Britain to build Europe's first nuclear plant since Fukushima

[PamW]

24. Try to find the 1992 National Academy Energy Study

caraher states
It's remarkable how you have so much to say about what the NAS actually says without quoting anything from any of their reports. Does this sound like a claim of a hard limit?

The National Academy of Sciences has been doing these energy studies every 5 years or so for a couple decades now. The 20% limit originally appeared as a result of the 1992 NAS energy study, and has been reiterated in subsequent studies. Unfortunately, 1992 was before the Academy or anyone else was putting things out on the Internet. ( At that time, it was mostly for e-mail )

You make the oft quoted ERROR of saying that quoting authority is a logical fallacy. The fallacy is quoting a false authority, and while a good authority can still make mistakes, scholars do consider quoting good authority as a way to bolster one's argument:

http://www.theskepticsguide.org/resources/logical-fallacies

In practice this can be a complex logical fallacy to deal with. It is legitimate to consider the training and experience of an individual when examining their assessment of a particular claim. Also, a consensus of scientific opinion does carry some legitimate authority. But it is still possible for highly educated individuals, and a broad consensus to be wrong – speaking from authority does not make a claim true.

caraher states
But this scarcely amounts to a physics-based rebuttal to the notion that some combination of an advanced grid, large-scale storage, and designing systems to take advantage of "geographic averaging" locally-fluctuating resources can manage this quite effectively.

The above conclusively demonstrates that you don't understand a physics-based rebuttal. Although I chose the 1 Joule discrepancy on purpose to be an illustration; the fact of the matter is the Laws of Physics don't even allow the creation of ONE Joule of energy out of nothing. If one can show the creation of ANY amount of energy above the limits of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle; then you have made a CONCLUSIVE physics-based rebuttal; because the Laws of Physics don't permit it.

The references above to "advanced grid, geographic averaging"...and the like is nothing but unscientific handwaving.

The grid always has to be in balance. This is akin to the balancing of forces in an aircraft. As an analogy, there were many, many, people that attempted heavier than air flight prior to the Wright Brothers. They were all failures mostly because they were aerodynamically unstable. The true accomplishment of the Wright Brothers wasn't the use of wings or propellers; but the engineering insight that the craft has to be aerodynamically stable.

I can describe for you how all dispatchable power plants have a feedback circuit on the turbine generator to control speed, and that serves to balance the output and demand. If demand from the grid increases, there's more current flow in the generator's armature. Via Lenz's Law, that increased current in a loop in a magnetic field means there is an increase in the amount of torque required to turn the generator at constant speed. If there's no increase in torque from the turbine, the turbine generator will start to slow down. The feedback circuit picks that up, and opens the throttle valve on the turbine, and also increases fuel flow to whatever heat source is powering the turbine.

That feedback which relies on the ability to control the turbine throttle is the key to making a stable system. Solar arrays and wind turbines just plain do NOT have throttles. They can only supply what Mother Nature is offering at the time. They are VOID of a mechanism to give them stability on a power grid; all the handwaving arguments of "smart grids, and geographic averaging", notwithstanding.

The renewables community has yet to develop the systems that would make high reliance on renewables possible; so all the claims that renewables are ready to take over the lion's share of our electric generation, all we have to do is build it, is just plain not true.

I'm told that Maine has a large installation of wind turbines to about 50% of their demand; but Maine is still linked to one of the large regional grids for stability. ( The 20% is 20% of a standalone grid; not 20% of State, or 20% of a city, or 20% of a neighborhood. It's 20% of something that can stand alone. ) When Maine disconnects from the regional grid and is self-sufficient on that 50% wind power and whatever else; THEN we can talk. However, to say that wind power is ready to shoulder the load of the national grids is just premature.

Additionally, I wish when people talk about "smart grids" and the like; they would please tell us what capabilities the smart grid has and how that capability mitigates the problem. "Smart grid" is tossed around like some magic word that solves all problems. That's the difference between the scientists and others. The non-scientists accept some vacuous claim that computers or "smart grids" will solve all problems. Scientists are different. We use computers in our work, and know what can and can not be solved with computers. One doesn't get points for using "buzz words" with me; you have to be able to explain it.

The good thing about science is that it is true, whether or not you believe in it.
--Neil deGrasse Tyson

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