On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 4:22 AM, Paul Cockshott <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Lipow: > I would add that more tranmission can reduce the need for storage, > and storage can be done by various kinds of utility scale batteries > which have less impact than pumped storage (which is truly awful > environmentally). Lastly he is advocating a mixed renewable nuclear > grid which in terms of cost gives you the worst of all world. If you > mix a lot renewable energy with a lot nuclear energy, you have to dump > most of the production from either your nuclear plants or from your > solar and wind generation. Either way that raises you costs a lot. > Nuclear or renewable. pick one. Split the baby on this one and you > just end up with a dead baby. > > Paul: > If you had a world wide grid, you might be able to do with a small nuclear > sector, but until then, you need base load capacity because of fluctuations > in wind supply, lack of sunlight at night etc. > There is an inherent wastefulness of using such erratic supplies.
You don't need a world wide grid. You need a continent wide grid. (Thanks to the Chunnel, island UK can be hooked to such a grid). If you support nukes for baseload how do you get shaping and peaking. Renewables big enough to provide that will be big enough to provide huge amounts of power during baseload demand. Either they or nukes will have to run at much less than capacity which multiplies their cost. Any carbon free grid will need storage or huge overcapacity of capital intensive. > > Storage is a hard problem, batteries will require lots of materials that are > actually quite rare and expensive. Lithium batteries are the most efficient, > but Lithium supplies are not up to the building of utility scale batteries. Not true of even bottom estimate of commerical lithium reserves (not the same as upply) There is may not be enough for electric cars, but for utility storage, enough. >There are various alternatives like compressed air storage, or flywheels, but >there is little practical experience of using these on an industrial scale. Without large scale storage the alternatives are no more than 40% to 60% of power from nukes and renewables combined , the rest fossil fuels, or huge overcapacity (Like 3X or 4X) of capital intensive renewable or nuclear generation. The truth is that if we are to eliminate ghg emissions we have to do something a large scale we have not done on a large scale. Again if you think the nuke path is better, argue for that. But mixed nuke/renewables is absurd. Carrol: >Almost everything I've read for the last decade on energy/environment >questions has always struck me as a sexual fantasy, engaged in for the purpose >of evading the political issues which stand between us and actually _using_ >the various 'solutions' proposed. Let me reply to that with what it deserves, the following sexual fantasy: fuck you with a rusty chainsaw. > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Facebook: Gar Lipow Twitter: GarLipow Grist Blog: http://www.grist.org/member/1598 Static page: http://www.nohairshirts.com _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
