The Answer to Climate Change Is Renewable Energy, Not Nuclear Power

[kristopher]

30. What do the National Academies of Science and Engineering say about our energy future?

Pegging current US consumption at 4,000TWH the NAS&E authors tell us that deploying existing energy efficiency technologies is our "nearest-term and lowest-cost option for moderating our nation’s demand for energy", and that accelerated "deployment of these technologies in the buildings, transportation, and industrial sectors could reduce energy use by about 15 percent (15–17 quads, that is, quadrillions of British thermal units) in 2020, relative to the EIA’s “business as usual” reference case projection, and by about 30 percent (32–35 quads) in 2030 (U.S. energy consumption in 2007 was about 100 quads)."

They state that more aggressive policies and incentives would produce more results and that most of the "energy efficiency technologies are cost-effective now and are likely to continue to be competitive with any future energy-supply options; moreover, additional energy efficiency technologies continue to emerge."

The authors offer that renewable energy sources "could provide about an additional 500 TWh (500 trillion kilowatt-hours) of electricity per year by 2020 and about an additional 1100 TWh per year by 2035 through new deployments."

They are less optimistic about increased contributions from nuclear plants writing that they might provide an additional 160 TWh of electricity per year by 2020, and up to 850 TWh by 2035, by modifying current plants to increase their power output and by constructing new plants." However they are very specific with warnings that nuclear powers economics for Gen3 plants are significantly worse than predicted by the 2003 MIT nuclear study. They further opine that failure to prove the economic viability of at least 5 merchant plants by 2020 (it used to be 2010) would probably rule out nuclear as a viable option going forward.

Since the report was penned we have seen a complete collapse of the very idea that US merchant reactors are even possible and the likelihood is that few, if any, new plants will actually be built. If any ARE built it is extremely unlikely that they will be able to demonstrate the economic viability that is called for in the Report. This means that if their caveat about proof of concept is accurate, new nuclear is unlikely to play any significant role in carbon reduction in the US.

And now we have Fukushima as a new barometer of costs to add to the benefit/cost ledger and the phenomenally rapid reduction in costs for solar.


Here is a link to download the Executive Summary, where the authors of the report summarize the salient points of the study.

Electricity from Renewable Sources Status, Prospects, and Impediments
Executive Summary

http://www.nap.edu/nap-cgi/report.cgi?record_id=12619&type=pdfxsum