Hooray! Someone, at least has been doing research after my prodding.
The nuclear plant you cite produces about 3.7gw on 4000 acres (excluding from consideration waste storage, etc.) which is an acreage requirement of about 1.1 acres per megawatt. By contrast, traditional solar PV rule of thumb is 5 acres/mw, which is much larger. that's the traditional rule of thumb, which is about 4.5 times as big a requirement.
The solar plant cited is about 1900 acres for 280Mw, which is a requirement of about 6.7 acres/Mw, about 6 times the nuclear, and even higher than the 5 acres/Mw of the rule of thumb.
You might well ask, 'why are they so careless of acreage', and the answer is that the design does not control for square footage. That's why most of the solar plants are built in deserts of the west (75% in California). Land is cheap. And this is a valid constraint freedom because the calculation for total land required for all US electric needs is small.
That's why the AZ plant is so prodigal with land. It frees the developers to work on the other constraints. It comes down to money: the fixed land cost is swamped out by operating costs (capitalism at work!), so you look at Revenue returned on Capital at the margin, in other words, marginal ROI. Which the article points out is better than other electrical systems (except hydro).
Basically, the AZ plant is a pilot system. It would be fine if all the solar plants the US needs were to be situated in western deserts, but then a lot of power would be burned up (as it is now) in extensive electrical grids, so ultimately we want to distribute solar generators throughout the US, even near more populated eastern cities where land is expensive. So there IS an underlying desire to improve that acreage requirement figure.
And there are projects that produce better yield. For example, in California at Carrica plains, which is somewhat more valuable land, a new solar plant is going in which is on 640 acres and will produce 177 Mw, which gives an acreage requirement of about 3.6, which is about 3 times the nuclear site.
That's without even really trying. In engineering R&D pilot systems 3 to 1 is pretty good. You'd be worried if it were 20 to 1, or something like that.
There are other projects that narrow the gap even more.
We know from experience that once a newish technology goes into production we can find many ways to increase yield. But first, the primary economic cost/revenue projections must be verified.
Yield is pretty easy to increase once stable pilot systems are working. In fact, we have seen that very thing in nuclear energy where production is 10 times or more what it was just a few years ago.
We know that there are enhancements at hand that can increase solar yield: improved PVs, improved technologies (like Stirling engines, concentrated solar, solar thermal, etc.) that can be expected to mature as we proceed.
The real proof of the pudding here is that real honest-to-goodness US investors are willing to put THEIR money into these projects. Not only are the willing, but they have already committed billions of dollars to development. real people are making real product as a result of private investment. By contrast, not one nuclear plant anywhere has been privately financed.
But the playing field is tilted in favor of traditional energy, primarily oil (to say nothing about nukes, which are totally coppered by the government). To even get close to a level playing field alternate energy needs the Tax Credits you've heard about. Now the thing is about the tax credits is that they are NOT money from the government to industry, they are simply tax reductions. Whereas, oil gets both tax breaks and direct subsidies (10s of billions a year).
Why is it so hard to get the Tax Credits passed? Because congress and the administration are playing a game of Financial Chicken to hide the REAL facts of our terrible financial situation. It turns out that an accounting convention in USA accounting holds that any financial bill with an expiration date or a renewal clause doesn't get counted in annual revenues/expenditures! How weird. But that's why Bush tax cuts have an expiration date, for example: that way they aren't accounted for! And if they keep extending them, they will never be accounted for! We'll go broke not even knowing it. So they tacked a renewal clause on the tax creits, too, so that they would not have to be accounted for, but with such a short term that they can be threatened every year or two. Is this any way to run a government?
Oh, there are a lot of foreign investors that are putting their money into these things, too. If we in the USA turn our backs on these technologies then foreigners will get the fruits. We will end up buying from them, which will hasten our descent into being a third-world client economy.
Remember, the whole thrust of the Globalization free-trade scheme (that US business has embraced whole-heartedly) is that the US has NO advantage in manufacturing, only in technology. We have always been THE tech leader for the world. If we forfeit that we are lost!
Strawfoot wrote: Are we to conclude all the figures you post here are off by over 1000%?
A very valid point. I for one, will not believe ANY numbers unless they are backed up. That goes for facts too.
To be rude I might point out that strawfoot is unjustified in accusing me of being 1000% off since the very figures he listed show a 6:1 discrepancy not 10:1. He was misrepresenting the facts, and you can check that right there.
the figures I quoted for Carrica Plains can be easily checked by anyone with initiative and access to an internet browser. And that's just an obvious one I was reading about the other day.
ORbiker wrote: I think they (? who) shut down most of the nuclear plants years ago. Are they in mothball stage and just need to be re-certified and started back up?
