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Problem is that these are political markets not market markets. Denmark spent a lot of money on getting their windmill industry up and running and windmills sti

Problem is that these are political markets not market markets. Denmark spent a lot of money on getting their windmill industry up and running and windmills still aren't solving the base problem as they aren't reliable for all sorts of weather. Furthermore, windmilss don't really scale well, Nuclear on the other hand which is both safer and more scalable and greener would change that but right now only the Chinese seems to have realized that.

swebs 9y ago
You know Europe is developing a fusion reactor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMOnstration_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMOnstration_Power_Station
- ThomPete 9y ago
  Sure but good luck getting a country to install it in this current political climate. The US is even worse of when it comes to getting Nuclear back in vouge.
- strictnein 9y ago
  Countries have been "developing" fusion power for decades. It'll arrive shortly after quantum powered personal computers.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    Good that you put "developing" into air quotes. If I pay one single developer for 50 years to build me all technology Google has, I still won’t get anywhere. If you want to actually develop nuclear, you need to increase investment. By a factor of ten or more.
Brakenshire 9y ago
The biggest rollout of these turbines is in the UK, which is in the middle of commissioning and building new nuclear. Also, the latest turbine installations are being built without subsidy. And, the capacity factor has gone way up.
alex_hitchins 9y ago
Not disagreeing with you, but how do you come to the conclusion that Nuclear is safer and also more scaleable?
- swebs 9y ago
  I don't know about safety, but nuclear plants produce much more energy per square meter. Wind turbines must also be installed in such a configuration to not have their airflow blocked by obstacles, including other turbines. Nuclear plants also do not require external energy storage since they can run 24/7.
- jabl 9y ago
  The first DDG hit for "electricity production deaths per kwh" is https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d... (Not saying Forbes is a reliable source on this particular statistic, but maybe you can find a more authoritative one if you search?) As for scalability, I guess the argument is that wind is somewhat limited by suitable sites, whereas nuclear produces a lot of power on a small area, with fuel lasting for millenia?
  - alex_hitchins 9y ago
    I believe the current assessment of the saftey are based on how many people have died related to each production method. I was thinking more along the lines of it's safety should there be a disaster or more with risk in mind. Nuclear power stations of old I thought were located by seas or other large bodies of water for the cooling in an emergency, as we saw with Fukushima. I'd guess newer designed, especially things like Fusion and Molten Salt wouldn't have this same requirement and be inherently 'safer'. Edit to say - I'd like to see Nuclear given much more attention by governments. As we aren't using a byproduct for generation (as with those used to refine whatever for bombs) we can do it in a much easier and cleaner way without the previous constraints.
    - ThomPete 9y ago
gehsty 9y ago
Can you please define doesn’t scale well? I work in this industry, wind farms have gone from <50MW, to 200-300MW to 1.2GW in the last 10yrs, with 1.8-2.4GW in the very near pipeline, all whilst going from huge subsidies to the latest auction (in the Netherlands) being awarded to a zero subsidy bid, with rumour of their being negative auctions for for future rounds... For reference the new nuclear in the UK (Hinkley 3.2gw) is receiving a £93/mwh subsidy, offshore wind uk project Hornsea two (1.8gw)is going to get £72mwh, and the Netherlands projects are receiving a zero subsidy for ~750mw projects. It is not going to solve our energy crisis but there are virtually no negatives to building them now, if you have a coastline you can have zero subsidy clean energy in the next 5-10yrs.
- ThomPete 9y ago
  The amount of energy needed will increase even though we become better and better at optimizing the individual items power usage. In other words, wind and solar are linear solutions to exponential problems. I have nothing against wind or solar but the idea that wind and solar will be able to solve our energy problems is based on a political mandate, not on science or any realistic evaluation of the energy needs of the world. Wind can't run as long as nuclear can without maintenance and the cost is also going to be higher to maintain because of the large area it occupies. The cost of Nuclear is suffering under the lack of political support compared to alternatives. Furthermore, alternatives are not without problems: "The first thing he discovered is that solar panels, in fact, contain significant quantities of toxic metals like lead, chromium, and cadmium — known carcinogens — and yet no nation outside of Europe has a plan to safely dispose of them. Many could end up in waste dumps in poor communities in Asia and Africa and poison drinking water supplies. How much solar waste is there? About 300 times more per unit of energy than there is from nuclear power. As a result, if solar and nuclear waste from producing the same amount of electricity were stacked on football fields, the nuclear waste would reach the height of the Leaning Tower of Pisa (52 meters), while the solar waste would reach the height of two Mt. Everest (16 km)." http://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2017/6/22/the-case-for-100-percent-renewables-rested-on-a-lie-heres-what-it-teaches-us-about-energy-and-the-environment http://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2017/6/22/the-case... And here is a study debunking the idea of alternatives as a realistic alternative (I am not saying you claim they are but that was my main point) http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/06/16/1610381114.full http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/06/16/1610381114.full

swebs 9y ago

You know Europe is developing a fusion reactor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMOnstration_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMOnstration_Power_Station

