Global Wind Power Capacity Tops Nuclear Energy For First Time (japantimes.co.jp) 297
mdsolar writes: The capacity of wind power generation worldwide reached 432.42 gigawatts (GW) at the end of 2015, up 17 percent from a year earlier and surpassing nuclear energy for the first time, according to data released by global industry bodies.
The generation capacity of wind farms newly built in 2015 was a record 63.01 GW, corresponding to about 60 nuclear reactors, according to the Global Wind Energy Council based in Brussels. The global nuclear power generation capacity was 382.55 GW as of Jan. 1, 2016, the London-based World Nuclear Association said.
The generation capacity of wind farms newly built in 2015 was a record 63.01 GW, corresponding to about 60 nuclear reactors, according to the Global Wind Energy Council based in Brussels. The global nuclear power generation capacity was 382.55 GW as of Jan. 1, 2016, the London-based World Nuclear Association said.
capacity vs actual (Score:4, Insightful)
My car has the capacity to cover 240 km/h, but never will. I need sleep, the car needs repairs and fuel.
To actually surpass the output of nuclear power will we require a constant hurricane?
In other words, worthless bullshit article posted by our anti nuclear nut, mdsolar. His posts are so shitty I will readily admit to not reading the article. Typically it's just a waste of time.
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And, of course, without base generation like nuclear, wind would not yet even be a realistic option. Wind and solar ride on the backs of traditional sources of power.
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With nuclear capacity factors close to 90%
Erh no. They reach 90% in the summer but throughout the year they tend to run at 60-70% capacity.
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Surprising how actual facts show some people are just full of it.
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oh really? I worked at nuke plant; the correct answer in USA is "over 90%", the 60-70% number hasn't been true since the 90s
http://www.nei.org/Knowledge-C... [nei.org]
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Easy: actual generation varies according to demand, and demand is highest in the summer.
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Easy: actual generation varies according to demand, and demand is highest in the summer.
Yes load varies but nuclear output does not. Nuclear is "base load" meaning it runs at full capacity from the time it's brought online until it's shut down for maintenance/refueling. The variable load is carried by assets that can be throttled economically, like combined-cycle gas turbines, hydroelectric, etc.
So, if you consider power usage as a series of troughs and peaks, "base load" facilities carry everything up to the "trough" part. The "peak" parts are carried by variable assets. Nuclear is not ne
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Since nobody has come up with a final solution to the waste problem, the costs are infinite.
Could I say, "Until we come up with a solution to the wind-doesn't-blow-all-the-time problem or the ice-storms-can-fuck-em-up-completely [platts.com] problem... the costs are infinite?
Half of the 'final solution' is to fast-burn all the old waste and make energy from it.
The waste will sit there patiently until we can do this.
The other half of the 'final solution' is a new generation of reactors that do not generate long-lived waste.
The basic concept for this was developed 60 years ago by Weinberg.
In the world I live in
Re:capacity vs actual (Score:4, Insightful)
>> Since nobody has come up with a final solution to the waste problem, the costs are infinite.
Yep. And nuke utilities do not even try to calculate that cost. They leave it to the taxpayers.
Re:capacity vs actual (Score:4, Informative)
Easy: actual generation varies according to demand, and demand is highest in the summer.
No. Nukes are expensive to build but cheap to run. The marginal cost of power is very low. So when demand drops, you shut down your gas turbines so you don't have to pay for the fuel, then you shut down coal. If you have spare capacity in your reservoir, you next shut down hydropower. Nukes are the last power source that you shut down, and there is no place the relies exclusively on nukes. Even France, which is 75% nuclear, sells their excess power to Germany and Britain rather that scaling back output.
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Flamebait?? Someone thinks my post was flamebait? It was a perfectly reasonable question - if couched in sarcastic form.
Maybe I should stop contributing to threads about nuclear power. Even on Slashdot, it seems that emotion heavily outweighs facts.
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Perhaps nuclear energy is a bit like systemd?
It's out there, lots of people use it and find it useful, it has its drawbacks, but it's not going away.
And lots of people hate it, detest it, loathe it, and degrade it, without really understanding it. Of course, they're perfectly free to continue loathing it, but they do themselves a disservice by not attempting to understand it better.
Re:capacity vs actual (Score:4, Insightful)
Demand tends to vary, so nuclear plants are also adjustable.
