From: steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: --UCS Offers New Energy Policies
Date: 9 Oct 92 14:10:08
Organization: Lick Observatory/UCO
	<STEINLY.92Oct8160056@topaz.ucsc.edu> <1992Oct9.143359.1400@vexcel.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: topaz.ucsc.edu
In-reply-to: dean@vexcel.com's message of Fri, 9 Oct 1992 14:33:59 GMT

In article <1992Oct9.143359.1400@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:


   In article <STEINLY.92Oct8160056@topaz.ucsc.edu> steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson) writes:
   >In article <1992Oct8.144024.25915@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:

   >   In article <1992Oct8.054331.26269@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:
   >   >In article <1992Oct7.175956.4223@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:

   >    UCS
   >   >>says they shouldn't be used.  They do call for an official moratorium on
   >   >>construction of plants until a waate-handling system is online nad _proven_
   >   >>safe.

   >   >In other words a million year test. To those of us with shorter lifespans
   >   >that's essentially equivalent to forever. I'm satisfied with safer and 
   >   >don't expect the impossible ideal of safe. Good odds is all we can get,

   >   Proven safe does not necessarily mean absolutely safe.  I am not sure
   >   what their definition of proven safe is, but mainly they want to see
   >   that some waste repository is available with some level of actual
   >   experience.  While its clear that fossil has a worse record than

   >It would be nice if opponents would state an acceptable level of
   >proof _and_ _stick_ _with_ _it_.

   I'm not aware that the UCS has changed its definitions.

What _is_ their criterion for "proven safe" - as reported here it is
semantically null. Certainly other nuclear opponents are quite
happy to set unattainable standards of safety.

   >   factor.  Further, the UCS does not advocate fossil-fuel construction.
   >   There is plenty of evidence that short-term efficiency retrofitting
   >   moving towards renewables as efficiency gets played out can remove
   >   the need for major building of fossil-fuel _or_ nuclear power plants.
   >   The continued ignoring and/or refusal to accept (or rebut) these
   >   facts demonstrates a bias or tunnel-vision among many of the same
   >   people who complain about representations of nuclear power.
   >
   >The refusal to accept this comes from recognition of some other
   >factors. There is more to energy supply then building capacity
   >to meet increased demand (peak or base ;-), you need to consider
   >replacement of current capacity as it becomes ineffective of obsolete,
   >unless you reduce the absolute demand fast enough and that is not
   >happening. Personally I'd like to see a lot of fossil plants in
   >US and western Europe retired.
 ...

   Efficiency advocates claim that it can prevent the need for newly
   constructed capacity in the _short_ term, meaning from 1 to 2
   decades.  They do claim that _small_ decreases in total energy
   requirements may be possible, and larger over time,
   but noone is claiming an order of
   magnitude decrease in energy supplies would be workable.

   The role of renewables is to take up the slack once efficiency
   has been played out.  This means it has 10 to 20 years to
   develop before it will be needed for large scale utility

But plant is constantly retired, which means you either reduce
absolute demand or you replace it! So far efficiency seems to
basically hope to keep demand constant, which still leaves need
for replacement capacity. Note that if for example electric ZEV
vehicles are introduced on a decade time scale or electric mass
transit is built on any significant scale you essentially double
demand on the same time scale! 

   applications.  While wind is essentially competitive now, even
   PV is expected to be competitive 1 to 2 decades from now.  While

I'd say solar thermal has a chance of putting GW on line within 
the decade, PV is likely to remain off-grid and small scale (although
it does add up) for more than a decade barring a breakthrough.
Wind is never going to be more than 10% of capacity on US scale
demands (ie some small countries may use it for greater fraction
of capcity)

   the incorporation of renewables into the grid is problematic,
   and there is plenty of room for debate, the levels of
   penetration expected in the time frame we are discussing
   should not be problematic.  There is a detailed article
   examining this problem in Energy Policy (I don't have the issue
   date handy) that debunks some myths while admitting problems at
   higher levels of penetration.

   While many people would like to close fossil-fuel plants before they
   would normally be retired, few are actually advocating this.
   The cost for replacing the huge coal-fired capacity is enormous,
   no matter what technology is used.  Studies have examined using
   nuclear power to do this assuming all of the beneficial conditions
   desired and claimed by nuclear proponents, and the cost is still
   tremendous.

If the greenhouse warming is real then it is possible that fossil
plants will have to shut down. Doing without the electricity is
even more costly.

*  Steinn Sigurdsson   			Lick Observatory      	*
*  steinly@lick.ucsc.edu		"standard disclaimer"  	*
*  If you ever have to go to Shoeburyness			*
*  Take the A-road, the ok road, that's the best!		*
*  Go motoring on The A13!	- BB 1983			*



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