These are not scientific responses but rather propaganda. Have you read them yourself? I welcome a specific critique of the Shellenberger article but these aren’t it.
Well. My main concern is waste from batteries, solar panels and wind turbines when they reach end of life. I am by no means technical and tend to rely on the evidence before me and Occams Razor. Looking at what happens with obsolete TVs, mobile phones, computers, fridges etc etc. we have become the opposite of our parents who kept the same TV for 20 years. As technology improves people will turnover their electric cars and solar panels for something better. Pollution from fossil fuels will be replaced by some other form of pollution. I just can’t believe the recycling of batteries, solar panels etc will really happen.
All of the world's wind turbines blades combined (inert, non-hazardous and recyclable) are less volume than the coal ash from a single large coal fired power plant for just one year. Coal also does this:
“On top of emitting 1.9 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year, coal-fired power plants in the United States also create 120 million tons of toxic waste. That means each of the nation's 500 coal-fired power plants produces an average 240,000 tons of toxic waste each year.”
Note: As the number of wind turbines on the planet increases, the volume of waste will increase. “Strathclyde says blade waste could hit 400,000 tons a year in 2030.”
Contrast: One US coal plant = 240,000 tons of toxic waste per year.
All wind turbine blades on earth combined, 9 years from now, maybe = 400,000 tons of inert waste per year.
Coal produces 200x the volume of waste as wind power, per unit of energy generated. Seems the concern should be with coal, not this vastly better renewable replacement.
And more good news. We know how to recycle them. Wind turbines already have a recyclability rate of 85% to 90%.
"Decommissioned wind turbine blades used for cement co-processing
An initiative to recycle wind turbine blades includes the use of recycled glass fiber composites for cement manufacturing, replacing raw material and saving energy."
Blade recycling: Top priority for the wind industry
Wind turbines already have a recyclability rate of 85% to 90%.
Vestas announced its plans for zero-waste turbines. 14k wind turbine blades will be decommissioned in Europe next 5 years. The recycling of these old blades is a top priority for the wind industry."
GE announces wind turbine blade recycling contract with Veolia
GE Renewable Energy has announced it has signed a multi-year agreement with Veolia North America (VNA) to recycle blades removed from its US-based onshore turbines during upgrades and repowering efforts.
So even if we landfilled them all, it would be vastly better than burning coal. But the materials will be reused. Wind power has quadrupled in the last decade, so the market to reuse their materials will naturally grow with that.
The great wave of panel retirements will be in the coming decades, recycling resources are, and will be, coming along to deal with this as volume goes up. I'll give five examples from around the world.
-
USA
1) Game-changing solar company recycles old panels into new ones
The first wave of solar panels is reaching the end of their useful lives. Now they can become new solar panels instead of trash.
"...At a recycling plant in Ohio, next to the company’s manufacturing facility, First Solar uses custom technology to disassemble and recycle old panels, recovering 90% of the materials inside. It runs similar recycling systems in Germany and Malaysia.
"...The E.U. requires solar producers to recycle products, and similar laws are in the works in some other parts of the world, including Japan and India.
"...By recycling materials, the total environmental impact of each panel drops. The original solar panel, ...might last 30 or even 40 years. If 95% of the semiconductor material can be recovered and put back in a new panel, and the cycle continues to repeat, the original material could stay in use as long as 1,200 years.”
2) First Solar began investing in recycling and established the first voluntary global panel recycling program in 2005. They now have recycling facilities in the US, Malaysia and Germany and offer customers a service to recover and process panels globally. Their technology involves a continuous flow process and results in the recovery and recycling of over 90% of the semiconductor material and approximately 90% of the glass used in its panels. This material is then re-used in new First Solar modules and for new glass or rubber products.”
4) Italy: Mechanical technique for PV module recycling
“An Italian consortium has developed a panel recycling process that can recover up to 99% of raw materials. The developers claim their technique takes only 40 seconds to fully recycle a standard panel, depending on size and recycling site conditions.”
5) Australia: One of Australia’s first solar PV recycling facilities is up and running in Melbourne’s north, The plant will recycle 100% of end-of-life solar PV modules and all associated materials recovered – inverters, cables, optimisers, mounting structures – using no chemicals.
