Playing devil’s advocate on wind vs. nuclear
I know wind energy on its own really shouldn’t be pitted against nuclear, but ultimately any article touting the benefits of wind technology and the need to embrace even more wind — including offshore — sparks response from anti-wind or pro-nuke folks (or both) who immediately shoot down the usefulness and cost of wind. I get a lot of such e-mails, so I figured I’d play devil’s advocate here and post a few of the most common points that poke holes in the wind-energy movement. Many of them are valid questions that need honest responses. I’m posting them here to spark some friendly discussion, since readers of this blog tend to be much more informed on these issues than yours truly. Please keep responses to economics and effectiveness. Moral hangups about nuclear, including proliferation and waste management issues (i.e. what we do with all that toxic waste), don’t equate to a defense of wind. Likewise, the impact of wind turbines on birds and bats and community resistance to wind turbines because of possible noise or aesthetics don’t equate to a defense of nuclear.
Here goes:
1) Wind farms are only designed to last 20 to 25 years, while nuclear plants are designed to last up to 60 years. This means when calculating the cost of wind per installed megawatt the true cost, when comparing to nuclear, should be doubled or tripled. True? Not true? Explain.
2) Estimates of load factor for proposed wind farms, both onshore and offshore, too often fail to match reality. This makes wind even less economical compared to nuclear. True? Not true? Explain.
3) While Germany and Denmark are often cited as success stories for wind in terms of job and industry creation, these countries have had difficulty integrating wind into their grid mix. True? Not true? Explain.
4) Wind variability also affects useability of power — i.e. the power produced can’t be accepted into the grid, forcing curtailment by operators. So even if the wind is blowing we don’t necessarily use the energy. True? Not true? Explain.
5) The cost of wind is higher if you include need for shadow generation to cover times when the wind isn’t blowing. Should this cost be included? Or, depending on the market/jurisdiction, can existing generation manage the intermittency? For example: Ontario wants to get off coal so needs to build natural gas plants anyway. Wouldn’t adding wind mean these plants (and whatever coal we still have) operate less frequently?
6) Natural gas plants that can shadow wind output are generally less efficient because of their need to be highly flexible. This inefficiency offsets any gains (i.e. in terms of greenhouse gas reductions) made by adding wind generation into the mix. True? Not true? Explain.
7) Denmark and Germany tout the benefits of wind only to support growth of their wind industries and technology export to foreign markets, not because it’s a superior form of power generation. True? Not true? Explain.
Cost increases faced by the nuclear industry are affecting all industries, including wind. True? Not true? Explain.
9) Even excluding nuclear, there are better and more economic alternatives out there than wind — i.e. conservation, efficiency — and this is where our money should be going. True? Not true? Explain.
So there you go. Let the debate begin! One thing I will say: Many of the shortfalls of wind have much to do with grid design and our inability to store wind energy so we can smooth out output. We end up shoe-horning wind projects into an inflexible electricity system built over a 100 years to serve massive centralized plants. This might not be the case 10, 20 years from now. So do we want to lock ourselves, and our financial resources, into a 60-year nuclear plant that takes up to 10 years to build, or invest in grid technologies that allow us to more easily accommodate wind and benefit from its potential?
Also — and I think this will always been an issue — nuclear is forever one major accident away from being a non-option. In a way it’s like playing Russian Roulette with our energy system.
Okay, enough from me. Over to you.
Tyler Hamilton is senior energy reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the cleantech market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper. Tyler can be reached at tyler@cleanbreak.ca
March 18th, 2010 at 8:40 pm
Many of these debate points (4,5,6) relate to the same topic, intermittency. From the perspective of an individual location, wind is intermittent, from the perspective of a geographic region like the central territory of the United States, it’s always blowing someplace…
“Variations in wind farm output are a function of geographical
dispersion. Even extreme fluctuations fall from
July 6th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
The problem with most energy debates is the basic reason for producing energy is skipped. The electric generating industry is a service industry tasked with the responsibility of providing electricity when and where it is needed in a reliable, safe, and economical manner.
