Tom Horton's recent commentary on nuclear energy is excellent and
provides the beginning of a rational discussion of green energy in
Maryland ("Embracing nukes," May 23). He includes data which shows that
wind farms on average operate at 30 percent of design capacity versus 90
percent for nuclear power. Solar
power systems
operate on average at 15 percent of design capacity. Wind and sun power
are erratic. Nuclear plants operate constantly, and the 90 percent
utilization factor is due to planned maintenance.
There is no
current capability to store power on a large scale. In order to produce
reliable power, generating companies that are forced to take wind power
must have thermal
backup
power and cycle or spin their turbines, inefficiently wasting steam to
instantaneously replace sudden decreases in wind power. Denmark, the
poster child for offshore wind farms, shows essentially the same level
of carbon dioxide emissions from 1999 when the country's frenzied
construction of wind mill capacity began to 2007 with zero population
growth. No thermal plants were shut down in Denmark when the wind farm
was built.
The United Kingdom is another country where
wind
power can be isolated. Stuart Young Associates analyzed wind power from
November 2008 to December 2010. During the study period, wind
generation was below 20 percent of capacity more than half of the time,
below 10 percent one-third of the time and below 2.5 percent of capacity
one day in 12.
In 2011, in a comprehensive study of U.S. wind power, "The Wind Power Paradox," Bentek
Energy
assessed emission reduction performance based on actual generation and
emissions data across a variety of regions of the country. This study
shows that actual carbon dioxide reductions through wind generation are
either so small as to be insignificant or too expensive to be practical.
Denmark and Germany have high levels of subsidized wind and
solar power
with costs including taxes of 43 and 30 cents per kilowatt hour
respectively, compared to an average of 11 cents per kWh in the U.S.
France
is Europe's lowest cost power producer at about 6 cents per kWh before
tax and 19 cents after tax. France has the world's most sophisticated
energy policy, producing 75 percent of their power with nuclear plants.
France reprocesses its spent fuel rods and is the leader in high speed
electric rail transportation. France is also Europe's lowest producer of
carbon dioxide on a per capita basis at about one-third of our
production.
Read More...
By Michael Krancer for Forbes - If we want to arrest climate change, all we need are more renewables like wind and solar, right? Not exactly, according to a newly published Canadian report on life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions (“GHG”). In fact, the report, which is based on 246 studies covering various power generation scenarios and constraints, concluded that nuclear power beats wind and natural gas on an ‘apples-to-apples’ basis for battling climate change.