The final components are:
- High grade aluminium
- High grade silica dust
- The silica cells which will be reused by some manufacturers.
- Copper
- PVC
- Silver
100% of the materials separated from this process will be reused and given a second life. All inverters, rail components, cable can be processed in this facility.”
The 41 panels that provide 100% of my home power, minus the glass and steel take up perhaps 12 cubic feet. They should offset about 800,000lbs of Co2 during the course their life. About the carbon equivalent of planting 6,000 trees, while only taking up 750 sq feet of otherwise unused roofspace.
This seems a very good investment of a small amount of material.
"concern is waste from batteries, solar panels and wind turbines">>
Excellent selections. I'll address each one with evidence and reference.
1) Batteries.
We've been recycling batteries for 150 years, the components are rather valuable. There is surprisingly little lithium in a lithium battery, my plugin hybrid has about 2lbs of lithium in its 8.8kw battery (about $10 worth) and it will prevent me from burning about 10,000 gallons of gas during the life of the vehicle and putting 200,000lbs of Co2 in the air (charged with home solar). That seems a very good investment of a very small amount of a non-toxic material. The new Tesla battery doesn't have cobalt, as promised. Tesla reports it is capturing 100% of its used batteries, as Toyota has been doing for about 22 years with the Prius.
Recycling capacity is cropping up all over, of course, as the demand is coming along. Some examples:
--
“Canadian firm Li-Cycle will begin constructing a US $175 million plant in Rochester, N.Y., on the grounds of what used to be the Eastman Kodak complex. When completed, it will be the largest lithium-ion battery-recycling plant in North America.
The plant will have an eventual capacity of 25 metric kilotons of input material, recovering 95 percent or more of the cobalt, nickel, lithium, and other valuable elements through the company’s zero-wastewater, zero-emissions process.”
Southeast Asia's 1st battery recycling facility opens in S'pore, can recycle up to 14 tonnes of lithium batteries a day
“TES B is described as a "multi-million-dollar, state-of-art facility", and will recycle lithium batteries to recover precious metals like nickel, lithium and cobalt.
The facility will be able to recycle up to 14 tonnes a day, or the equivalent of 280,000 lithium-ion smartphone batteries, and can recycle up to 5,000 tonnes annually.
Its technology is said to have over 90 per cent recovery rate of precious metals, and yields a purity level of almost 99 per cent.
This means that the metals TES B recovers from the lithium batteries will be commercially ready for reuse and fresh battery production.”
Volkswagen has also recently opened its first recycling plant, in Salzgitter, Germany, and plans to recycle up to 3,600 battery systems per year during the pilot phase.
Renault, meanwhile, is now recycling all its electric car batteries.
Just observing and referring to rather obvious energy realities, none of which will be affected by your, or my, mere opinion. Perhaps avoid the lame attempts at insult and instead try focusing on the topic with some substance and evidence supporting your claims. I recommend my method to you.
So much good news in the clean energy sector for those renewables:
--
“The wind power sector installed 93 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity in 2020, a record figure which represents a year-on-year jump of more than 50%. Over the last decade, the global wind power market has almost quadrupled.”
-In 2020, annual renewable capacity additions increased 45% to almost 280 GW – the highest year-on year increase since 1999.
-Exceptionally high capacity additions become the “new normal” in 2021 and 2022, with renewables accounting for 90% of new power capacity expansion globally.
-Solar PV development will continue to break records, with annual additions reaching 162 GW by 2022 – almost 50% higher than the pre-pandemic level of 2019.
There is a lot of things that I disagree with Micheal on but I haven't noticed solar waste being encased in concrete so your attempt to accuse nuclear waste management as being equal or even greater to that of solar panels is, quite frankly, absurd. Furthermore, in what universe is the Ecologist neutral on the issue of nuclear power?!? As for that Science Direct "study" it is so biased against the actual worldwide data on nuclear safety as to be absurd as well. Fact: E=MC2 means that atomic fission requires an extremely insignificant amount of mass to produce a humongous amount of energy hence the "waste" stream is actually so small as to be inconsequential and almost all of it reusable as fuel in meltdown proof advanced Gen IV reactors such as the Natrium reactor which is slated to replace a coal plant in Wyoming. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2021/06/05/wyoming-to-lead-the-coal-to-nuclear-transition/?sh=40eab446de17
Here’s the deal, Brian. After 60 or so years we have about 400GW of nukes for the world. In each of 2017, 2018, 2019 the world deployed over 170 GW of renewables. Last year it was 280GW. In four years that’s 790GW.
