[RD] Daily Graphs and Charts

[Arwon]

Wind can in fact cover 30% of a country's energy needs and yeah, that's a big part of what Japan is looking at along with geothermal which I've read estimates say can provide about half of Japan's electricity needs.

They're also targeting energy use savings.

They'll probably also increase their uptake of Australian LNG.

 

[Winner]

Wind can in fact cover 30% of a country's energy needs and yeah, that's a big part of what Japan is looking at along with geothermal which I've read estimates say can provide about half of Japan's electricity needs.

Castles in the air and pies in the sky.

They'll probably also increase their uptake of Australian LNG.

Which just proves the stupidity of abandoning nuclear energy.

 

[Arwon]

Castles in the air and pies in the sky.

What are you basing that on, exactly? Show us your data, man.

 

[Winner]

What are you basing that on, exactly? Show us your data, man.

Show me yours Random studies that you've ninja edited out of your previous post won't do.

Japan produces 30% of its electricity in nuclear power plants which really exist. They constitute an asset that is present and working as opposed to "renewable energy" pipe dreams which would cost enormous sums of money and still fall short of what nuclear energy can deliver cleanly and safely right now.

Abandoning nuclear energy because your people screwed up and you got hit by a massive earthquake is stupid and irrational. Rambling about subsidies for nuclear energy is ludicrous considering that renewables would never even lift off the ground without them.

Safeguarding the existing nuclear power plants against the kind of disaster Japan experienced last year and building new, safer ones in the future is much more sensible course of action. Japan is a major industrial country and it needs reliable, effective and affordable supply of electricity that nuclear power plants can deliver, as has been demonstrated in many other countries.

 

[Arwon]

Yeah, firstly, nuclear power gets ongoing subsidies, which if you close those plants down, are obviously freed up for re-investment. The reality is that in Japan some plants will close, others will not. The old and unsafe ones should absolutely close down.

Secondly, dismissal of wind power as a major, mature and reliable source of power can only be based on ignorance. I've already posted in this very thread about the lifetime levelised cost-competitiveness of wind power, and putting one's hands over one's ears and shouting "intermittency" like people haven't thought of that is silly. And shows a misunderstanding of what "base load" actually is.

Thirdly though, "safeguarding the existing nuclear power plants against the kind of disaster Japan experienced last year and building new, safer ones in the future is much more sensible course of action" kinda costs lots of money anyway. Nuclear power is very expensive to set up or modify, and not getting any cheaper as regulations tighten (its capital costs per unit of lifetime output are already higher than wind and it also has ongoing fuel costs, unlike wind).

Japan's gotta spend lots of money here regardless, even if they decide to stick with all their current nuclear power plants (including the vulnerable and damaged ones).

And given the abundant wind and geothermal energy available and not being tapped in Japan (and given that Toshiba and Marubeni jointly have well over 50% of the geothermal technology market), they'd be pretty stupid not to follow through on their current push in those directions even alongside a nuclear presence reduced to the safer and newer plants.

Edit: Oh and finally, on energy security, Japan already gets most of its uranium from us and Canada anyway, so I'm not sure how nuclear represents energy security anyway. Particularly when you dismissed LNG exports from here on those very grounds?

 

[Winner]

Yeah, firstly, nuclear power gets ongoing subsidies, which if you close those plants down, are obviously freed up for re-investment. The reality is that in Japan some plants will close, others will not. The old and unsafe ones should absolutely close down.

Unsafe... This hysteria would be mildly amusing, if it wasn't so dangerous.

Secondly, dismissal of wind power as a major, mature and reliable source of power can only be based on ignorance. I've already posted in this very thread about the lifetime levelised cost-competitiveness of wind power, and putting one's hands over one's ears and shouting "intermittency" like people haven't thought of that is silly. And shows a misunderstanding of what "base load" actually is.

Which is not what I am doing. I am saying that wind power can never cover 30% of Japan's energy needs, not without astronomically high investment that would probably increase the price of electricity in Japan so much that the country's export industry would suffer.

It's not a coincidence that the countries which have invested the most in this type of energy have the highest price of electricity in the world (e.g. Denmark, soon also Germany. France on the other hand has very cheap electricity - surprise surprise.)

Thirdly though, "safeguarding the existing nuclear power plants against the kind of disaster Japan experienced last year and building new, safer ones in the future is much more sensible course of action" kinda costs lots of money anyway.

Well, duh. I said that it makes far more sense to invest money into developing an existing asset than building a castle in the air.

Nuclear power is very expensive to set up or modify, and not getting any cheaper as regulations tighten (its capital costs per unit of lifetime output are already higher than wind and it also has ongoing fuel costs, unlike wind).

