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But Nick, I don't think you understand energy transitions quite that well. First...renewables at best replace only a small amount of fossil fuel and that *transition* is very evident in Germany. The French replacement of their oil generated generation did not "use more fossil fuels"...except in terms of the actual production of the components. So...a thing you ought to ponder, Nick and others reading this: 1. Use of fossil fuel isn't going away totally. Not in our lifetimes. But....the fact is that France is better off by lowering their carbon footprint. They are not producing more carbon because they switched over 20 years to being fully nuclear. This is not even a debate about this. The Swedes have done basically the same thing with around 50% nuclear and 50% hydro. 2. To follow the "100% carbon free" plans of the wind, water and solar folks means far more "production" of fossil fuels than nuclear. For wind, the amount of material: copper, aluminum, steel, rare earths, can concrete that go into making a unit of electricity is about 8 times of that of the highly dense footprint of nuclear. Solar is slightly less than nuclear. 3. The real issues that 100 MWs of installed solar doesn't equal 100 MWs of installed nuclear (or coal, or hydro, or gas). Since it is available around the clock one doesn't have ramp up those coal plants they have so many of in your country, Australia, and which has become the carbon anchor of countries like Denmark and Germany. No one can get around the fact that solar is available only 20% of the day on average (18% in the U.S.). There is no utility scale electrical storage, it doesn't exist. And Nick, turning this back at you: we don't have time to wait for "cheap storage solutions which are on their way". We'll use far too much fossil fuel if we do... The bottom line is that nuclear can replace fossil fuel on a MW per MW basis. Wind and solar can't. The real political problem is that climate change activists in their majority care *more* about ending nuclear, the worlds largest source of clean energy, than they car about getting rid of coal and natural gas. This is the illogical anti-science of the left and environmental movement. It is, however, changing thanks in part of your buddy Geoff Russell (and others there like Barry Brooks and Ben Heard) and world wide we now have James Hansen who realized that one also needs nuclear to advance the clean energy penetration in the grid. It is also not only about Australia, it's a global issue. Overall...carbon effluent is not going down (save for the period when the world's economy took a shit in 2008). No one is building *enough* low carbon energy resources to make a real difference and that is the tragedy. The reason I'm 'downplaying' Australia is the reason you note. It has no nuclear industry (ergo it produces huge amounts of carbon). it's a different sort of fight. In countries with previously strong or growing clean energy nuclear like France, the leading "100% Carbon/Nuclear Free" organization called "France without Nuclear" totally prioritizes getting rid of France's massive nuclear grid...in favor of CO2/Methane spewing gas turbines! The same is quite true with the German Greens. To be fair, the almost total lack of an anti-nuclear movement in Britain has even affected various pro-renewable groups including the Greens who are less strident about nuclear than their cohorts everywhere else. I'd like to see wind and solar continue to try to match the "quality" of nuclear energy. We have countries that are doing both and we'll be able to see which is a more solid tool to phase out coal and gas. (in fact *most nations* don't counterpoise WWS to nuclear...they are happy to have both). That is the real discussion. David _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