If you take into account the difference in capacity factors in about six years at those rates, renewables would have deployed about the same real capacity as it took 60 years for nuke to build.
That’s more than ten times faster. Nuke can add a little around the edges, but it's not going to be a main player. The dominance of RE is inevitable.
1) “…despite the pandemic, renewable energy accounted for 90% of new electricity generation. In the next five years, the International Energy Agency (IEA) expects renewable sources to overtake fossil fuels as the world’s dominant form of electricity generation.”
2) “To date, 11 countries have reached or exceeded 100% renewable electricity; 12 countries have passed laws to reach 100% renewable electricity by 2030; 49 countries have passed laws to reach 100% renewable electricity by 2050; 14 U.S. states and territories have passed laws or executive orders to reach up to 100% renewable electricity by between 2030 and 2050; over 300 cities worldwide have passed laws to reach 100% renewable electricity by no later than 2050; and over 280 international businesses have committed to 100% renewables across their global operations.”
Engineering and Fulfilling These goals even with Nuclear is highly improbable even with Nuclear. ; 49 countries have passed laws to reach 100% renewable electricity by 2050; 14 U.S. states and territories have passed laws or executive orders to reach up to 100% renewable electricity by between 2030 and 2050; over 300 cities worldwide have passed laws to reach 100% renewable electricity by no later than 2050==CRAP!
100% is very hard and will be a task for the next century. RE can get us to 80% and more in just the next few decades.
Germany shows the way:
Germany power production by source, 2020
Renewables 251 TWh
Lignite 91 TWh
NG 91 TWh
Nuke 64 TWh
Hard coal 42 TWh
--
"A new international study, which debunks many myths about renewable energy, notes that many large population regions are “at or above 100%” including Germany’s Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Schleswig-Hostein regions, New Zealand’s South Island, and Denmark’s Samsø island. In Canada, both Quebec and British Columbia are at nearly 100 percent renewable power.”
“Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) has projected that by 2040, Germany’s grid will see nearly 75 percent renewable penetration, Mexico will be over 80 percent, and Brazil and Italy will be over 95 percent.”
"Most of the 18 nuclear projects pending before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission a decade ago have been aborted or suspended indefinitely. None of the 7 projects the NRC licensed are operational. Only one is still being built, in Georgia, at a cost of $100 million a month. Southern Company financial documents filed say the project, slated to cost $14 billion, could cost $25 billion or more if completed."
Ok. Interesting and if like to know more. But What makes you think the nuclear energy industry is less trustworthy than the industry making batteries and solar panels? I’m often amazed when friends suspend their skepticism about companies producing so called ‘sustainable energy’ products (batteries, solar, wind turbines) compared to fuel companies.
Nuke peaked about 20 years ago. It's in decline for well understood reasons.
Nuclear technology’s role in the world’s energy supply is shrinking
Anniversaries of the Fukushima and Chernobyl disasters highlight the challenges of relying on nuclear power to cut net carbon emissions to zero.
“Today, nuclear power supplies about 10% of the world’s energy, down from 13% in 2010.
...Clearly, nuclear energy will be with us for some time. New plants are being built and older ones will take time to decommission. But it is not proving to be the solution it was once seen as for decarbonizing the world’s energy market. Nuclear power has benefits, but its continued low take-up indicates that some countries think these are outweighed by the risks. For others, the development of nuclear energy is unaffordable. If the world is to achieve net zero carbon emissions, the focus must be on renewable energies — and one of their greatest benefits is that their sources are available, freely, to all nations.”
China’s losing its taste for nuclear power. That’s bad news.
Once nuclear’s strongest booster, China is growing wary about its cost and safety.
“The country has the capacity to build 10 to 12 nuclear reactors a year. But though reactors begun several years ago are still coming online, the industry has not broken ground on a new plant in China since late 2016, according to a recent World Nuclear Industry Status Report.