Uhhh, no. I used to work at nuclear plants for TVA as recently as last year. Nuclear plants are "base load" facilities, meaning they run at 100% (or as close to that as possible) 24x7. The variable loads are carried by other sources like hydroelectric, combined-cycle turbines, and so forth. In fact, nuclear is about the ONLY type of power generation that runs at full throttle during its entire cycle between refuelings.
The 90% factor cited by one of the other posters is more or less correct because commercial generation plants go offline for refueling about once every 18-24 months depending upon how they've been run during that fuel cycle. Things like turbine trips and other unscheduled shutdowns affect when refuelings actually occur, and only about 1/3 of the fuel is changed out every cycle.
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Lets start with this: the mass hysteria of 2011
There was no mass hysteria. And certainly not in Germany.
(2011) caused idiots to pull the plug on nuclear,
The "pulling the plug" was decided 2000 not 2011! However the next government decided to extend the runtime of nuclear reactors, partly significantly, that actually is the same Government that 2011 finally decided to "pull the plug", for good this time.
Now to the physics. Basically all modern plants in Europe "can load follow".
The problem is, depending o
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wrong. they run at fully rated power except near refueling outages as insulation is removed for inspections and repairs and efficiency goes down.
yes, former nuclear pre-outage and outage scheduler here
the 60-70% number was accurate in the 1980s, in the 90s went from 75 to 90% by 2000 where it has hovered for the last 15+ years
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Duh! If I'm going to contradict someone I make sure to double check my figures, which I did, using statistics from the EIA.
Just because you are used to making things up without sources doesn't mean everyone else does too.
Re:capacity vs actual (Score:5, Informative)
Table 6.7.B. Capacity Factors for Utility Scale Generators Not Primarily Using Fossil Fuels, January 2013-November 2015: https://www.eia.gov/electricit... [eia.gov]
From Jan 2013 to Nov 2015, the lowest capacity factor for nuclear power was 77.6%. Only two months were below 82.5%. The yearly averages were 89.9% and 91.7% for 2013 and 2014.
So EIA statistics refute your claim that you said was based on EIA statistics.
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Re:capacity vs actual (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, nuclear pairs pretty poorly with wind. Nuclear isn't very responsible to rapid changes. Natural gas and hydro are what usually pair with wind.
It's possible to make rapid response nuclear plants, but most aren't.
Basically, you're confusing baseload power and peaking. Peaking has of course always been with us, and always will, regardless of generation type, because even without supply fluctuations, there's also demand fluctuations (rather major ones, actually). Note that there's a number of ways to reduce supply fluctuations and to better fit the demand curve. Long distance power transmission spreads out demand peaks and evens out supply intermittency. Mixing different types of intermittent power makes a much more stable overall power. And of course there's also storage, of a wide variety of types, including some built into plants themselves (such as solar plants with thermal storage).
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Again, you're confusing baseload and peaking. Intermittent sources don't need baseload, they need peaking. And the amount of peaking needed is based on the reliability of the intermittent source, which is affected by the above-discussed issues.
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With our current infrastructure, that's true. However, imagine a situation in which everyone has a battery bank at home, with a smart interface to the power grid. If the solar panel or wind turbines are not kicking out enough power, the home runs off the battery bank. When there is ample juice in the pipeline, the battery bank gets charged and the home runs on direct power from the grid. That would be doable. It would require a change in end-user mindset and more up-front costs to the end users, but it could be done.
Yes, imagine that infrastructure. Imagine what it would cost, for one. Imagine the ecological impact of mining for the rare earth elements for those batteries, the production of chemicals used for manufacture, and the waste of the batteries themselves as they need to be replaced every decade at least.
There is lots to imagine, but if we talk practicality and affordability those dreams take a 'reality break'.
XFD, did you really just call wind power an agenda (Score:2, Informative)
Re:capacity vs actual (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, but only if it's not summer and the river is to low to cool the reactor or in winter when the river is frozen or if there's another 'incident' shutting down the plant for months or a typhoon is expected or a large wave...(sic)
These events, while they have happened, have only been notable because they almost never happened before or since. There's a reason uptime figures for the nuclear industry are routinely above 90%, and that includes time spent in shutdown for scheduled maintenance and refueling.
Not to mention, when a wind turbine fails catastrophically, there's a dent in the shrubbery and not a relocation of 100.000 people for a couple of thousand years like when a reactor fails that way.
