reason not to
> install solar panels.
12,000 deaths per year is a serious thing. That's far higher than the death
rate for present power plants. People, including you, cited Chernobyl as
evidence of the danger of nuclear power. Less than 50 people died in about
as bad a nuclear accident as you can expect. (40 loss of the highly
radioactive elements to the atmosphere in an explosion and fire). Why are
these 50 people more important than the 20,000 that die from falls.
I'm not saying solar power is untenable. But, the risks/benefits have to be
analyzed.
BTW, I'm guessing you never had safety officer as part of your job
description, right?
>
> Of course, if you fall off the roof you probably didn't take protective
> measures...
>
Or, they didn't work because a mistake went unnoticed. Why can one blame
the person who had the accident for one type of accident, but hold the
industry accountable for another. It sounds like a double standard to me.
>
> > > High maintenance costs? Yes, you'll get that for nuclear power plants.
We
> > > can't tear down the Dodewaard nuclear power plant for at least 40
years;
> > > maintenance alone is expected to cost NLG 164 million. That's a lot of
> > > money to spend maintaining something that doesn't produce energy
anymore.
> >
> >But, you realize that you are talking about a system that supplies many
> >households compared to a system that supplies just 1.
>
> Um, no, those 164 million is the cost of maintaining a *shutdown* reactor
> for the next 40-50 years. Because it is shut down, it doesn't supply
energy
> to any household -- it just sits there, costing the public about 4 million
> guilders per year. And a lot more once the plant at Borssele shuts down
too.
>
You roll that cost into the total energy that was provided over the lifetime
of the reactor. If politicians shut down reactors for political reasons,
you cannot reasonably consider that part of the cost of nuclear power; you
would have to figure out what the total energy output would have been and
include it as part of that cost.
>
> Nope. I'm not the one using the "environmental impact of production"
> argument as a reason NOT to use solar power, so I shouldn't be the one to
> provide such a reference. It's not up to me to prove someone else's
claims.
>
So, can I take it that you don't know the impact. I've provided arguments
about the impact of nuclear because I advocated it, and I agreed that part
of avocation is considering the environmental impact. Further, pro-nuclear
websites directly address the environmental impact. None of the solar site
do. Is there a double standard here? Does solar power get a free ride? I'm
not against solar, but I think that one has to weigh the plusses and the
minuses.
Dan M.