Officially China still sees nuclear power as a must-have. But unofficially, the technology is on a death watch. Experts, including some with links to the government, see China’s nuclear sector succumbing to the same problems affecting the West: the technology is too expensive, and the public doesn’t want it.”
You so 2018! 2021==Chinese President Xi Jinping considers nuclear power a top priority under "Made in China 2025," an initiative to bolster high-tech industries. The latest unit is positioned as a challenger to the Westinghouse-developed AP1000 and Europe's EPR. China's nuclear power industry is said to now have a self-sufficiency rate of over 85%, with roughly 5,000 companies including 58 state-owned enterprises in the supply chain.
Roughly 50 nuclear reactors with a combined generation capacity of 50,000 megawatts are currently operating in China, local media report. Another seven or so units of the Hualong One are being built, and another four have been approved for construction.
Nuclear power is a crucial piece to China's Belt and Road infrastructure-building initiative. A Hualong One reactor -- -- is nearing completion in Pakistan, and the design is also pending export approval from British and Argentinian authorities.
Wind & Solar In China Generating 2× Nuclear Today, Will Be 4× By 2030
China’s example is meaningful because it disproves several arguments of those in favor of increased nuclear generation. It’s not suffering under regulatory burden. It’s mostly been using the same nuclear technologies over and over again, not innovating with every new plant. It doesn’t have the same issues with social license due to the nature of the governmental system. The government has a lot of money. The inhibitors to widespread deployment are much lower.
Yet China has significantly slowed its nuclear generation rollout while accelerating its wind and solar rollout.
Why is China slowing its nuclear rollout so drastically? Because nuclear is turning out to be more expensive than expected, new nuclear designs are proving to be uneconomical, and new wind and solar are dirt cheap and much easier to build.”
These are not scientific responses but rather propaganda. Have you read them yourself? I welcome a specific critique of the Shellenberger article but these aren’t it.
Pick what you think are Shellenberger's best, strongest, three points and I'll unpack them.
Well. My main concern is waste from batteries, solar panels and wind turbines when they reach end of life. I am by no means technical and tend to rely on the evidence before me and Occams Razor. Looking at what happens with obsolete TVs, mobile phones, computers, fridges etc etc. we have become the opposite of our parents who kept the same TV for 20 years. As technology improves people will turnover their electric cars and solar panels for something better. Pollution from fossil fuels will be replaced by some other form of pollution. I just can’t believe the recycling of batteries, solar panels etc will really happen.
c) main concern is waste from... wind turbines">>
Let's do a little comparison:
A single turbine makes about 100,000 mWh
Fuel:
Coal = 55,000 tons of coal, mined and delivered.
Wind = none of that. Delivered for free
Emissions:
Coal = 114,730 tons of Co2 during production
Wind = zero emissions
Waste:
Coal = 5,000 tons of toxic coal ash
Wind = zero waste from production
All of the world's wind turbines blades combined (inert, non-hazardous and recyclable) are less volume than the coal ash from a single large coal fired power plant for just one year. Coal also does this:
“On top of emitting 1.9 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year, coal-fired power plants in the United States also create 120 million tons of toxic waste. That means each of the nation's 500 coal-fired power plants produces an average 240,000 tons of toxic waste each year.”
https://www.gem.wiki/Coal_waste#:~:text=Coal%20ash%20and%20scrubber%20sludge,-The%201.05%20billion&text=On%20top%20of%20emitting%201.9,of%20toxic%20waste%20each%20year.
Note: As the number of wind turbines on the planet increases, the volume of waste will increase. “Strathclyde says blade waste could hit 400,000 tons a year in 2030.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/23/offshore-wind-firm-to-work-with-researchers-and-tackle-blade-waste.html
Contrast: One US coal plant = 240,000 tons of toxic waste per year.
All wind turbine blades on earth combined, 9 years from now, maybe = 400,000 tons of inert waste per year.
Coal produces 200x the volume of waste as wind power, per unit of energy generated. Seems the concern should be with coal, not this vastly better renewable replacement.
And more good news. We know how to recycle them. Wind turbines already have a recyclability rate of 85% to 90%.
