Wind Turbines generate more than Nuclear this week in Spain

[IChing]

Taking advantage of a particularly gusty period, Spain's wind energy generators this week
reached an all-time high in electricity production, exceeding power generated by any other
source, the nation's electricity network authority said in a statement

Wind power generation rose to contribute 27 per cent of the country's total power requirement,
Red Electrica said.
Wind power contributed 8,375 mega watts to the nation's power consumption of 31,033.
Nuclear power, the second largest contributor, added 6,797 mega watts,
while coal-fired electric generation came third with 5,081, >>>snip

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/03/wind_is_spains.php

[jpak]

1. Impossible, can't happen, fraud, twittery etc....

Renewable energy systems can NEVER EVER produce more power than "other" technologies - we hear this every day on this forum...

:evilgrin:

[Dead_Parrot]

2. You know this refers to 5:40 pm last Monday, right?

The average is 9%. Half the time it's less than that.

You do know the wind changes, don't you?

[BeFree]

3. Spain is also going solar

And they have nukes. So why is Spain investing in wind and solar generators if nukes are gonna save the world?

Face it, the reason we don't have more alternatives to fossil fuels is that the centralized operators, ie, the corporations making a profit on more and even more, don't see a profit from locally owned and individually operated power generating systems.

Solar and wind: since the greatest electric demand peaks at just two periods of the day, forcing power plants to produce at nearly demand level all the time - thereby wasting fuel, solar and wind could fill in that bump in demand allowing the big power companies to be able to run the big units at cruise capacity - saving fuel and reducing emmissions. Hydro does this already.

But doing that would lower profits at Con Ed, et al. That's why they don't want decentralized power generation. But Spain is cool with it?

[Dead_Parrot]

4. Perhaps Spain understand that any fossil-free fuel is worth having?

Nuclear baseload and solar peak is a great combination: Although I bitch (incessantly) about the cost of PV, solar thermal is terrific (and IIRC Spain has mandatory solar water heating on new buildings) and I believe Spain trialled a solar tower as well, although I'm not sure if it's still going. They are also, I think, one of the few countries with operational wave power. But they are also upgrading their reactors, bringing an extra 800MWe to the grid: That's about 8 times the power from their projected PV up to 2010, but depending on the balance between thier peak and base loads, they could match quite nicely.

Wind is less useful unless you have an on-demand backup such as gas or hydro (and possibly biomass, depending on the response times). I am, in general, opposed to gas simply because of the CO₂, but the more options you can get in the mix the higher the percentage of renewable power you can have: With solar and wind and wave and hydro and biomass, I don't see any reason why they couldn't reliably get forty or fifty percent from renewable power.

On your other point, if you live out in a rural area then having off-grid power is an option, albeit an expensive one. But over half the world's population live in cities (including the 3 million or so people in Madrid): Creating their own power is just not going to happen, and like it or not they will need to use centralised power, as will the heavy industries.

Spain are working on a lot of fronts, and I suspect their energy policy is a little more refined than "nukes are bad" or "my cabin's TV runs off a portable solar panel, rofl."

[BeFree]

5. Mish mash

"...if you live out in a rural area then having off-grid power is an option, albeit an expensive one."

And nuclear power is cheap? Did you know the only way most rural folks got electricity was through subsidized funding, and that Nukes are now the most subsidized?

And if Spain thought nukes were the cat's meow, why are they going alternative? And, I am supposing, you would be happy for your family to forever live right next to nuke waste dump, because that in effect is what you are demanding.

Lookie, several years ago it was decided that the present day power generators were less than 30% efficient, including nukes. And that didn't even delve into the wastes. Wastes that are relatively non-existent with solar and wind.

Are you in favor of wasteful power generation with long-long term consequences? Or are you for getting solar and wind subsidized equally with all other sources?

[Massacure]

6. Nuclear energy is not the most subsidized.

Oil is. The U.S. spends half a trillion dollars a year to protect its supplies of it.

Personally I think the government should lift all forms of subsidies on energy, and let the market sort it out. It would be interesting to see how the coal industry does not being able to pay 1800s prices for land, how the solar industry does without tax dedications. I personally think wind would benefit very much from this, though it too would be interesting to see how efficiently the power grid can transfer wind energy from windy areas to non-windy areas.

[BeFree]

8. Oil

We were talking about electric supply subsidies. I thought.

Yes, oil is king. But in electric supply, nukes are king, and it is interesting to find that you are against nuke subsidies. Well, without those subsidies a nuke plant is unlikely to ever be built.

Instead, it would only be fair to divide the subsidy pie, afterall, nukes still need lots of money to figure out what we are gonna do with the waste. So for every dollar going to nukes, put one in the wind pile, another in solar, another in ethanol, etc. Even out the market.

[Dead_Parrot]

9. The Spanish subsidy for nuclear power

comes from a 1c/kWh levy on grid power, which includes decommissioning and waste costs. Over at Solarbuzz, the cost of PV power is currently 23.18 c/kWh. Now, the US dollar may not be doing too well these days, but I was unaware that 1 Euro cent > 23.18 US cents. I look forward to seeing how you figure out that Spain should be pushing PV because nuclear is too expensive.

As for nuclear waste, can you estimate how people it has killed, compared to climate change? how many crops it's wiped out? how many species have been driven to extinction? how many glaciers melted?

Since you ask, what I am in favour of, is saving what's left of our biosphere in the little time remaining, using whatever technologies we have.