In the US and Canada, the electric generating industry has accomplished this.
Now, for this debate. There are many locations with wind resources that can be backed up with hydro or natural gas. There are some locations with very poor wind resources.
Since wind turbines can not yet be built fast enough to match growth and there are still many good wind location, the debate should be about where to build wind turbines we have.
July 6th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I do not understand why for most folks it is an either/or situation- I am in favor of building both, and using the nuclear to ‘even out’ the generation of renewable energy sources- not just wind, but solar, wave and tide energy generation. I think there will always be a need for this, no matter how prevalent and cheap alternative energy becomes, and now matter how well even the onsite storate becomes. It seems to me that most alternative energy generation is more vulnerable to either natual or man-made disruption, whereas nuclear, by design, is harder to disrupt.
July 6th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I would add more thing (more germane) to the discussion- factoring in the cost of nuclear waste disposal, which currently is so expensive, no one wants to talk about it;-) Also, the associated health costs of a nuclear reactor meltdown (unlikely) or nuclear waste leakage (much more likely). If a wind turbine falls over, not too many will be hurt;-)
July 6th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
The industrialized west has demonstrated the ability to use nuclear to generate safe, clean power. As for it’s safety record, even counting Chernobyl, the nuclear power industry has caused far less deaths and other health issues than the world’s predominant source of power… coal. For countries such as India and China, where demand for electricity is growing rapidly, nuclear is probably far more desirable than the paths they are on now… coal.
The U.S. however, if it’s willing to pay somewhat higher prices for power, could probably avoid the need for new nuclear if people are truly that freaked out by the risks. To me it seems people are very often irrational in their assessment of risks. Take for instance 150,000 people living in recently built communities sitting right on top of old lahar flows from Mount Rainier… which could erupt at any time. Or building houses in fire prone areas in CA… or what happened in New Orleans. But no one has ever accused public policy of being based on scientific risk assessment.
Concerning the intermittency of wind, there are several ways of addressing that problem.
- Existing hydroelectric facilities could be upgraded to include pumped water storage
- Underground compressed air storage
- Demand side management… hot water storage in buildings for heating and ice storage for cooling can shift massive load over the span of hours
- PHEVs can act as back up generators
- Long distance HVDC transmission lines can match regional supply sources with distant regional loads.
The issue of how much of various types of renewables can be utilized isn’t something that is amenable to intellectual debate. The determination has to be done with detailed computer modeling of historic minute by minute power demand against historic records of wind and sun. This has been done for Europe and the techniques of broader grid connection and hydro storage have been shown to allow very high penetration of renewables. Each country has unique resources and needs. Doing a similar study for the U.S. should already be underway.
July 6th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
Yes, wind power has some challenges facing it today. The fact that T. Boone Pickens is investing a couple of billion dollars in wind farms injdicates wind power likely is a viable long-term energy solution, along with solar power, geothermal power, hydrogen, nuclear and other solutions. And we also need to clean up hydrocarbon emissions and rely heavily on oil, coal and natural gas for the next 20 – 30 years or longer.
Research and more experience with wind power will solve most or all of the problems you have listed. What we need is a commitment to move forward by governments, power companies and investors, and to get the public on-board to support wind and other energy solutions. It is much too early to count out wind or any other possible solution, given today’s limited knowledge and experience.
July 6th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
There are a number of comments here that are very valid – but I think that to a great extent, the real point may be somewhat hidden. Both sources are probably essential for our future. As we eliminate fossil fuel we will need much more electricity, and the source of electricity will have to be low in GHG emissions. Both nuclear and wind meet that test.