In the entire history of commercial nuclear power (almost half a century) only two events have taken place that required any sort of relocation. One of those was due to operators deliberately operating the plant outside of specifications and disregarding all safety regulations with a plant design that is no longer used because of its instability (Chernobyl). The other was at a plant that was hit by a massive earthquake followed by a massive tsunami. Tens of thousands were killed by the quake and tsunami. Zero deaths were attributed to anything nuclear.
Reports of nuclear deadliness have been greatly exaggerated. No doubt on purpose, to fit a particular agenda.
Another boon is that wind turbines don't produce material for dirty bombs that you have to guard for a couple of hundred thousand years.
This is a political failing, not a technological one. We have the ability to burn waste actinides, extracting useful energy, closing the nuclear fuel cycle, and leaving very little behind that is dangerous. President Carter banned R&D into this technology back in the 1970's and it's been a political hot potato ever since.
If uninformed alarmists like you would ever shut the hell up and actually learn something about what you're denigrating, you might see that idea reversed. But whole generations have been raised on the idea that nuclear = bad so I doubt that's going to happen. You're comfortable in your ignorance.
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"Not to mention, when a wind turbine fails catastrophically, there's a dent in the shrubbery"
And when a wind turbine works as intended, there's a corresponding little bump in the grid power total. Thank your lucky nukes that wind is just a supplementary source of power.
Max Capacity (Score:4, Insightful)
This assumes all wind is blowing everywhere in the world to maximize the capacity of wind power. Unless that is happening, nuclear is still ahead.
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Re: Max Capacity (Score:4, Informative)
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But new plants aren't coming online that are safer because licenses aren't available. Those plants are incredibly dangerous leading to a logical fallacy resulting in not issuing new licenses to newer safer designs.
Image is everything.
Please cite your basis for this. Sounds like you are just spouting your biased assumptions.
Re:Max Capacity (Score:4, Insightful)
actually, nukes are being built all over the world. The west is not, but that is due to too many that do not have a decent science background
^^^ This.
Here's an interesting article [world-nuclear.org] looking at nuclear power futures from a less west-centric point of view.
From the article link (emphasis mine):
It should not be assumed that reactors will close when their licence is due to expire, since licence renewal is now common. However, new plants coming on line are balanced by old plants being retired. Over 1996-2015, 75 reactors were retired as 80 started operation. There are no firm projections for retirements over the next two decades, but the World Nuclear Association estimates that at least 60 of those now operating will close by 2030, most being small plants. The 2013 WNA Market Report reference case has 74 reactors closing by 2030, using very conservative assumptions about licence renewal, and 272 coming on line, including 108 in China.
Even if half of those planned reactors never get built, that's still a net increase. The west is still pretty spoiled, in that we still have huge tracts of land with relatively few people to worry about. In places where population pressures are more intense, and land is not so freely available, nuclear is absolutely the best (sometimes the only) option if you want to allow people access to any sort of electrical service, not to mention supply the industries that are providing work for your population.
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wind, like solar and tidal, just needs good efficient energy storage
Fixed that for you... Battery storage will never reach the point where it is better for the environment than alternative solutions. High power capacitors are closer to being realistic. Alternatively, one of the traditional ways of storing solar and wind power is to pump water from a lower point to a higher point and then release it to generate power when needed.
http://www.climatetechwiki.org... [climatetechwiki.org]
That being said, it's going to be several generations before we have the technology to store enough power where
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But if build on a national or even continental scale wind and solar don't need much storage but instead power lines to even out local weather differences.
Again a typical NIMBY issue...
So? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wind maximum capacity is pretty meaningless, I believe the average production is around 1/3 of rated.
Nuclear is a far superior power source, given it's low land use, lack of environmental impact (eyesores, noise, bird/bat kills for wind) and constant output. Nuclear plants should be built out to completely replace coal, at a minimum.
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Re:So? (Score:4, Insightful)
If nuclear was far superior, we'd be installing more of it.
We are. The global nuclear capacity is increasing. And, if it were not for base sources such as nuclear, gas, & coal, wind would not even be a viable option.
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> If nuclear was far superior, we'd be installing more of it.
Right. The world is completely rational and efficient.
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Right. The world is completely rational and efficient.
The point is that nuclear is not superior in our irrational and inefficient world.
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Re:So? (Score:5, Informative)
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> If nuclear was far superior, we'd be installing more of it.
Right. The world is completely rational and efficient.
I agree that Nuclear is superior for the simple reason that it is efficient and provides consistent power. Yes, bad things can happen. But modern designs are much safer.
