TWENTY NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS - Fifty Percent of the nation's energy needs.

[kristopher]

59. In the time it takes to build one nuclear plant

And with a minor fraction of the resources need to build a single nuclear plant we can build either solar or wind turbine manufacturing capacity. For our example let's go with 2.5GW worth of 2.5MW wind turbines/year.

I selected 10 years for this example because this is the average time it would take to complete one nuclear plant project if it doesn't suffer delays - and they almost always do.

With this plan, at the end of ten years we should have produced and installed about 10,000 turbines, or 25 GWe of nameplate wind capacity.

I estimated the total amount of electricity produced as the turbines come online over time and at the end of that 10 years, operating at 33% capacity, they would have provided a cumulative total of approximately 389.7 TWh.

A 1GW nuclear plant actually produces about 7 TWh each year.

So, in the time it takes to plan and build one nuclear plant, the turbines produced and installed will have produced 54 reactor-years worth of electricity. Their aggregate annual output will equal that of 10 nuclear reactors.

Key point: 10 year total electricity generated by bringing the generators on line as the factory turns them out - 390TWh = 54 years worth of generation from the nuclear plant - almost its entire projected lifetime.



Now we are ready to bring the nuclear plant on line as scheduled and the picture is this; by devoting approximately the same resources to each technology we have, at the end of 10 years:

- 10,000 wind turbines producing 72 TWhs of electricity per year plus the 54 years worth of production from the nuclear plant that the wind turbines have already cranked out, or

- One nuclear plant ready to begin to producing 7TWh per year.


Key point: If your goal is REALLY to address climate change rather than cheerlead for a given industry, the preferred choice is obvious.



Given the standard 20 year life span for the turbines and assuming the plant continued production of the same product, this factory will max out it's contribution to growth of wind power at 50GWe when it hits the 20 year mark and starts to build replacements for those wearing out.

That 50GW of turbines should actually produce approximately 144 TWh of electricity every year.

50GW faceplate capacity X .33 capacity factor = 16.5GW of production

That 16.5GW equals approximately twenty (20) 1GW nuclear reactors operating at the international average capacity factor of about 80%.



Key point: Going forward the disparity in favor of wind only increases. and we have to repeat that IF your goal is REALLY to address climate change rather than cheerlead for a given industry, the preferred choice is obvious.