Democritus (continued...),

As my claim being "fatuous" that wind power is cheaper than nuclear, I suggest you research the subject yourself.

Capital costs and operating labour costs are surprisingly close, and both industries claim to be reducing them (wind more credibly, as turbine sizes have dramatically increased while new reactor designs remain on the drawing board). Fuel cost and waste-management cost for wind is literally zero, while uranium and radioactive waste management incur heavy unpaid externalities.

Most importantly the *cost of capital* is very different, with nuclear plants having a high level of financial risk. Nuclear plants have planning lead times of (at least) several years even under a sympathetic regime, and construction lead times of at least five years, often more, before any electricity flows. Wind farms can be approved in a matter of months (given sympathetic regulation) and erected piecemeal, each turbine generating electricity immediately.

The financial risk of nuclear power extends beyond planning, construction and possible early retirement to highly inconvenient extended maintenace outages, often unplanned. Wind turbines do fail occasionally, but dozens of others keep working meanwhile.

Nuclear power looks cheap on paper if the sums are done right. The "base load fallacy" and "hard energy path" thinking often captivates planners. If a country is already committed to large-scale radioactive waste management, the marginal cost of more is low unless you actually calculate it over the thousands of years of guarded containment required, which power utilities never do.

The off-the-balance-sheet costs of nuclear power are clear from the responses of people who know and understand risks. Insurers won't touch it with a barge-pole. Investors have built and operated nuclear facilities, but they have always done so with insurance and waste-management underwritten by a government which unconditionally supports the industry.

On the other hand a small subsidy to let renewables compete with incumbent coal generators has investors coming out of the woodwork clamouring to build wind farms.

Governments in turn support nuclear industries for their own reasons, which have little to do with economics, electricity or thermodynamics, and a lot to do with pissing contests.

Xoddam,

Having had a large involvement in power generation and distribution I have been involved in some aspects of design and costing. A study involving looked into various technologies including nuclear. The long term cost of the nuclear option where there is a distance of >1000km from any coal field or gas was very attractive.

Wind power was also relatively attractive, but simply due to the variability was not a viable alternative.

Base load is a concept used in modelling power distribution. Anyone that uses the term "base load fallacy" indicates to me that they are an armchair warrior who has never been in the position to actually make the hard decisions.

Democritus says
"A study involving looked into various technologies including nuclear. The long term cost of the nuclear option where there is a distance of >1000km from any coal field or gas was very attractive."

Does the study have an author, a title, a date of publication? Are conflicting interests declared by the author(s)? Is it peer reviewed?

It's kind of precious, really, Democritus, telling us about your involvement in the power industry, then citing one unidentified study, then calling xoddam an "armchair warrior".

Why not just say "My armchair's better than your armchair?"

As for silly remarks about how the comments have strayed from the subject of the original opinion piece, I have posted links which it would appear you have not bothered to read.

see
"Posted by Sir Vivor, Monday, 29 October 2007 6:40:46 AM"

In my opinion, the items I cited, including the one by the Electric Power Research Institute do indeed hold water (no pun intended?).

It is not hard to establish the lobbying brief of the EPRI - not a lot of antinuclear sentiment there.

I guess off-the-cuff ad hominims are easier for you, and less challenging to your mindset. I wonder if the original Democritus was so facile in his thinking.

Democritus,

If you've worked in the field, I understand that it may irk you to consider the possibility that traditional decision-making processes are flawed. Nevertheless, there are many assumptions which have historically been made in the electricity business that become less and less valid as technology changes, and many decision-makers who choose not to notice this annoying fact.

It must be satisfying to be someone in a position "to actually make the hard decisions". I'm not surprised therefore, that it rarely occurrs to such people that they would have more opportunity to make choices, and could save money overall, if they made *soft* decisions instead.

http://www.smallisprofitable.org/pdfs/SIP_PartOneExcerpt.pdf

Page 21 in this excerpt is particularly relevant to the issue of "base load" versus renewable power. "Base load generators" are unconventionally defined as those with the lowest operating cost, regardless of capital cost *or* availability: whenever they is available, they should be despatched first. Generators with zero fuel cost are "base load" by this definition, intermittent or not.

Walt Patterson's Keeping the Lights On is another brilliant tome in a similar vein: "this is the book that will convince you that you need to re-think everything you ever thought you knew about the future of electricity."

http://shop.earthscan.co.uk/ProductDetails/mcs/productID/790/

Working papers (drafts for the book) are here:

http://www.waltpatterson.org/ktlowp3.pdf
http://www.waltpatterson.org/ktlowp2.pdf

Sir Vivor, it appears I have struck a nerve,

I am sorry that my actual experience does not meet the exacting standards of your cut and paste research.

The study I was refering to was part of a tendering process and as such is not public domain.

The reason I referred to it in the first place is because xoddam, intimated that the reason I didn’t agree with him was that I hadn’t done any research on the issue.

I did read your EPRI document, and wondered why you would quote something so contrary to you position. Other than that the 1970 /80s reactors in the water rich USA were using more water than other power generating sources, it also showed that existing units were going to reduce water consumption by upgrading their cooling technology.

I would question whether you actually read the article, or if you did whether you were capable of digesting information that didn't fit you views.

As BSc biologist I would hope you would know the difference between what you want to know and what you need to know.

If you criticise others in an opinion forum for not providing an adequate bibliography whilst misconstruing the purpose of the ones you do quote, perhaps you should change you nom de plume to Don Quixote.

The term "armchair warrior" I apply to persons who pontificate on topics that they actually have never been involved in. As far as power generation and transmission is concerned the "Don" is in uncharted territory.

You're right, Democritus, you've hit a nerve, and you hit it again when you said

"The study I was refering to was part of a tendering process and as such is not public domain."

"not in the public domain" may bear the stamp of authority for you, but for me, it reads like the label on a patent medicine bottle.

The "commercial in confidence" line hits my funnybone, for sure.

You have not identified your area of interest beyond suggesting that you have worked in the electric power supply industry. But I expect that you would see something quite different in the EPRI report than someone with a biologist's eye would see. I guess you would see something that justifies nuclear instead of renewables.

So which of us, then, might be tilting at windmills?