"Decommissioned wind turbine blades used for cement co-processing
An initiative to recycle wind turbine blades includes the use of recycled glass fiber composites for cement manufacturing, replacing raw material and saving energy."
https://www.compositesworld.com/blog/post/recycled-composites-from-wind-turbine-blades-used-for-cement-co-processing?
Global Fiberglass Solutions offers pioneering fiberglass recycling and green-product manufacturing.
We help wind energy and other industries avoid landfills, build customer trust, and achieve true sustainability.
https://www.globalfiberglassinc.com/?
Blade recycling: Top priority for the wind industry
Wind turbines already have a recyclability rate of 85% to 90%.
Vestas announced its plans for zero-waste turbines. 14k wind turbine blades will be decommissioned in Europe next 5 years. The recycling of these old blades is a top priority for the wind industry."
https://windeurope.org/newsroom/news/blade-recycling-a-top-priority-for-the-wind-industry/?
GE announces wind turbine blade recycling contract with Veolia
GE Renewable Energy has announced it has signed a multi-year agreement with Veolia North America (VNA) to recycle blades removed from its US-based onshore turbines during upgrades and repowering efforts.
https://www.renewableenergymagazine.com/wind/ge-announces-wind-turbine-blade-recycling-contract-20201208?
Etc.
So even if we landfilled them all, it would be vastly better than burning coal. But the materials will be reused. Wind power has quadrupled in the last decade, so the market to reuse their materials will naturally grow with that.
Hope this helps.
Cheers.
b) "main concern is waste from... solar panels">>
The great wave of panel retirements will be in the coming decades, recycling resources are, and will be, coming along to deal with this as volume goes up. I'll give five examples from around the world.
-
USA
1) Game-changing solar company recycles old panels into new ones
The first wave of solar panels is reaching the end of their useful lives. Now they can become new solar panels instead of trash.
"...At a recycling plant in Ohio, next to the company’s manufacturing facility, First Solar uses custom technology to disassemble and recycle old panels, recovering 90% of the materials inside. It runs similar recycling systems in Germany and Malaysia.
"...The E.U. requires solar producers to recycle products, and similar laws are in the works in some other parts of the world, including Japan and India.
"...By recycling materials, the total environmental impact of each panel drops. The original solar panel, ...might last 30 or even 40 years. If 95% of the semiconductor material can be recovered and put back in a new panel, and the cycle continues to repeat, the original material could stay in use as long as 1,200 years.”
https://www.fastcompany.com/90562056/this-game-changing-solar-company-recycles-old-panels-into-new-ones?
2) First Solar began investing in recycling and established the first voluntary global panel recycling program in 2005. They now have recycling facilities in the US, Malaysia and Germany and offer customers a service to recover and process panels globally. Their technology involves a continuous flow process and results in the recovery and recycling of over 90% of the semiconductor material and approximately 90% of the glass used in its panels. This material is then re-used in new First Solar modules and for new glass or rubber products.”
https://www.newenergysolar.com.au/renewable-insights/renewable-energy/solar-panel-recycling?
3) Canada: Solar X revolutionizes the solar industry in Canada with the launch of its new solar panel reuse + recycle program
https://pvbuzz.com/solar-x-launch-solar-panel-reuse-recycle-program/?
4) Italy: Mechanical technique for PV module recycling
“An Italian consortium has developed a panel recycling process that can recover up to 99% of raw materials. The developers claim their technique takes only 40 seconds to fully recycle a standard panel, depending on size and recycling site conditions.”
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/04/01/a-mechanical-technique-for-pv-module-recycling/
5) Australia: One of Australia’s first solar PV recycling facilities is up and running in Melbourne’s north, The plant will recycle 100% of end-of-life solar PV modules and all associated materials recovered – inverters, cables, optimisers, mounting structures – using no chemicals.
The final components are:
- High grade aluminium
- High grade silica dust
- The silica cells which will be reused by some manufacturers.
- Copper
- PVC
- Silver
100% of the materials separated from this process will be reused and given a second life. All inverters, rail components, cable can be processed in this facility.”
https://reneweconomy.com.au/australias-first-solar-panel-recycling-plant-swings-into-action/
Etc.