Claims claims. And the Fukushima screw-up had nothing to do with the reactor itself, it was a failure of the secondary electric generator used to provide power for the reactor mechanisms in case of emergency. For some reason, nobody thought it could be damaged by a tsunami. That is a criminal oversight, but hardly a reason to abandon nuclear energy in a stupid knee-jerk response.

Contrary to the beliefs of renewable energy fanboys, nuclear energy is developing and each generation of reactors are better, safer (if that's even possible, given that they already are much safer than any other source of energy), and cleaner. With proper reprocessing of nuclear fuel, you can squeeze a lot of energy from the same load of nuclear fuel, thus reducing the overall fuel requirements.

Japan's gotta spend lots of money here regardless, even if they decide to stick with all their current nuclear power plants (including the vulnerable and damaged ones).

Far less if they choose the sensible option - going with what they already have.

And given the abundant wind and geothermal energy available and not being tapped in Japan (and given that Toshiba and Marubeni jointly have well over 50% of the geothermal technology market), they'd be pretty stupid not to follow through on their current push in those directions even alongside a nuclear presence reduced to the safer and newer plants.

By all means, if it's economical, develop it. Not at the expense of a proven and reliable energy source because people are irrationally afraid of something, though.

Edit: Oh and finally, on energy security, Japan already gets most of its uranium from us and Canada anyway, so I'm not sure how nuclear represents energy security anyway. Particularly when you dismissed LNG exports from here on those very grounds?

You need far less uranium to deliver the required amount of power to the grid than LNG, coal, oil, or the other fossil crap. And as I said above, nuclear "waste" can be reprocessed and used again, only a few percent of it is actually spent. Japan should invest into that, and then actually increase the share of nuclear in its energy portfolio.

---

Anyway, less talk, more graphs:

 

[Arwon]

Dude. Graph is here. Lifetime levelised cost of building wind power is cheaper than building nuclear power. Replacing a nuclear power plant with equivalent wind capacity instead of another nuclear power plant is actually literally cheaper in life time per GWh costs now.

Note that it's the same source but a year after that one you've posted.

 

[Winner]

It would help if you actually read what your table says

(If there is a word in the English language which makes anyone who uses it look like an idiot, it's "dude".)

 

[Arwon]

Wind total system levelised cost $97/MWh, geothermal $102/MWh advanced nuclear $114/MWh?

OMG

Dude.

Edit: what is it you think that graph is proving, given that it's the same data from an earlier edition of the EIA energy outlook?

Edit edit: and even then, it actually shows geothermal barely different to nuclear power?

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Contrary to the beliefs of renewable energy fanboys, nuclear energy is developing and each generation of reactors are better, safer (if that's even possible, given that they already are much safer than any other source of energy)...

..well thinking on it with wind power there is always this terrible danger of the turbine breaking down in a hurricane and the flying blades hiting you on the head but i cant imagine similar dangers for solar or geothermal.

 

[Winner]

Wind total system levelised cost $97/MWh, geothermal $102/MWh advanced nuclear $114/MWh?

I love how you "forgot" to mention offshore wind which is practically the only form of wind energy that can realistically compete with the existing centralized sources (after massive investments into the grid) - 243.2 $/MWh The difference in cost between nuclear and geothermal (if applicable) is trivial, with the fact being that nuclear is here, whereas geothermal on such a scale has never even been attempted (Iceland is a country of 400,000 people for Gods' sake). Also, I don't see how geothermal plants (piping water into the ground) would be more immune to earthquakes than nuclear plants.

In any case, these estimates are way too optimistic. I'll believe it when I see it, so far it hasn't been demonstrated. Hence, abandoning an existing asset in favour of something that may or may not be practically achieved would be a gamble with the country's future, which is the point I am trying to make here. I am quite tired of your obstinacy, so I'll leave it here.

OMG

Dude.

"Duuuuuuude"

Edit: what is it you think that graph is proving, given that it's the same data from an earlier edition of the EIA energy outlook?

Eh, I posted it because it's nicer? Are you high or something?

..well thinking on it with wind power there is always this terrible danger of the turbine breaking down in a hurricane and the flying blades hiting you on the head but i cant imagine similar dangers for solar or geothermal.

