Because centralized generation - including nuclear - and distributed renewable generation are fundamentally different approaches to the way energy is provided to the consumer. The fossil fuel system is centralized. Renewables are distributed. I hope that what follows helps make clear the distinction.
Section oneNuclear plans threaten UK's part in renewables revolution, expert warns
Prof John Schellnhuber says UK is not fit to take part in 'third industrial revolution' of switch to clean energy
Damian Carrington and Hanna Gersmann guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 November 2011 07.06 EST
The UK's "eccentric" determination to build new nuclear power means it is not fit to take part in the "third industrial revolution" of switching to clean renewable energy, according to one of the world's most influential climate scientists.
Prof John Schellnhuber, the current adviser to the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and previous adviser the president of the European commission and other governments, said the UK was missing out owing to its failure to replicate the successful use of feed-in-tariffs (Fits) to kickstart its renewables industry.
Schellnhuber also said that the world's energy system could be transformed to a cleaner and cheaper renewable model for the same expenditure already paid out in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.
In 2010, $409bn was given to the oil, gas and coal industry as subsidy, with just $66bn going to green energy.
In an interview with the Guardian, Schellnhuber, who heads the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, said....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/15/nuclear-renewables-schellnhuber Further on, Schellnhuber makes a point similar to one I pressed here yesterday - that a grand international agreement to limit emissions was not expected to be accomplished, but nonetheless the policies of individual nations that have been driving economic activity on the renewable front have lowered the costs, and that the circumstances leave him "confident that the energy transformation was underway".
Section twoThis study confirms the problem with trying to co-develop these two fundamentally different approach to power production:
Systems for Change: Nuclear power vs. Energy Efficiency + Renewables?by Antony Froggatt with Mycle Schneider
The full document available with this link:
http://boell.org/downloads/HBS-Frogatt_web.pdf conclusions
...From a systemic point of view the nuclear and energy efficiency+renewable energy approaches clearly mutually exclude each other, not only in investment terms. This is becoming increasingly transparent in countries or regions where renewable energy is taking a large share of electricity generation, i.e., in Germany and Spain. The main reasons are as follows.
- Competition for limited investment funds. A euro, dollar or yuan can only be spent once and it should be spent for the options that provide the largest emission reductions the fastest. Nuclear power is not only one of the most expensive but also the slowest option.
- Overcapacity kills efficiency incentives. Centralized, large, power-generation units tend to lead to structural overcapacities. Overcapacities leave no room for efficiency.
- Flexible complementary capacity needed. Increasing levels of renewable electricity sources will need flexible, medium-load complementary facilities and not inflexible, large, baseload power plants.
- Future grids go both ways. Smart metering, smart appliances and smart grids are on their way. The logic is an entirely redesigned system where the user gets also a generation and storage function. This is radically different from the top- down centralized approach.
For future planning purposes...
To repeat - the #1 reason that the two approaches to power provision clash:
Overcapacity kills efficiency incentives. Centralized, large, power-generation units tend to lead to structural over-capacities. Over-capacities leave no room for efficiency.
This shapes a fundamentally different approach to an energy system than what is found with distributed renewables.
Section threeIn section one above I pointed out that when Schellnhuber says he is "confident that the energy transformation was underway" in spite of the lack of progress in forging a large-scale international follow-up to the Kyoto Protocol, he is mirroring something I'd recently written. This is an edited version of those remarks.
If the only route to ending carbon emissions were grand global agreements you are correct, we would be screwed. But it isn't. Most policy experts in the field have had little to no hope for such an agreement since about 2003. As a result individual national governments, NGOs, the left leaning political parties, many businesses and energy focused academics have been working on the problem by directing their attention at making the economics of noncarbon energy and conservation not only competitive, but preferable to all centralized generation.
These efforts are having a great deal of success even though the payoff in terms of bulk reduction of emissions hasn't made itself manifest yet. Among other things what we are seeing is the rapid development of a large-scale manufacturing base for the advanced batteries that will largely get us off of petroleum, a similar large-scale manufacturing base for solar** and wind, and a global rethinking of where the best buys in energy are.
I believe the bulk of DU's Democratic population believes we need to move to a sustainable, renewable energy system and that they want to support policies that are going to get us there as quickly as possible. TO do that, however, it is important to understand what is being done that is actually effective.
This gives you a good overview of the approach that is working:
http://rmi.org/Reinventing+Fire+Solutions+Journal+Fall+... Section three-aTake this example of what ONE wind turbine factory will do at the 10 and 20 year mark.
In the time it takes to plan and build one nuclear plant, the turbines produced and installed from one wind turbine factory will have produced 54 reactor-years worth of electricity. Their aggregate annual output will equal that of 10 nuclear reactors.
A plant manufacturing wind turbines just upgraded their manufacturing process and can put out 2.5GWe of wind turbines per year. You can read the story here:
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/20... At the end of ten years this single plant should be responsible for manufacturing about 25 GWe of wind turbines.
I estimated the total amount of electricity produced as the turbines come online over time and at the end of that 10 years, operating at 33% capacity, they would have provided a cumulative total of approximately 390 terrawatt hours (TWh). For reference, one nuclear average nuclear plant with one slightly above average nuclear reactor actually produces about 7 TWh each year.
I selected 10 years because this is the time it would take to plan and build one nuclear plant if it doesn't suffer delays - and they almost always do.
So devoting approximately the same resources to each technology gives us, at the end of 10 years:
- 10, 000 Wind turbines producing 72 TWhs of electricity per year the 54 years worth of production from the nuclear plant that the wind turbines have already cranked out.
OR
- One nuclear plant that might be ready to begin to producing 7TWh per year.
Given the standard 20 year life span for the turbines and assuming the plant continued production of the same product, this factory will max out it's contribution to growth of wind power at 50GWe when it hits the 20 year mark and starts to build replacements for those wearing out.
That 50GW of turbines should actually produce approximately 144 TWh of electricity every year.
50GW faceplate capacity X .33 capacity factor = 16.5GW of production
That 16.5GW equals approximately twenty (20) 1GW nuclear reactors operating at the international average capacity factor of about 80%.
That's one factory making what is now a rather small 2.5MW wind turbine...
Section three-bAnother example of the positive economic potential of going with an energy generating source that is a mass produced commidity is solar. In 2003 the Department of Energy said that if we, as leaders of world solar production, could build 3 gigawatts (GW) of solar panel manufacturing capacity by 2020 then we would be making significant progress in building the proper manufacturing base to enable solar as a meaningful and substantial contributor for solving climate change. They were counting on on policies like Kyoto to drive the development of that manufacturing base.
Well follow up to Kyoto hasn't materialized, but the pure economic potential of solar has resulted in Chinese investment will, by the end of this year, have built 35 GW of solar manufacturing capacity since 2007; with the global manufacturing base coming in between 45-50 GW.
That is 45-50GW instead of 3GW and in 2011 instead of 2020.
The policy most responsible for this success is called a "feed in tariff" (FIT) and that is what we need more of. Carbon taxes can help, but opposition from entrenched interests in the direction of FITs is far more successful since it supports programs that 90%+ of people support and it isn't confronting today's problem with being a "tax".
Support them for wind and solar whenever you have the chance.
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