The electric utility industry has spent much time and money to ensure that they can meet the system demand when and where needed. Daytime peak demand is often 50-60% higher than night time demand. The wholesale price of energy can vary by more than an order of magnitude between the peak and off peak times. Electricity at night is in surplus and prices fall to near zero (or less) while supplies are very tight and prices are high during the daytime peaks. The reason for the huge swings in price is driven by the inability of the generating plants to change their output quickly. Nuclear generation is very inexpensive to operate – but as a general rule, the plants operate at constant load. Coal fired generating plants generally do not cycle well either. Simple gas turbines, which have an efficiency of about 30% can cycle very well – operating at peak load during periods of high demand, and shutting down at night. Unfortunately, with gas prices at $12/GJ and efficiency low, the GHG contributions are significant and the fuel costs alone are more than 14 cents/kWh. Ontario is currently investing heavily in gas turbine generation as the coal fired generation is eliminated. That leaves hydro, wind and other renewables to be used to take the swings that are not met by the gas turbine facilities. In some cases this can result in wasting renewable energy.
Renewable plants (hydro, wind, solar, tidal, wave etc…) are able to reduce output quickly and respond on the upside, provided there is incoming energy (wind, water, etc.). The best backup for wind (and other similar renewable sources such as tidal or solar) is hydro generation with storage. When wind blows, the hydro plant can store water for use when the wind is not blowing. Very little energy is wasted because hydro generation is typically better than 90% efficient. In Canada, BC, Manitoba and Quebec (including Labrador) have hydro plants with very large storage capabilities. Ontario currently sells large amounts of electricity at night to Quebec. Quebec purchases this energy at a low price, and with the hydro storage that they have, they are able to store the energy for sale to Ontario and/or US utilities at peak times the following day – for a high price.
So the solution is not wind or nuclear; it is likely both. German utilities have suggested that there is a limit on the percentage of wind that can be accommodated on the grid. We are now also seeing that as new generation is added and peak demand is less critical, the new challenge is moving to meeting the off peak… reducing generation to night levels, without wasting renewable resources. The real issue is ensuring that there is capability to reduce generation to the low demand levels seen at night.
Wind advocates suggest greater use of wind as an energy source. This is a great idea, in particular where hydro storage can be used to capture the resources that are not required and save the energy for later use. Nuclear generation has an important role to play as well – but it seems best used as base load generation. It seems a tragedy to have large nuclear capacity which can provide reliable and low cost energy, but result in a need to waste renewable energy at night.
There may yet be a real role for a strong tie line network that runs east and west – not so much for time shifting – but instead to allow the hydro storage in Quebec and Manitoba to be leveraged in conjunction with Ontario nuclear, hydro and wind power.
July 7th, 2008 at 11:49 am
1) You can repower a wind turbine for less than the cost of the original. Maybe even far less, as technology improves the performance of turbines.
2)I’m not aware of load factors coming up far short of estimates, but if they were, it would mean a change to the calculations.
3) I was recently in Denmark and spoke to two engineers at Thy-Mors, who do grid upgrades for wind. They did not characterize wind integration as a problem or suggest that it was difficult. It simply requires investment.
4) Wind variability does require adaptation. A number of storage options are being explored. However, the more turbines and the more dispersed they are, the lower the average variability.
5) I don’t think it’s fair to pin the shadow generation costs on wind. Utilities are required to have sufficient generation to backup any particular power plant.
6) If we’re using the electricity from a wind turbine, I find it hard to believe that the lower efficiency of a gas plant completely offsets the zero carbon wind electricity. And furthermore, don’t we need peaking plants whether or not we have wind?
7) I think Denmark and Germany like wind because it’s the lowest cost zero-carbon, renewable energy source and because it has supported a lot of economic development. In particular, wind generation has been locally owned, so the wind power in those countries has had a much greater benefit to the local economy than in the U.S., where we import turbine components and our turbines are owned by large investment firms instead of locals.
All power plants use steel, and wind turbines are no exception. But when uranium prices double (as they have), wind doesn’t get any more expensive.
