Roses1;
Hmmm, I have my doubts about biomass, how much would have to come from crops ?
Sure, a lot of waste could be diverted into biomass energy production, but it does
not seem to have the volume to replace oil, let alone oil, gas & coal.
It is after all the leftovers from products produced by oil, gas & coal !
Sounds a bit like an inwards spiral to zero.

What made it all so demanding to me was the graph of net energy for ERoEI.
It very quickly becomes a non event with the gain being lost in energy transitions & transmissions.

Another thing I wanted to comment on is the "ethical" selling of shares in
coal, & oil companies etc.
This is a total nonsense ! Someone else buys them, so whats changed ?
Also when super funds do this they could be sued for not acting in the
best interest of the members.
eg, they sell BHP and buy an ethical wind farm company which later goes down the gurgler.
As wind farms are only making money because of subsidies when/if the government
pulls the plug (pun intended) they could go broke big time.

Ben,

I stated the three criteria you’d need to address to convince me I am wrong:

1. Renewables can meet the key requirements of electricity consumers as well as reduce the cost of electricity, and

2. Renewables can supply a large proportion of the world’s electricity requirements forever, and

3. Nuclear is not capable of doing all of the above.

You haven’t seriously addressed these. On the other hand, I provided links demonstrating renewables cannot do 1 and 2, and showing nuclear can meet the requirements of electricity consumers. Nuclear is currently more expensive than fossil fuels but that can and inevitably will be changed when the unjustified impediments to nuclear power development and roll out are removed. I stated that nuclear power can supply the world’s energy needs effectively indefinitely. You disagreed. I asked you to explain how you’d researched this issue. You haven’t answered.

You stated three concerns with nuclear power you’d want to be convinced are not warranted for you to agree that nuclear is a viable option

1. Weapons proliferation

2. Safety; and

3. Fuel supply for a 1000 years.

I responded to each. You disagreed. I asked you to explain what research you’d done to support your opinions on this. You haven’t responded.

So far it seems you don’t know much about any of this. I get this impression because:

1. Your SEM analysis is biased and flawed. It doesn’t consider nuclear so it is clearly biased. Your own calculation shows that LCOE of renewables is very expensive, ~2x the projected cost of mainly nuclear.

2. Your comments show you do not understand ERoEI

3. Your response to me shows you don’t understand that renewables are not sustainable

4. Your attempted dismissal of the CSIRO ‘MyPower’ calculator was factually incorrect. Your comment suggests you are prepared to make dismissive statements without checking your facts.

5. Your comments about nuclear proliferation, safety, insurance, and duration of fuel supply show your opinions are those of the anti-nuke activists not obtained from researching authoritative sources.

Are you going to address the criteria?

Peter,
For this to be fruitful, we need to debate constructively and avoid being aggressively adversarial. I think we are both wanting to achieve the same aim - safe secure and affordable energy for humanity now and in the future. So let's be proactive and acknowledge truths on both sides. In summary, here's where I am at. Please note that I acknowledge some positives for nuclear and I hope you' do the same for renewables.

- Nuclear is best of any technologies in relation to EROI. However both nuclear and RE have EROI's that are sufficiently good even when 'buffering'/ backup is taken into account. EROI is not the best measure - fossil fuel GHG emissions per kWh is. Nuclear, hydro, wind solar CST and Solar PV are all sufficiently good using this measure.

- Nuclear is the best of all technologies on air pollution mortalities

- But renewables and nuclear are so close on these scores that the difference is irrelevant.

- Disaster risk, future storage costs and weapons proliferation remain significant risks which are not costed into nuclear and should be.

- All-nuclear would be cheaper than all- renewables if the above risk factors are not costed in but not costing them results in a false economy.

- The nuclear risks (none of which apply to renewables) mean that renewables should be developed to the maximum economic level before nuclear.

- If nuclear is used in future it should be as backup to renewables, perhaps in densely populated cold countries where CST can't be used. It should only be new, flexible (rampable) reactor designs that are as near as possible fail-safe. i.e. existing reactors should be phased out, not extended to 60 - 80 years as some are advocating.