If you think that nuclear waste is somehow more dangerous than climate change, and that the best solution is to fuck about developing renewable energy for the next 50 years trying to invent TWh grid storage or waiting for 3,500,000,000 city-dwellers to go off-grid, then all I can do is pity you because you're only step up from an paid Exxon skeptic - but without the money.

[BeFree]

10. Ya gotta love it

The nuke salesman here.

When confronted with a few unpleasant facts about the precious nukes, they revert to attacking the messengers or going off subject. Really, it is quite unbecoming and I dare say most readers are turned off by such tactics.

The US subsidies to the nuke industry are well known. The dangers of nuke plants and the wastes are well known. What is not well known is how our kids will deal with the wastes that nukes generate. Therefore it behooves us to exercise great caution. Indeed, even the government agrees.

Today's pending climate change is a problem just now being readily accepted. We can solve the problem without, hopefully, endangering our kid's kids, as nukes appear to have that potential.

The first thing we should do is cut back on electric use. But that is not a tenet of the Nukes First! crowd, is it? No.

The next thing we do is use technology to eliminate harmful emissions. But the high-tech Nukes First! crowd doesn't think we can develop the tech to do so. Big disconnect there.

Then we put in place preferred alternatives: using sources that have the minimum of climate change potential. We subsidize them to the hilt and continue to use all energy sources to the highest efficiency level attainable.

You have a problem with that?

[Dead_Parrot]

11. And how long do you think it will take to swich to renewables only?

A simple question, take your time.

[NNadir]

14. Well known?

Is that unlike the fossil fuel subsidy?

How many exajoules have the massive German, Japanese and American "renewable" strategies produced?

Nuclear power should be subsidized, and massively so, because it works. I favor a 10 trillion dollar internationally funded effort to phase out coal by building 5000 nuclear power plants, but only because I give a fuck about dangerous fossil fuel waste, waste that is constantly killing at a massive rate.

Appear? To whom?

Issuing platitudes about cutting back on electricity doesn't work. The fact is bub, you have no solution for climate change. You are clueless about how to do address the matter.

You cannot now produce one person, any more than you could last year, or the year before that, produce a single example of a person injured by so called "nuclear waste," a subject about which you still know zero.

[Dogmudgeon]

15. As if you're any different

Read your own snark-a-thon again: when presented with some facts that YOU don't like, YOU lost YOUR cool.

There it is: "The nuke salesman here"; "the Nukes First! crowd". The NOKD attitude. The superiority complex. Do you think you were being clever?

And who is this "most readers" you are talking about? Are they related to the "some people" Katie Couric said think John Edwards is a no-goodnik?

Here's what *I* have a problem with: bourgeois leftists who can't tolerate people who disagree with even the least of their ideas, presume to read my mind, and don't have the common sense or courtesy to ask me how I've reached my own conclusions.

We can deal with the out-and-out defamations (like all this money I'm supposed to be getting for disagreeing with you) later.

--p!

[jpak]

12. but...but...but...didn't Spain shut down Jose Cabrera 1 last year???

yup

http://www.iaea.org/programmes/a2/

...and doesn't Spain plan to replace its nuclear plants with renewable systems????

...and add 57,000 MW of new wind turbine capacity in the near future???

yup

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/spain.html

<snip>

Nuclear Power
Currently, Spain has nine operating nuclear reactors. Spain decommissioned the Vandellos I reactor in July 1990, and Union Fenosa announced that it would close the Jose Cabrera plant in April 2006. Nevertheless, the output of the nuclear power sector in Spain has remained stable despite the closures, as upgrades and efficiency gains at existing plants replace retired capacity. Nuclear power generates a significant portion of Spain's power supply, but Prime Minister Zapatero has announced that Spain will gradually replace nuclear power with energy from renewable sources.

Other Renewables
Spain was the world's second-largest producer of wind power in 2004, behind Germany, with the energy source meeting 6% of Spain's total electricity demand. Spain has some 8,300 MW of installed wind capacity, with an additional 57,000 MW in various stages of planning, development, and regulatory approval. Endesa plans to invest over $2 billion on renewable generating capacity in Spain in the next four years, adding to the wind farms already operated by the company in Portugal and Italy.

<snip>

[Dead_Parrot]

13. Quite...

Although judging by the fact they seeming to be adding several GW of NG every year, I think "Replacing nuclear with renewables and fossil fuels" would be more accurate. It would be nice if he concentrated on their increasing coal usage:



Still, nobody's perfect.

Given that their emissions are now ~150% 1990 levels, it might all just be hot air: They can certainly kiss kyoto goodbye. But they seem to be determined to give all renewables a good go, so it should certainly be informative.

[NNadir]

7. Oh good. Twenty minutes of fame. Power is not energy. Power is not energy.

Power is not energy.

One of the reasons that we are such desperate circumstances is the kind of scientific illiteracy that cannot distinguish between basic physics concepts, like the difference between power and energy.

Now, if you are a member of Greenpeace, of course you can't tell the difference between power and energy, but if you are not a member of Greenpeace, maybe you should consider whether or not there are thunderstorms that produce more power than all the nuclear power plants in Spain.

The claim on some level is so mindless, it should be embarrassing.

Spain is uprating its nuclear power plants, and it's not because Spain is running around thinking about the ten minute period where the wind was blowing actively.

All of the world's wind power plants combined have not produced a single exajoule of energy in a year. World energy demand is about 470 exajoules of energy, with 10 exajoules coming from hydroelectricity, 30 exajoules (primary) coming from nuclear, 5 exajoules from all the of the cutesy and nearly useless Greenpeace advertised balderdash, and <em>everything else</em> coming from fossil fuels.

In case you didn't hear it the previous times: Power is not energy.