The 41 panels that provide 100% of my home power, minus the glass and steel take up perhaps 12 cubic feet. They should offset about 800,000lbs of Co2 during the course their life. About the carbon equivalent of planting 6,000 trees, while only taking up 750 sq feet of otherwise unused roofspace.
This seems a very good investment of a small amount of material.
"concern is waste from batteries, solar panels and wind turbines">>
Excellent selections. I'll address each one with evidence and reference.
1) Batteries.
We've been recycling batteries for 150 years, the components are rather valuable. There is surprisingly little lithium in a lithium battery, my plugin hybrid has about 2lbs of lithium in its 8.8kw battery (about $10 worth) and it will prevent me from burning about 10,000 gallons of gas during the life of the vehicle and putting 200,000lbs of Co2 in the air (charged with home solar). That seems a very good investment of a very small amount of a non-toxic material. The new Tesla battery doesn't have cobalt, as promised. Tesla reports it is capturing 100% of its used batteries, as Toyota has been doing for about 22 years with the Prius.
Recycling capacity is cropping up all over, of course, as the demand is coming along. Some examples:
--
“Canadian firm Li-Cycle will begin constructing a US $175 million plant in Rochester, N.Y., on the grounds of what used to be the Eastman Kodak complex. When completed, it will be the largest lithium-ion battery-recycling plant in North America.
The plant will have an eventual capacity of 25 metric kilotons of input material, recovering 95 percent or more of the cobalt, nickel, lithium, and other valuable elements through the company’s zero-wastewater, zero-emissions process.”
https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/batteries-storage/lithiumion-battery-recycling-finally-takes-off-in-north-america-and-europe?
Southeast Asia's 1st battery recycling facility opens in S'pore, can recycle up to 14 tonnes of lithium batteries a day
“TES B is described as a "multi-million-dollar, state-of-art facility", and will recycle lithium batteries to recover precious metals like nickel, lithium and cobalt.
The facility will be able to recycle up to 14 tonnes a day, or the equivalent of 280,000 lithium-ion smartphone batteries, and can recycle up to 5,000 tonnes annually.
Its technology is said to have over 90 per cent recovery rate of precious metals, and yields a purity level of almost 99 per cent.
This means that the metals TES B recovers from the lithium batteries will be commercially ready for reuse and fresh battery production.”
https://mothership.sg/2021/03/singapore-battery-recycling-facility/?
Volkswagen has also recently opened its first recycling plant, in Salzgitter, Germany, and plans to recycle up to 3,600 battery systems per year during the pilot phase.
Renault, meanwhile, is now recycling all its electric car batteries.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56574779?
Etc.
The piano tuner is tone deaf. And intoxicated on Green Industrial Complex sales propaganda... and probably one of their salesmen.
Just observing and referring to rather obvious energy realities, none of which will be affected by your, or my, mere opinion. Perhaps avoid the lame attempts at insult and instead try focusing on the topic with some substance and evidence supporting your claims. I recommend my method to you.
So much good news in the clean energy sector for those renewables:
--
“The wind power sector installed 93 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity in 2020, a record figure which represents a year-on-year jump of more than 50%. Over the last decade, the global wind power market has almost quadrupled.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/16/a-quantum-leap-monster-wind-turbines-are-going-to-get-even-bigger.html?
-In 2020, annual renewable capacity additions increased 45% to almost 280 GW – the highest year-on year increase since 1999.
-Exceptionally high capacity additions become the “new normal” in 2021 and 2022, with renewables accounting for 90% of new power capacity expansion globally.
-Solar PV development will continue to break records, with annual additions reaching 162 GW by 2022 – almost 50% higher than the pre-pandemic level of 2019.
https://www.iea.org/reports/renewable-energy-market-update-2021?
There is a lot of things that I disagree with Micheal on but I haven't noticed solar waste being encased in concrete so your attempt to accuse nuclear waste management as being equal or even greater to that of solar panels is, quite frankly, absurd. Furthermore, in what universe is the Ecologist neutral on the issue of nuclear power?!? As for that Science Direct "study" it is so biased against the actual worldwide data on nuclear safety as to be absurd as well. Fact: E=MC2 means that atomic fission requires an extremely insignificant amount of mass to produce a humongous amount of energy hence the "waste" stream is actually so small as to be inconsequential and almost all of it reusable as fuel in meltdown proof advanced Gen IV reactors such as the Natrium reactor which is slated to replace a coal plant in Wyoming. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2021/06/05/wyoming-to-lead-the-coal-to-nuclear-transition/?sh=40eab446de17
Good Points Solar=Low Energy density=Large Volume of Waste. Nuclear=High Energy density=Low Volume of Waste.