As for popularity, well... Justin Beiber, Paris Hilton, Kardashians... I think that I made my point.. Just because something is popular doesn't mean that it's a good decision or superior.
I just want to point out that it's not an either/or situation. Personally, I love solar and wish we had much more of it in the US. Panels are finally
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An average wind turbine kills 4 birds a year. A cat kills 17.
While they may "purr", you can't scratch turbines behind their ears and watch their blissful reactions.
Well, not without a loong ladder...and quick reflexes...
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As the sibling post mentions, domestic cats are one of the largest killers of birds. Another big killer is windows. My living room window seems to kill about the same number of birds as my cat and it gets much worse with buildings that are mostly glass.
I seem to remember some studies that locally the biggest killer of birds are the big non-native squirrels which love egg and baby bird and are having a population boom.
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Nuclear has it's use but the heydays were 30-40 years ago, these days we have in every sense superior renewables, easier with relatively simple tech, cleaner during the building, operation and decommissioning and decentralised so less sensitive to local problems.
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Nuclear was never any good, except at making tons of money for the ones selling the fuel and building the plants.
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
I like nukes (and solar and wind), but let's not forget the tiny tiny issues around radioactive fuel and waste, and the fact that nukes are pretty difficult to turn down to match variable load, and tend to fail in large blocks which causes the grid big problems.
The capacity factor of nukes is not 100% either (and indeed was only about twice that of wind in the UK), though I do agree that comparing name-plate ratings for intermittent renewables with run-always generators is unhelpful.
Rgds
Damon
Re:So? (Score:5, Funny)
The nice thing about coal is that all the radioactive waste is pumped into the atmosphere.
That's so much better. No need to store anything.
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I am not a fan of coal for many reasons including that.
Rgds
Damon
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Be rest assured, the anti-nukes will ignore the facts and keep saying what is not true.
Re:So? (Score:4, Informative)
Actually no, AFAIK.
Only one nuke in the UK *can* even load follow, and never has. (My uncle was chief counsel that got it through the public enquiry; I'm really not against nukes at all.)
France has a nuke fleet that can nominally load follow, but how much depends on the age of the fuel and ranges from ~50% down to 0 IIRC, for an average of maybe 25% across the fleet, which is one of the reasons that nukes are limited to ~75% of French generation capacity, ie so that enough following can be provided by other means (given a typical 2:1 ratio between high and low demand). That is the best of my understanding, and I ran it past the UK's former energy minister recently who I was sharing a platform with on nuclear electricity generation, and he did not disagree, though maybe he was just being polite.
So, if even the French have not been able to get a fully load-following fleet I think it must be very hard to do.
So, again, I am simply not anti-nuke. Nor am I a frothing fan-boy. Nukes do not solve all problems and are most useful as part of a mixed fleet IMHO.
Rgds
Damon
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According to https://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/r... [oecd-nea.org]:
Modern nuclear plans with light water reactors have strong manoeuvring capabilities. Nuclear power plants in France and in Germany operate in load-following mode, i.e. participate in the primary and secondary frequency control, and some units follow a variable load programme with one or two large power changes per day. In France, load-following is needed to balance daily and weekly power variations of the electricity supply and demand, since nuclear power plants have a large share in the national mix. In Germany, load-following became important in recent years when a large share of intermittent sources of electricity generation (e.g. wind) was introduced to the national mix.
The minimum requirements for the manoeuvrability capabilities of the modern reactors are defined by the utilities requirements that are based on the requirements of the grid operators. For example, according to the current version of the European Utilities Requirements (EUR) the NPP must at least be capable of daily load cycling operation between 50% and 100% of its rated power P r , with a rate of change of electric output of 3-5% of P r per minute.
Most of the modern designs implement even higher manoeuvrability capabilities, with the possibility of planned and unplanned load-following in the wide power range and with ramps of 5%P r per minute. Some designs are capable of extremely fast power modulations in the frequency regulation mode with ramps of several percent of the rated power per second, in the narrow band around the power level. The economic consequences of load-following are mainly related to the reduction of the load factor. In the case of nuclear, fuel costs represent a small fraction of the electricity generating cost, if compared with fissile sources. Thus, operating at higher load factors is profitable for nuclear power plants, since they cannot make savings on the fuel cost while not producing electricity. In France, the impact of load- following on the average unit capability factor is sometimes estimated as about 1.2%.