9) We should definitely aim at the low-hanging fruit. One negawatt is better than one kilowatt of renewable power. What we really need is significant investment in conservation and efficiency coupled with a moratorium on new fossil fuel generation. But in truth, even that might not get us to the carbon reductions we seek to solve climate change…
I appreciate the exercise, but anyone who thinks nuclear is a great solution is kidding themselves about the massive subsidies for fuel, processing, liability, and waste that we have yet to solve, in addition to the fact that uranium is also a limited resource. And you can’t have a locally-owned nuclear plant, whereas locally owned wind turbines can promote energy self-reliance and rural economic development.
July 7th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
A debate! Oh dear. Tyler you are too progressive for this province!!
Question 9: Should we spend our money on other measures?
I think this should be Question 1. We first have to pick off all the low-hanging fruit before we start spending ridiculous amounts of public money on nuke plants. Strictly economic, conservation and efficiency will provide more Megawatts to the grid than any prime mover technology for cheaper. Ideally, there should be a moratorium on power plants until we reach a defined high efficiency target. Afterwards, we can talk about expanding renewable energy resources. There is just too much opportunity in conservation and efficiency to waste our public money on Nuke Pits.
Question 8: Cost increases? All industrial sectors are feeling the transportation pinch. As oil prices rise, the cost of moving products increase. The solution is to build manufacturing plants, like we read before with Multibrid.
Question 7: Public Interest more than Technological performance? Perhaps, I suppose that is what AECL is up to too. If they do not get a good deal in the next few years, their ACR-1000 unit might not get the positive press it needs to sell to other countries. A lot of good jobs are at stake.
Question 6: Efficiency loss due to shadow generation? This is true, but again it all depends on how the grid is dispatched. It is technically easy to forecast wind a day and even several hours before. So with this information, you can effectively dispatch the most efficiency units to energize the grid.
Question 5: Shadow Generation Costs? Each grid usually has their own method of including shadows and the costs. Even large coal plants have shadow generation. I can see large wind farms displacing coal plants and just using the already built and paid for shadow. Now for new renewable generation (after all things dirty disappear) things could be different. Perhaps storage techniques will improve by then.
Question 4: Very true. I would have to say, grids need to become more integrated. I am sure you have even heard about the Trans-Atlantic power link idea to take advantage of time of use and variability between Europe and North America. It is a bit preposterous, but the concept can be used locally.
Question 3: Wind Trouble in Germany, Denmark? I have read and heard that there are lots of problems. It seems though that they are able to deal with them, because their grids are based on distributed generation concepts. This experience can be read on their respective energy association websites. http://www.danishenergyassociation.com/
Question 2: Load factor does not reflect reality? The number that I usually see for load factor or availability is 30%, while a nuke plant (Darlington) is around 86%. So it is about 3 times more. Data mining through the ISO dispatching database you could find historical availability numbers. Siting of the wind turbine is therefore a very key aspect in increasing this number.
Question 1: Full Life Costs for Power, Nuke vs Wind? Let’s do some math! (note: this is just an educational illustrative estimate)
Nuke Plant: ACR-1000 about $6.4 billion dollars for about 1000 MWe of power at 90% availability. 60 year life. Fuel cost: $2.7 billion over 60 years. Total $9.1 billion
Wind Turbine: A good estimate is about $2 million per 1 MWe. 30% availability and 20 year life.
We will need about 3000 MWe of wind turbines to match the nuke plant in power production. Cost: $6 billion
After 20 years, we tear them down and build another 3000 MWe. Cost $6 billion.
After another 20 years, we tear them down and build another 3000 MWe. Cost $6 billion.
In total we have spend $18 billion in 60 years. Over the years though and because there are a lot of wind turbines, the price per MWe will be a lot cheaper than $2 million. One main point though is that nuke plants are predominately publicly funded, while private investments fuel the wind turbine industry. This means that the cost of the risk is much cheaper for wind turbines than for nuke plants.
I like this debate idea. Let’s do it again. Please feel free to comment on anything I have written.
Darklamp