Let me state up front that (old wind-bag or not) I am not in any way "anti" wind energy, nor an advocate for nuclear. Actually I would like to be more pro-wind, but the numbers keep getting in the way.
IOW, I am a strong advocate for trying to get a true picture of the comparative cost situation, since I consider both of these potential solutions to our energy crisis as "green" and both are *highly preferable* to burning coal, natural gas or any fossil fuel. One interesting point about comparative load factors - which can make cross-comparison for (wind vs nuclear) "challenging" is that from the mid-nineties on, which is roughly the time that computer controls were widely implemented in the nuclear industry, and demand began to peak for all energy - the average load factor for nuclear has made a rather dramatic year-to-year gain. And also it should be noted that the older wind turbines were not as efficient as they are now. If you compare "old vs new", or "budgeted" instead of "actual" you can put a lot of "spin" on the numbers (pun intended). And only recently has reliable actual results from the larger wind farms been available without some glossing over the problems of mechanical failure - which has been severe up to 2000. Here is the story for nuclear: "Analysis of Load Factors at Nuclear Power Plants" by Michael T. Maloney is one of several articles which has looked at this - followed by an "truth" site about wind costing: http://www.truthaboutenergy.com/Wind.htm It is a "truth" site because in contrast to the wind advocacy groups - which this site claims are trying to present a distorted "socila engineering" picture of what wind energy "should cost" - they strive (claim to strive) to find actual costs, as opposed to budgeted costs. The world-wide historical experience for the past half century in nuclear load factor is 69.4% for reactors currently operating, and 68.3 percent for all commercial reactors over all time. Often one will see 70% as the average which is used in planning. However, in 2002 all reactors currently operating in the world hit an average of 85%. Since this is an average, it includes down time for refueling and since most of these reactors are older, it is a rather meaningful indicator that it is now high time to use the newer figures in planning - when we want to compare true costs vs. wind or solar. This is a rather spectacular difference since 85% compared to 70% (if 70% was used in the planning stages) is not merely an improvement of 15% towards a goal of full optimization (which is impossible due to refueling) but is a comparative increase of actual over planned of 15/70 or 21+ percent. With the emphasis on *actual* as opposed to "budgeted" or "faceplate." So lets say we use the 85% number since it is actual. What is the actual number for wind energy? Best I can tell it is not known and very site dependent. There is a maximum of 27+%. I have never seen a higher reported actual number for the average over one year for any site. In Italy, the government reports actual at 19% for last year. In California, where the foothills are extraordinarily windy, and you have the largest wind farms in the USA, and you can see from the table a quarter of the way down this page that the actual figure is 22.2% http://www.truthaboutenergy.com/Wind.htm Bottom line: when you compare **actual load factor** for recent years of wind energy vs. nuclear energy -- there is generally a 4:1 advantage for nuclear in the load-factor category. Like it or not - there is no better way to state it than a four to one difference in load factor as things stand now in terms of *actual* performance based on modern recent yearly result - so why fight it with meaningless "spin"? Jones