We need to acknowledge that about 19% of the world's electricity comes from nuclear and 22% from renewables (more than half this from hydro). http://www.iea.org/w/bookshop/480-Medium-Term_Renewable_Energy_Market_Report_2014
Wind and solar are currently growing >4 times faster than nuclear.

All of these sources are viable and contributing to the aim of minimizing the burning of fossil fuels for energy

Peter, you claim that I have not been doing sufficient research on nuclear, while at the same time you have been trivializing the risks of nuclear and not providing documents to support this. It is true that this debate has accelerated my research in this area. I urge you to read this well researched document by Schneider et al:
http://www.worldnuclearreport.org/IMG/pdf/201408msc-worldnuclearreport2014-hr-v4.pdf
from which I obtained the following:

- The Fukishima disaster has so far claimed over 1600 lives and 3 years later few have returned to the 125,000 ha total exclusion zone.

Note: This area is larger than the total area that would be revitalized by providing Australia with 30% of its electricity from dispatchable solar thermal with storage.

- Fukushima will cost about $100 billion in compensation, decontamination and decommissioning

- Since 1997 electricity generation from 'clean' sources has increased (in TWh) by:

Nuclear - 114
Solar - 124
Wind - 616

Schneider cites the IPCC 5th assessment report:

"Renewable Energy
Many RE338 technologies have demonstrated substantial performance improvements and cost reductions, and a growing number of RE technologies have achieved a level of maturity to enable deployment at
significant scale… Regarding electricity generation alone, RE accounted for just over half of the new electricity‐generating capacity added globally in 2012, led by growth in wind, hydro and solar power.
Nuclear Power
Nuclear energy is a mature low-GHG339 emission source of baseload power, but its share of global electricity generation has been declining (since 1993). Nuclear energy could make an increasing
contribution to low carbon energy supply, but a variety of barriers and risks exist. Those include:
operational risks, and the associated concerns, uranium mining risks, financial and regulatory risks, unresolved waste management issues, nuclear weapons proliferation concerns, and adverse public
opinion."

Why do you claim that wind and solar electricity are not viable, when they have they been increasing at much faster rates over the past 15 years than nuclear ? Perhaps it is it this fast growth of renewables that has panicked you and the nuclear lobby into attacking renewables?

Ben,

>” For this to be fruitful, we need to debate constructively and avoid being aggressively adversarial. I think we are both wanting to achieve the same aim - safe secure and affordable energy for humanity now and in the future. So let's be proactive and acknowledge truths on both sides.”

That’s a great start. Thank you. I agree. I wasn’t expecting this. I’d given up hope of a constructive and honest discussion or debate.

My answers are honest and supported by links in previous comments: (I number your dash points 1 to 7 to facilitate response).

1. I don’t agree. Renewables cannot now and never could supply 80% to 100% of the world’s electricity supply, let alone all its energy. Energy use per capita will continue to grow as it has been doing since man was a hunter gatherer. Renewables cannot come close. ERoEI is one reason – too low to support modern society. Materials requirements, land areas and transmission requirements are another. I’ve addressed all this in previous comments. Have you read the links I’ve provided? I don’t agree that GHG emissions per kWh is the most important measure. However, even there nuclear is far better than renewables. Nuclear provides lower GHG emissions per kWh in a system and the lowest CO2 abatement cost per kWh. Comparing a mostly nuclear v as mostly renewables NEM, the nuclear would be about 1/3 the capital cost, ½ the cost of electricity and 1/3 the CO2 abatement cost. We can argue about the details and assumptions used, but that’s the big picture conclusion.

2. Disingenuous. Not just air pollution. Nuclear is about the safest of all the electricity generation technologies on a LCA basis including all ‘cradle-to grave’ risks. That’s including the concerns you raised in point 4.

3. The point is that nuclear is as safe as or safer than renewables with all risks included.

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