Since most of the currently used nuclear power plants implement strong manoeuvrability capabilities in their designs (except for some very old NPPs), there is no or very small impact (within the design margins) of the load-following on acceleration of ageing of large equipment components. However, there is some influence of the load-following on the ageing of some operational components (e.g. valves), and thus one can expect a slight increase of the maintenance costs. Also, for older plants some additional investment could be needed, especially in instrumentation and control, in order to become eligible for operation in the load-following mode.
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"Very hard" in this case may simply be "wildly expensive or inefficient", which is probably less of a consideration for military use than civilian grid supply.
Rgds
Damon
Re:So? (Score:4, Informative)
Wind capacity factor is about 25%. It varies from about 20% in non-choice locations to about 30% in good areas. Offshore is higher. Especially good areas offshore often hit 40%, while the best areas (off Scotland) can hit 60%.
The way load works, nuclear and coal provide base load. Renewables provide whatever they can on top of that. Gas and especially hydro handles the dynamic load - making generation match actual demand. So nuclear not being good at following the exact load curve is not a problem. It only becomes a problem if you're like most renewable fans who insist that only hydro, wind, and solar generate all the electricity.
The best way to match demand is (at least) one base load source + (at least) one dynamic generation source. Variable (unpredictable) sources like wind and solar can be added n on top of base load as an option. They reduce the base generation requirement, but put more stress on dynamic generation since it may be called upon to cover a shortfall in the variable source. Consequently, they're the least desirable power source - you still need a base load generation source and a dynamic load generation source.
Re:So? (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually I'm inclined to regard "baseload" as an artifact of how we have traditionally managed generation systems, eg the way the domestic consumption (and Economy 7 in particular) were encouraged basically to provide demand when factories weren't. Throw in lots of cheap local storage and baseload demand might simply evaporate making nukes hard to use; I know it's not happening yet, but the point is that baseload is an emergent and contingent property, not a fundamental one, IMHO.
And your use of the term "least desirable" is only in the eyes of the grid managers. I don't much like the long-term externalities of some of the non-renewable generation methods.
In any case we're agreed that a mix is good, and sources have pros and cons.
Rgds
Damon
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> Wind capacity factor is about 25%.
In the US, in 2014, it was:
Coal 61%
Natural Gas Combined Cycle 48.3%
Nuclear 91.7%
Hydro 37.3%
Wind 34.0%
Photovoltaic 25.9%
Geothermal 74%
Source: https://www.eia.gov/electricit... [eia.gov] and https://www.eia.gov/electricit... [eia.gov]
Then compare average production (Score:2)
Wind maximum capacity is pretty meaningless, I believe the average production is around 1/3 of rated.
How does average nuclear production compare to its maximum capacity? Its almost certainly higher than for wind, but it's not like every nuclear plant is constantly running at 100% capacity.
If a maximum wind capacity to maximum nuclear capacity comparison is a bad comparison, then an average wind production to average nuclear production comparison is needed instead.
Regardless, if wind power production keeps growing this quickly (it likely will because windows power is so cheap--nuclear isn't), then its avera
Nuclear 80%-90% & reliable. Wind 20%-30% & (Score:4, Interesting)
It doesn't make a lot of sense to compare wind vs nuclear because they are used for different purposes, in a 3-way mix, but ...
> How does average nuclear production compare to its maximum capacity?
Nuclear ranges between 80%-90%, wind is 20-30%.
The benefit of wind is that it allows you to turn down your natural gas plants whenever the wind happens to be favorable.
Nuclear can't be quickly and easily throttled up and down. That's it's one actual weakness - it's reliable, etc. (There was a purely political weakness , but environmentalists are now undoing the damage they did back in 1960s, admitting it was a mistake).
So what you do, if you want clean, reliable power (rather than purely political points) is you have nuclear and hydro for the minimum load, because they are steady. You have wind and MAYBE solar to get what you can, whenever nature wants to allow it, and natural gas to make the difference. You throttle the natural gas plants up and down to meet the difference between current demand and current supply from wind + nuclear/ hydro.
Hydro is nice, in very specific locations, most of which are already in use. So it's an important source of power, but can't be increased much.
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... Nuclear ranges between 80%-90%, wind is 20-30%....
There have been recent intervals when nuke capacity factor in the UK has been barely more than twice wind IIRC, and our last major (500,000-user) power-cut was induced by a single large nuke tripping off unexpectedly (followed by a large coal plant).
