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The Harsh Realities of Energy

6 points by peter123 18y ago

RobertL 18y ago
The focus of this article is 180 degrees off from where our focus needs to be on this subject. Cheap energy is the life blood of the world's middle class. The notion of "limits" is extremely aristocratic and will ultimately spell financial disaster to anyone who isn't an aristocrat.
randallsquared 18y ago
The solution to the problems of wealth is not poverty. Cutting back is only ever a short-term solution for resource problems; switching to a more abundant source (or a different resource altogether) is also typically short-term, but has the advantage that wealth can continue to grow at the astounding rates it did over the past 200 years, which means our much wealthier selves or descendants of tomorrow will be better able to solve problems. Basically, if you can put off hard problems that are essentially technical in nature, do so.
donw 18y ago
So we cut back, and every other developing country will readily take up the slack. Basically, this is yet another article telling us to all live in teepees. I'm still a firm believer that the solution lies in technology -- in developing more efficient tech, and better ways of generating power to run it.
- jibiki 18y ago
  The article does go way overboard, but there are some simple ways in which Americans could (and will) cut back: more people will start commuting via public transportation instead of cars, for instance (or ever just telecommuting.)
- Harkins 18y ago
  Check out James Howard Kunstler's book "The Long Emergency". He does a good job of pointing out the serious inadequacies of alternative tech, futility of efficiency (given where we are on the Hubbert curve), and points out that's it's going to be even harder to develop new energy technologies as our current ones fail.
jerf 18y ago
A transition to nuclear is not fraught with hard technical problems and apprehensions... it is only fraught with apprehensions. The problem of overcoming those apprehensions is much easier to solve than demanding that the unscalable solutions like wind or solar suddenly start scaling. Part of what frustrates me about the whole energy discussion is that, frankly, we know the solutions, it's just that they aren't acceptable for non-engineering reasons, mostly irrational fears. (I'm not saying all fission fears are irrational by definition, but most are irrational. On the internet, this often takes the form of people giving themselves cover by convincing themselves they are citing technical issues, but when it is pointed out that those issues already have solutions, their minds don't change. And most frustrating at all, the reason those solutions aren't acceptable is simply because Nuclear is Bad. Don't tell me about how to process waste or how to better store it, I already know Nuclear is Bad and I don't need to think any more about it...) (And so help me... if any fusion ever becomes practical and people start complaining about it being nuclear, I think I will have to punch them.)
- sethg 18y ago
  The problems with nuclear are not so much technical as economic. Moody's Investor Services, hardly an outfit run by hippie freaks, estimates that a new nuclear plant will cost over $5,000 per kilowatt to build--twice as much as solar and four times as much as natural gas. The government is offering massive subsidies to build nuclear plants and power companies still don't want to take the plunge. Source: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2009/0901.blake.html http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2009/0901.blake.ht...
  - RobertL 18y ago
    But nuclear kilowatts are "real kilowatts". Wind and solar kilowatts are "when the sun happens to be shining or the wind happens to be blowing at the right speed" kilowats. Most discussions on the subject fail to differentiate.
  - catz 18y ago
    I did not read the whole article - just scanned through it (it is long). Firstly, it Focusses on a reactor in Finland and most of those costs are very recent. Your stats of the above is probably based on this part: > In October 2007, Moody’s Investor Services piled on with a report projecting that new reactors would cost $5,000 to $6,000 per kilowatt to build, or up to $12 billion per unit. This figure, which was based on actual bids for new reactors in the United States, caused considerable sticker shock. Current prices for nuclear reactors shot up extremely over the past 5 years. This is because nuclear power became an option for a lot of countries (with global warming fears). The problem with this is that it increased costs significantly. Being a very specialized field, construction of new nuclear power stations can not just be increased as demand increases. As a good example - there is only one company that can forge a reactor vessel in one step - and it has a backlog of more than 5 years. See this for an example: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&refer=home&sid=aaVMzCTMz3ms http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&refer=ho...
paulhart 18y ago
Thanks for the link. It's another data point in a line of thinking I'm currently researching. Unlike donw, I don't believe teepees are the answer though ;)