ThomPete 9y ago
Sure but good luck getting a country to install it in this current political climate. The US is even worse of when it comes to getting Nuclear back in vouge.
strictnein 9y ago
Countries have been "developing" fusion power for decades. It'll arrive shortly after quantum powered personal computers.
- kuschku 9y ago
  Good that you put "developing" into air quotes. If I pay one single developer for 50 years to build me all technology Google has, I still won’t get anywhere. If you want to actually develop nuclear, you need to increase investment. By a factor of ten or more.

Brakenshire 9y ago

The biggest rollout of these turbines is in the UK, which is in the middle of commissioning and building new nuclear. Also, the latest turbine installations are being built without subsidy. And, the capacity factor has gone way up.

alex_hitchins 9y ago

Not disagreeing with you, but how do you come to the conclusion that Nuclear is safer and also more scaleable?

swebs 9y ago
I don't know about safety, but nuclear plants produce much more energy per square meter. Wind turbines must also be installed in such a configuration to not have their airflow blocked by obstacles, including other turbines. Nuclear plants also do not require external energy storage since they can run 24/7.
jabl 9y ago
The first DDG hit for "electricity production deaths per kwh" is https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d... (Not saying Forbes is a reliable source on this particular statistic, but maybe you can find a more authoritative one if you search?) As for scalability, I guess the argument is that wind is somewhat limited by suitable sites, whereas nuclear produces a lot of power on a small area, with fuel lasting for millenia?
- alex_hitchins 9y ago
  I believe the current assessment of the saftey are based on how many people have died related to each production method. I was thinking more along the lines of it's safety should there be a disaster or more with risk in mind. Nuclear power stations of old I thought were located by seas or other large bodies of water for the cooling in an emergency, as we saw with Fukushima. I'd guess newer designed, especially things like Fusion and Molten Salt wouldn't have this same requirement and be inherently 'safer'. Edit to say - I'd like to see Nuclear given much more attention by governments. As we aren't using a byproduct for generation (as with those used to refine whatever for bombs) we can do it in a much easier and cleaner way without the previous constraints.
  - ThomPete 9y ago

gehsty 9y ago

Can you please define doesn’t scale well? I work in this industry, wind farms have gone from <50MW, to 200-300MW to 1.2GW in the last 10yrs, with 1.8-2.4GW in the very near pipeline, all whilst going from huge subsidies to the latest auction (in the Netherlands) being awarded to a zero subsidy bid, with rumour of their being negative auctions for for future rounds... For reference the new nuclear in the UK (Hinkley 3.2gw) is receiving a £93/mwh subsidy, offshore wind uk project Hornsea two (1.8gw)is going to get £72mwh, and the Netherlands projects are receiving a zero subsidy for ~750mw projects. It is not going to solve our energy crisis but there are virtually no negatives to building them now, if you have a coastline you can have zero subsidy clean energy in the next 5-10yrs.

ThomPete 9y ago
The amount of energy needed will increase even though we become better and better at optimizing the individual items power usage. In other words, wind and solar are linear solutions to exponential problems. I have nothing against wind or solar but the idea that wind and solar will be able to solve our energy problems is based on a political mandate, not on science or any realistic evaluation of the energy needs of the world. Wind can't run as long as nuclear can without maintenance and the cost is also going to be higher to maintain because of the large area it occupies. The cost of Nuclear is suffering under the lack of political support compared to alternatives. Furthermore, alternatives are not without problems: "The first thing he discovered is that solar panels, in fact, contain significant quantities of toxic metals like lead, chromium, and cadmium — known carcinogens — and yet no nation outside of Europe has a plan to safely dispose of them. Many could end up in waste dumps in poor communities in Asia and Africa and poison drinking water supplies. How much solar waste is there? About 300 times more per unit of energy than there is from nuclear power. As a result, if solar and nuclear waste from producing the same amount of electricity were stacked on football fields, the nuclear waste would reach the height of the Leaning Tower of Pisa (52 meters), while the solar waste would reach the height of two Mt. Everest (16 km)." http://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2017/6/22/the-case-for-100-percent-renewables-rested-on-a-lie-heres-what-it-teaches-us-about-energy-and-the-environment http://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2017/6/22/the-case... And here is a study debunking the idea of alternatives as a realistic alternative (I am not saying you claim they are but that was my main point) http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/06/16/1610381114.full http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/06/16/1610381114.full