Note also that wind capacity factor is rising with better turbines, and in any case is already comfortably above 30% for UK offshore wind:
http://www.renewableuk.com/en/... [renewableuk.com]
For onshore wind this is 25.74%
For offshore wind this is 34.88%
The load factor for all wind (onshore + offshore) is 28.42%
Rgds
Damon
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Or you throttle demand up and down [wikipedia.org] to meet current supply from wind + nuclear/hydro. Smart meters [wikipedia.org] help with this.
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> Regardless, if wind power production keeps growing this quickly (it likely will because windows power is so cheap--nuclear isn't), then its average production will probably overtake nuclear sooner rather than later. I'm not saying that's good or bad; it's just how it is.
I know it's bad form to introduce facts into this kind of discussion, but here is US Net generation by source:
https://www.eia.gov/electricit... [eia.gov] and https://www.eia.gov/electricit... [eia.gov]
Since 2005, total US utility generation has remained ro
Re:So? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wind maximum capacity is pretty meaningless, I believe the average production is around 1/3 of rated.
In that case, the number isn't meaningless. You just need to divide it by 3.
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Noise, really? I've never noticed any noise coming from wind power, so I looked it up. At 100m a wind turbine generates about 50db -- about the same noise level as the ambient sounds in a quiet suburb [purdue.edu]. As for eyesore, it depends. Maybe in a neighborhood of charming historic buildings, but in industrial neighborhoods turbines are often the least ugly built thing around.
As for building out nuclear to replace coal, it's a good idea, but the problem is having a solution in place in advance for decomissioning
Wind will equal nuclear when... (Score:3)
These figures are for nameplate, or maximum possible output, of each turbine. First you have to triple the number of installed turbines, so that the capacity factor comes out to about the same availability as nuclear. Then we have to attach those turbines to Smart Grid, which when it exists will allow fluctuating renewables to shuttle their output across large distances (windy in Texas this morning, in South Dakota later in the day).
The first element of Smart Grid is the smart meter, which will report continuous load information to the grid and eventually be able to turn your major appliances on and off to match supply. These meters are hotly opposed by Greens because they radio their reading to the utility or as the Greens put it, "emit radiation."
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... These meters are hotly opposed by Greens because they radio their reading to the utility or as the Greens put it, "emit radiation."
Only science-illiterate "greens", who are therefore actively undermining their own attempts to do good. We need more science and less woo-woo.
Rgds
Damon
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Agreed, agreed.
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A scattering of science-literate Greens does exist: Mark Lynas, George Monbiot, et. al. All the other Greens sneer at them as sellouts (the logocal fallacy of argumentum ad monsantium) and will no longer let them join their drumming circles at all the sites of major infrastructure projects they are trying to get shut down.
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The first element of Smart Grid is the smart meter, which will report continuous load information to the grid and eventually be able to turn your major appliances on and off to match supply. These meters are hotly opposed by Greens because they radio their reading to the utility or as the Greens put it, "emit radiation."
Bull, the reason many people are not happy with smart meters is the same as with many other IoT and cloud services, you lose control about your life.
Not that someone is going to switch off your light but the fact they can do a Google and analyse the shit out of it and abuse this data to sell you stuff you didn't ask for.
Or it's security model is broken and the bad boys get the info to check when you're not at home.
So first fix the legislation around those smart meters and then I'll let them into my hou
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But you will install them yourself once they introduce live pricing
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"The power company can suck it if they think they can control my appliances."
See what I mean? That wind fad has apparently blown over already.
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The power company can suck it if they think they can control my appliances.
They don't have to. They just have to tell me what electricity is going to cost for the next 24 hours, and my smart appliances will find an optimum between price and comfort.
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They don't have to. They just have to tell me what electricity is going to cost for the next 24 hours, and my smart appliances will find an optimum between price and comfort.
Piffle. If they want to get that aggressive about pricing, I'll start installing Tesla Powerwalls and level myself out, maximizing my comfort and convenience and minimizing my cost, completely negating their attempts to squeeze more money out of me.
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Nuclear reactors (Score:3, Funny)
Nuclear reactors were a fad that will soon blow over.
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Yeah, the sooner we move away from coal and its nasty, deadly byproducts and carbon dioxide emissions the better...
Oh, you were talking about nuclear waste? The easily-contained low-volume stuff that can be safely buried away until we have the technology to deal with it? Well, then, you're an ignorant fool!