Energy Source --- Death Rate (deaths per TWh)

Coal – world average --- 161 (26% of world energy, 50% of electricity)
Coal – China --- 278
Coal – USA --- 15
Oil --- 36 (36% of world energy)
Natural Gas --- 4 (21% of world energy)
Biofuel/Biomass --- 12
Peat --- 12
Solar (rooftop) --- 0.44 (less than 0.1% of world energy)
Wind --- 0.15 (less than 1% of world energy)
Hydro --- 0.10 (europe death rate, 2.2% of world energy)
Hydro - world including Banqiao) --- 1.4 (about 2500 TWh/yr and 171,000 Banqiao dead)
Nuclear --- 0.04 (5.9% of world energy)

source

It's not just about disasters, it's about the inherent risks associated with using these power sources. Don't take me wrong, renewables are pretty safe compared to coal or oil, but nuclear energy is safer considering its overall energy output.

There are different numbers, just google it and see what you find.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

According to your link, deaths in wind and solar are due to laboral accidents in related industries (concrete and steel mostly) because those energies mean also many working hours, which surely is a good thing. I agree though that working is unsafe and unhealthy and should be avoided at all cost.

Seriously, nuclear has a latent danger there and while the risk is as you say tiny the danger (aka potential harm in risk management language) is pretty big. So if there is other possibilities of similar or even slighty higher cost we should try them. I think that "nuclear is already here" is a very poor argument. If we were to apply to everything we would be still in the stone age.

 

[Winner]

Seriously, nuclear has a latent danger there and while the risk is as you say tiny the danger (aka potential harm in risk management language) is pretty big. So if there is other possibilities of similar or even slighty higher cost we should try them. I think that "nuclear is already here" is a very poor argument. If we were to apply to everything we would be still in the stone age.

No, sorry, that is simply not true.

Nuclear energy *is* safe. The two most serious accidents up to date (just two) were both totally preventable and are by no means an argument for a total abandonment of nuclear energy, especially given its many advantages. (20+ kids died in a bus crash in Switzerland a couple of days ago, will we stop using buses and switch to alternate means of transportation instead?)

The argument that it's already there isn't poor, it's decisive. If you have invested a lot of time and energy into building something that works, it would be stupid to abandon it just because a few people are irrationally scared of it. You don't invest your life's savings into a house, only to abandon it two years later because you tripped on a wrongly placed stair.

I am not even against renewable energy, I am just very sceptical about the claims some people make that it can cheaply and reliably cover a major industrial country's needs. Stable, centralized, large-output power plants will always have an advantage over decentralized, energy-thin power generators. Renewables should be used where they can compete without outrageous subsidies. I don't see them providing more than 25% of major countries' power needs any time soon.

In the long term, fusion power plants should replace fossil fuel burning plants and nuclear fission plants, but in the meantime, nuclear is the best way of delivering the energy we need.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

While i am not against nuclear power either i can undersand the fears aout it. The problem is that nobody knows exactly the real effects nuclear accidents have. Take Chernobyl for insance. Some studies counts the affected people in the thousands others in millions. Also, accidents are never totally avoidable, ever, there is always a risk, even if this is insignificant. All this puts uncertainty around nuclear power which people dont like at all and you cant impose something on this people since they are not "a few" but many. Most people i would say.

Also, I think that investigating and developing several alternatives is much better that to rely on nuclear power only and not much more expensive as has already been discussed here. It may be important to solve any possible future contingency too (imagine for instance some new ugly nuclear accident occurs and people want to leave nuclear power definitely). It is also technologically rewarding in the long term.

 

[Riffraff]

Ok, there are many valid reasons against nuclear power plants, but safety really isn't one of them. Check the statistic of the european physical society keeping in mind the logarithmic scaling.

link to pic

It is undebatable imo that nuclear power has and will save lots of lives, especially considering coal is still the major alternative.

Good arguments against nuclear powerplants include risk of proliferation, hidden subsedies by governments, centralizing energy in few massive corporations due to huge up-front costs etc..

I still prefer the nuclear+renewables option above the coal+renewable option, which is being brought back here in Germany.

 

[Joecoolyo]

Good arguments against nuclear powerplants include risk of proliferation, hidden subsedies by governments, centralizing energy in few massive corporations due to huge up-front costs etc..

You missed the best one, there is only so much uranium in this world. I remember reading that if the entire planet, as of now, ran on nuclear energy, we'd only have 20 years until all the uranium ran out.

 

[Arwon]

I love how you "forgot" to mention offshore wind which is practically the only form of wind energy that can realistically compete with the existing centralized sources (after massive investments into the grid) - 243.2 $/MWh

Uh, what? That's just completely untrue. Spain gets 19% of its electricity from wind and has no offshore wind. Texas is tracking to about 16% once it gets its transmission links up and running, same deal.

In any case, these estimates are way too optimistic. I'll believe it when I see it, so far it hasn't been demonstrated. Hence, abandoning an existing asset in favour of something that may or may not be practically achieved would be a gamble with the country's future, which is the point I am trying to make here. I am quite tired of your obstinacy, so I'll leave it here.