Net nuke added last year = zero
Net RE added last year = 280GW.
Here’s the deal, Brian. After 60 or so years we have about 400GW of nukes for the world. In each of 2017, 2018, 2019 the world deployed over 170 GW of renewables. Last year it was 280GW. In four years that’s 790GW.
If you take into account the difference in capacity factors in about six years at those rates, renewables would have deployed about the same real capacity as it took 60 years for nuke to build.
That’s more than ten times faster. Nuke can add a little around the edges, but it's not going to be a main player. The dominance of RE is inevitable.
VERY GOOD! Comrade, keep up the good work!! China#1 poised to overtake US in nuclear power by 2030
Beijing and Moscow seize initiative in global reactor construction as G-7 steps back https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Energy/China-poised-to-overtake-US-in-nuclear-power-by-2030 Comrade Darrel, continue to promote us=weak & wimpy = greedy Green Profit$ of us importing SLAVE Labor Islam MFG CHINA#1 USELESS Solar Panels. Your Mission == destroy usa! and CHINA#1!
Gee, those renewables don't look useless.
1) “…despite the pandemic, renewable energy accounted for 90% of new electricity generation. In the next five years, the International Energy Agency (IEA) expects renewable sources to overtake fossil fuels as the world’s dominant form of electricity generation.”
https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/offshore-wind-rise-and-future/?
2) “To date, 11 countries have reached or exceeded 100% renewable electricity; 12 countries have passed laws to reach 100% renewable electricity by 2030; 49 countries have passed laws to reach 100% renewable electricity by 2050; 14 U.S. states and territories have passed laws or executive orders to reach up to 100% renewable electricity by between 2030 and 2050; over 300 cities worldwide have passed laws to reach 100% renewable electricity by no later than 2050; and over 280 international businesses have committed to 100% renewables across their global operations.”
https://global100restrategygroup.org/
Engineering and Fulfilling These goals even with Nuclear is highly improbable even with Nuclear. ; 49 countries have passed laws to reach 100% renewable electricity by 2050; 14 U.S. states and territories have passed laws or executive orders to reach up to 100% renewable electricity by between 2030 and 2050; over 300 cities worldwide have passed laws to reach 100% renewable electricity by no later than 2050==CRAP!
100% is very hard and will be a task for the next century. RE can get us to 80% and more in just the next few decades.
Germany shows the way:
Germany power production by source, 2020
Renewables 251 TWh
Lignite 91 TWh
NG 91 TWh
Nuke 64 TWh
Hard coal 42 TWh
--
"A new international study, which debunks many myths about renewable energy, notes that many large population regions are “at or above 100%” including Germany’s Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Schleswig-Hostein regions, New Zealand’s South Island, and Denmark’s Samsø island. In Canada, both Quebec and British Columbia are at nearly 100 percent renewable power.”
“Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) has projected that by 2040, Germany’s grid will see nearly 75 percent renewable penetration, Mexico will be over 80 percent, and Brazil and Italy will be over 95 percent.”
https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-100-renewable-grid-isnt-just-feasible-its-already-happening-73505?
FAIL! laws broken, and many will be imprisoned! NOT!
This is what fail looks like.
"Most of the 18 nuclear projects pending before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission a decade ago have been aborted or suspended indefinitely. None of the 7 projects the NRC licensed are operational. Only one is still being built, in Georgia, at a cost of $100 million a month. Southern Company financial documents filed say the project, slated to cost $14 billion, could cost $25 billion or more if completed."