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"reduces the volume" is a pretty vast understatement. First off it "reduces the volume" of the waste by over 90%. Secondly the reduced waste loses 99.9% of its radioactivity after about 40 years. These two factors make disposal much more manageable.
Celebrate When Annual Production Exceeds Nuclear (Score:3)
I am a big wind energy supporter, but this isn't a very meaningful milestone, although it is a sign of the rapid emergence of large scale wind power.
When wind energy production in annual gigawatt hours exceeds nuclear power, that will be something indeed. That will happen of current trends continue, but not until 2030 or so.
/. Readers Attack What They Think Headline Says (Score:5, Informative)
...film at 11.
Folks, it clearly says Power Capacity. Power, not energy, and capacity, not average actual output. The headline and summary are precise and correct. But if you're deprived of your usual stalking points -- people trying to report power in kWh or energy in kW -- I guess you have no choice but to accuse the authors of not really meaning Exactly. What. They. Said.
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Picking a metric that most people would misconstrue to mean something else is not exactly honest reporting, even though it's technically true. It's clear that the impression the headline gives is that wind is a comparable power source to nuclear in volume. It's a bit like measuring cargo delivery using motorcycle and semitrailer by miles driven. Sure in a few cases like mail delivery maybe that is the right metric since it's about making the rounds, not the bulk size or weight but for the most part it's tot
I do not like wind generators. (Score:2)
In my opinion, we should keep earth in a natural state, and leave airspace to birds, tourists, RC hobbyists, aircraft, etc. More and more, wherever one looks there are communication towers, high voltage power-lines, industrial chimneys, and now also wind turbines. And they are not just st
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Can we stop making the surface of this wonderful planet ugly?
No, because we'll never stop making children.
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if all homes were insulated to passiv house standards, there would a huge dip in power requirements for both hot and cold weather environments. Even better would be if every roof, where possible, carried solar and every home had its own power storage and then utilities could become ene
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But you have clearly missed the memo we're now over 7000 million people on this earth and we're not evenly spread out so an impact on the scenery is guaranteed. Especially because most of the people don't want to go hunting and foraging every day we need significant tech to keep them warm, fed and watered.
Oh yeah, and entertained, as the old Romans said, "Panem et circenses" and they were just a couple of million!
Personally I don't thi
First time??? (Score:3, Insightful)
Nuclear power may only just be getting started (Score:2)
In the first place, it is hard to avoid the impression that many anti-nuclear campaigners do not have a firm grasp of the scientific facts and figures. Rather, they have a powerful feeling of impending doom: they somehow feel that radiation is unseen, deadly, and threatening, and therefore must be banned. But whatever the means of generation, power sufficient to run modern cities and nations is capable of immense harm. Consider Buncefield, for example: http://io9.gizmodo.com/5899376... [gizmodo.com] Or even the danger of
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While most anti-nuclear campaigners indeed do not have a firm grasp of the scientific facts and figures, the same seems to be true of most nuclear fanboys on slashdot. But with respect to energy policy the more important facts and figures are the economic ones: Those facts speak a very clear language: nuclear is not the solution for our energy problems and, especially not somewhat cool but insane designs such as molten salt reactors. Fusion is also cool but far from done. In contrast renewables have been sh
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"...somewhat cool but insane designs such as molten salt reactors..."
Do you have any justification or explanation for this extreme characterization, or are you just going to let it hang out there in the wind?
windpower is not the solution (Score:2)
I'm always amazed that wind and solar get all that starry-eyed looking fans every time it pops up in the news. It never seems to dawn on those people that wind and solar are *inherently stochastic*, and thus, can NEVER replace more stable forms of energy-delivery. Some little know facts: when the power of a windturbine is mentioned, it does NOT mean that it actually delivers that power. For instance, if it says "This is a 8MW windmill that can support 100000 households...that is simply a lie, in a de facto
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> The vast majority only deliver ONE THIRD of their pretended maximum power (a lot even less)
No, the "nameplate capacity" is their actual maximum power, the most they will deliver under the right circumstances. Just like every other electrical device, the maximum power rating matters for the power lines they are connected to, whether it's a wind farm or your stove at home. The term you are searching for is "capacity factor", the percentage of maximum power delivered over the course of a year. For win
His balls are bigger too! (Score:2)
This is like bragging your son is now taller than you, when in fact you just had your legs amputated.