What is optimistic about taking current observable costs and dividing them into total output over a plant's lifetime, to get a per-unit cost figure? Where is the optimism there? You're dismissing data out of hand based on gut feelings and vibes and ill-informed perceptions here.

Why would the friggin American Energy Information Agency be in the business of pumping up renewable energy? They're a very conservative organisation, like most government energy information bodies. Besides which, levelised cost of energy is the standard, and the only way you can properly compare different generation sources with different capital vs O&M cost structures.


Edit: Also this?

That's the baseload fallacy:

I am not even against renewable energy, I am just very sceptical about the claims some people make that it can cheaply and reliably cover a major industrial country's needs. Stable, centralized, large-output power plants will always have an advantage over decentralized, energy-thin power generators. Renewables should be used where they can compete without outrageous subsidies. I don't see them providing more than 25% of major countries' power needs any time soon.

All a wide area synchronous grid needs is enough supply in the system to meet demands at all time. The fixedness, centrality or constancy of an output source actually doesn't matter at all. All that matters is that the aggregate output is high enough from moment to moment. Electrons are electrons after all.

That's why we have market operators and a constantly shifting supply mix as demand and wholesale costs change from minute to minute. The systems already handle great fluctuations of supply and demand through their dispatch process. They already have generators coming online and offline from moment to moment. Handling a new type of variation - the fluctuations associated with intermittency - has not proven to be a technical obstacle in any of the electricity markets where wind makes up a decent component of total supply.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Texas is tracking to about 16% once it gets its transmission links up and running, same deal.

How long is that going to take?

Currently online: 10,337 Megawatts (MW)
Added in 2011: 270 MW
Added in 2010: 680 MW
Under construction: 847 MW
Wind projects in queue: 63,504 MW

'In queue' could be a couple of years or a few decades.

Percentage of Texas power provided by wind in 2010: 6.4%

http://www.awea.org/learnabout/publications/upload/4Q-11-Texas.pdf

Iowa is a better example. Does being one of the flattest states help with wind power?

Percentage of Iowa power from wind in 2010: 15.4%

Currently online: 4,322 megawatts (MW)
Added in 2011: 647 MW
Under construction: 470 MW
Wind projects in queue: 14,569 MW

http://www.awea.org/learnabout/publications/factsheets/upload/4Q-11-Iowa.pdf

 

[Arwon]

MW isn't the key number, it's GWh. MW is just installed capacity, GWh measures effective output. Conventional power plants can expect 90% output but wind power in a given system can vary from under 10% to over 30% of nameplate capacity, depending on the number of generators, and the quality of connection to the grid.

My understanding is Texas' output is limited by inadequate transmission from remote wind generation sites currently, so there's scope to increase output by simply allowing more effective delivery of more electricity from those areas. For example, an increase from 15% capacity factor to 30% capacity factor on 10337 MW would increase output from roughly 13500 GWh / yr to 27000 GWh / yr.

I don't have the figures to hand, but eyeballing the ones in your post, it must also mean they're factoring in some new construction, because doubling 6.4% only gives you 13%.

 

[Monsterzuma]

Neoclassicals regard a loan as merely a transfer from a saver (or “patient agent”) to a borrower (or “impatient agent”), as in Krugman’s “New Keynesian” model of our current crisis:

"In what follows, we begin by setting out a flexible-price endowment model in which “impatient” agents borrow from “patient” agents, but are subject to a debt limit." (Krugman and Eggertsson 2010, p. 3)

With that model of lending, a change in the level of debt has no inherent macroeconomic impact: the lender’s spending power goes down, the borrower’s goes up, and the two changes roughly cancel each other out.

in the real world, banks lend to non-bank agents, giving them spending power without reducing the spending power of other non-bank agents. The difference between the neoclassical model of lending and the real world is easily illustrated using transaction tables. Figure 2 illustrates the neoclassical model (with an implicit banking sector): in this world, a change in the level of debt has no macroeconomic implications.

Figure 2: Neoclassical perspective on lending
		Assets		Deposits (Liabilities)
Action/Actor			Patient		Impatient
Make Loan			+Lend		-Lend

Figure 3 illustrates what actually happens: the bank creates a new deposit and a new loan simultaneously, adding to Impatient’s spending power without reducing Patient’s.

Figure 3: Real-world lending
		Bank Assets	Bank Deposits (Liabilities)
Action/Actor			Patient		Impatient
Make Loan	+Lend				-Lend

http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2012/03/15/economics-without-a-blind-spot-on-debt/

Steve Keen's take on what mainstream economics gets wrong about the lending process. I think the tables qualify as graphs.