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/south-carolina/articles/2017-08-05/billions-lost-in-nuclear-power-projects-with-more-bills-due
The Ecologist Formed by Nature == another Malthusian----- Channelling the Malthusian Roots of Climate Extremism https://quillette.com/2019/10/05/channelling-the-malthusian-roots-of-climate-extremism/
Ok. Interesting and if like to know more. But What makes you think the nuclear energy industry is less trustworthy than the industry making batteries and solar panels? I’m often amazed when friends suspend their skepticism about companies producing so called ‘sustainable energy’ products (batteries, solar, wind turbines) compared to fuel companies.
Easy, Nuclear is MADE in USA with MOSTLY UNION LABOR. nuclear fuel is 50% + SITU Mined and very low enviro footprint. Solar is 90 % + IMPORTED and 80 % + of the Polysilicone and other components comes from CHINA#1 SLAVE ISLAM LABOR! https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2021/05/19/china-made-solar-cheap-through-coal-subsidies--forced-labor-not-efficiency/?sh=2dcb8e9871ec
Nuke peaked about 20 years ago. It's in decline for well understood reasons.
Nuclear technology’s role in the world’s energy supply is shrinking
Anniversaries of the Fukushima and Chernobyl disasters highlight the challenges of relying on nuclear power to cut net carbon emissions to zero.
“Today, nuclear power supplies about 10% of the world’s energy, down from 13% in 2010.
...Clearly, nuclear energy will be with us for some time. New plants are being built and older ones will take time to decommission. But it is not proving to be the solution it was once seen as for decarbonizing the world’s energy market. Nuclear power has benefits, but its continued low take-up indicates that some countries think these are outweighed by the risks. For others, the development of nuclear energy is unaffordable. If the world is to achieve net zero carbon emissions, the focus must be on renewable energies — and one of their greatest benefits is that their sources are available, freely, to all nations.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00615-w?
YES NUCLEAR BEST CHINA#1 building 17 Reactors 2021 BECAUSE it is the BEST TECH! SELLING Cheap = Slave Labor Islam MFG Solar Panels to WEST.
China’s losing its taste for nuclear power. That’s bad news.
Once nuclear’s strongest booster, China is growing wary about its cost and safety.
“The country has the capacity to build 10 to 12 nuclear reactors a year. But though reactors begun several years ago are still coming online, the industry has not broken ground on a new plant in China since late 2016, according to a recent World Nuclear Industry Status Report.
Officially China still sees nuclear power as a must-have. But unofficially, the technology is on a death watch. Experts, including some with links to the government, see China’s nuclear sector succumbing to the same problems affecting the West: the technology is too expensive, and the public doesn’t want it.”
https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/12/12/138271/chinas-losing-its-taste-for-nuclear-power-thats-bad-news/
You so 2018! 2021==Chinese President Xi Jinping considers nuclear power a top priority under "Made in China 2025," an initiative to bolster high-tech industries. The latest unit is positioned as a challenger to the Westinghouse-developed AP1000 and Europe's EPR. China's nuclear power industry is said to now have a self-sufficiency rate of over 85%, with roughly 5,000 companies including 58 state-owned enterprises in the supply chain.
Roughly 50 nuclear reactors with a combined generation capacity of 50,000 megawatts are currently operating in China, local media report. Another seven or so units of the Hualong One are being built, and another four have been approved for construction.
Nuclear power is a crucial piece to China's Belt and Road infrastructure-building initiative. A Hualong One reactor -- -- is nearing completion in Pakistan, and the design is also pending export approval from British and Argentinian authorities.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Energy/China-s-first-homegrown-reactor-ready-to-take-on-Western-players
Wind & Solar In China Generating 2× Nuclear Today, Will Be 4× By 2030
China’s example is meaningful because it disproves several arguments of those in favor of increased nuclear generation. It’s not suffering under regulatory burden. It’s mostly been using the same nuclear technologies over and over again, not innovating with every new plant. It doesn’t have the same issues with social license due to the nature of the governmental system. The government has a lot of money. The inhibitors to widespread deployment are much lower.
Yet China has significantly slowed its nuclear generation rollout while accelerating its wind and solar rollout.
Why is China slowing its nuclear rollout so drastically? Because nuclear is turning out to be more expensive than expected, new nuclear designs are proving to be uneconomical, and new wind and solar are dirt cheap and much easier to build.”
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/02/21/wind-solar-in-china-generating-2x-nuclear-today-will-be-4x-by-2030/