6 points by peter123 18y ago

The focus of this article is 180 degrees off from where our focus needs to be on this subject. Cheap energy is the life blood of the world's middle class. The notion of "limits" is extremely aristocratic and will ultimately spell financial disaster to anyone who isn't an aristocrat.

randallsquared 18y ago

The solution to the problems of wealth is not poverty. Cutting back is only ever a short-term solution for resource problems; switching to a more abundant source (or a different resource altogether) is also typically short-term, but has the advantage that wealth can continue to grow at the astounding rates it did over the past 200 years, which means our much wealthier selves or descendants of tomorrow will be better able to solve problems. Basically, if you can put off hard problems that are essentially technical in nature, do so.

donw 18y ago

So we cut back, and every other developing country will readily take up the slack. Basically, this is yet another article telling us to all live in teepees. I'm still a firm believer that the solution lies in technology -- in developing more efficient tech, and better ways of generating power to run it.

jibiki 18y ago
The article does go way overboard, but there are some simple ways in which Americans could (and will) cut back: more people will start commuting via public transportation instead of cars, for instance (or ever just telecommuting.)
Harkins 18y ago
Check out James Howard Kunstler's book "The Long Emergency". He does a good job of pointing out the serious inadequacies of alternative tech, futility of efficiency (given where we are on the Hubbert curve), and points out that's it's going to be even harder to develop new energy technologies as our current ones fail.

jerf 18y ago

A transition to nuclear is not fraught with hard technical problems and apprehensions... it is only fraught with apprehensions. The problem of overcoming those apprehensions is much easier to solve than demanding that the unscalable solutions like wind or solar suddenly start scaling. Part of what frustrates me about the whole energy discussion is that, frankly, we know the solutions, it's just that they aren't acceptable for non-engineering reasons, mostly irrational fears. (I'm not saying all fission fears are irrational by definition, but most are irrational. On the internet, this often takes the form of people giving themselves cover by convincing themselves they are citing technical issues, but when it is pointed out that those issues already have solutions, their minds don't change. And most frustrating at all, the reason those solutions aren't acceptable is simply because Nuclear is Bad. Don't tell me about how to process waste or how to better store it, I already know Nuclear is Bad and I don't need to think any more about it...) (And so help me... if any fusion ever becomes practical and people start complaining about it being nuclear, I think I will have to punch them.)

sethg 18y ago
The problems with nuclear are not so much technical as economic. Moody's Investor Services, hardly an outfit run by hippie freaks, estimates that a new nuclear plant will cost over $5,000 per kilowatt to build--twice as much as solar and four times as much as natural gas. The government is offering massive subsidies to build nuclear plants and power companies still don't want to take the plunge. Source: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2009/0901.blake.html http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2009/0901.blake.ht...
- RobertL 18y ago
  But nuclear kilowatts are "real kilowatts". Wind and solar kilowatts are "when the sun happens to be shining or the wind happens to be blowing at the right speed" kilowats. Most discussions on the subject fail to differentiate.
- catz 18y ago
  I did not read the whole article - just scanned through it (it is long). Firstly, it Focusses on a reactor in Finland and most of those costs are very recent. Your stats of the above is probably based on this part: > In October 2007, Moody’s Investor Services piled on with a report projecting that new reactors would cost $5,000 to $6,000 per kilowatt to build, or up to $12 billion per unit. This figure, which was based on actual bids for new reactors in the United States, caused considerable sticker shock. Current prices for nuclear reactors shot up extremely over the past 5 years. This is because nuclear power became an option for a lot of countries (with global warming fears). The problem with this is that it increased costs significantly. Being a very specialized field, construction of new nuclear power stations can not just be increased as demand increases. As a good example - there is only one company that can forge a reactor vessel in one step - and it has a backlog of more than 5 years. See this for an example: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&refer=home&sid=aaVMzCTMz3ms http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&refer=ho...

paulhart 18y ago

Thanks for the link. It's another data point in a line of thinking I'm currently researching. Unlike donw, I don't believe teepees are the answer though ;)