We have a nuclear plant in Maryland that has been running since 1975. It was just recertified. They are submitting paperwork to add a new reactor, they already have 2. Downsides: They have to have sirens within 10 miles to warn people of a leak, people living within that range have to have iodine in stock (aids in prevention of radiation sickness), and they took out my old Boy Scout camp to build the plant. Still think it is safer than large oil tankers in the Chesapeake Bay.
Go to this link for detailed info on the power plant. At the bottom of the page you will find a list of all open and closed nuclear power plants.
Fezziwig wrote: To be rude I might point out that strawfoot is unjustified in accusing me of being 1000% off since the very figures he listed show a 6:1 discrepancy not 10:1. He was misrepresenting the facts, and you can check that right there.
the figures I quoted for Carrica Plains can be easily checked by anyone with initiative and access to an internet browser. And that's just an obvious one I was reading about the other day.
You claimed that nuclear takes up almost as much space as solar. You were WAY off. Once you are more than 100% off it doesn't much mater.
Anyone can write anything they want here. Since you have proven that you write highly inaccurate posts, unless you can backup your claims, they are just ramblings. However, everyone here is free to believe you if they choose.
And feel free to be rude.
Added: It's "Carrisa Plains" for anyone wanting to do the research.
* This post was
edited 09/02/08 01:25pm by AO_hitech *
The cited nuclear plant was about 1.1 acres/Mw, whereas the Carrissa Plains solar plant is about 3.7 acres/Mw, about 3 times as much. That was just a plant that came easily to hand, not the best by any means. In fact, it's often difficult to get such numbers for either nuclear or solar plants.
In terms of engineering, 3.7 in a pilot system compares very well with a mature legacy system at 1.1. One project is early in it's development and can be expected to improve, the other is mature and can be expected to be at it's asymptotic value.
If I happen across other numbers I'll post them. But it's not my job to educate you. That's your job. You should be researching these things. I'm way past this point myself, and don't have much interest in recapping it myself.
Each one of us, sitting here at a computer connected to the internet, has before him the most extensive and complete library system ever created in the history of mankind. By ENORMOUS amounts. Scholars of 500 years ago (even 100 years ago!) would be astounded and overjoyed at such a resource. So should we.
Use it!
And use it to learn, not just to re-enforce naive conclusions inherited from other people. Decide for yourself. You should no more rely on me than anyone else for knowledge and a decision.
Do your homework! You can't skip to the back of the book to find the answers as you might have done in high school. The risks and rewards are too big for such cheatng.
Thanks for the citation for Calvert Cliffs at Chesapeake Bay. They do not list the surface area of the plant. But I have a nagging memory from someplace that everyone within a mile of that plant is required to have a supply of iodine in case of a nuclear emergency. Is that right? I can't remember and I'll probably not research it because I have little interest since I regard Nukes as a sunset legacy system. It's usefulness is almost finished.
I notice that Calvert Cliffs runs at about 35% efficiency, i.e., about 35% of the heat generated by the atomic core is converted to electricity. The other 65% is exhausted to the atmosphere. This seems to me to be a bad side-effect.
I've spent a fair amount of time in Europe, in fact my marital family is European. Europeans are very unsettled about their dependence on atomic power. At this point they view it as simply a bridge technology to get them from here to the future without being subject to mideast and Russian blackmail. They are hungry for new technology. But they have a lot of historical institutional blocks to doing it themselves (that doesn't mean they can't or won't; eventually they will because they are improving their institutions to be more American) so they look to the USA to provide technological leadership.
They are ASKING us to lead into the future! We'd be stupid not to do it. And we will. Just as we led the rest of the world in implementation of petrol energy, and just as we led with Atoms For Peace programs.
Don't fight it!
Because if the USA citizenship stymies alternate energy, then the pioneers in technology will go overseas and take those opportunities with them. Believe me, there is plenty of money in Europe, the mideast, saudi arabia, dubai, all thos homes of sovereign funds.
If We The People make bad decisions we will see opportunities slip away and we will become a third world country, standing on the sidelines , envying other peoples lives.
Fezziwig wrote: The cited nuclear plant was about 1.1 acres/Mw, whereas the Carrissa Plains solar plant is about 3.7 acres/Mw, about 3 times as much...In terms of engineering, 3.7 in a pilot system compares very well with a mature legacy system at 1.1.
You claimed that a nuclear plant took almost as much room as a solar plant. That is not even remotely close. THAT is the point I'm trying to make. YOU WERE WRONG, PERIOD.
Fezziwig wrote: If I happen across other numbers I'll post them. But it's not my job to educate you. That's your job. You should be researching these things. I'm way past this point myself, and don't have much interest in recapping it myself.
You’re certainly not educating anyone here. When what you say is many orders of magnitude exaggerated one would be a fool to take what you claim as the truth. You are here arguing your point of view. If you want anyone to take you seriously from now on I expect that you will have to back up your facts. Your gross exaggeration has lost you most (all?) of your credibility. And if you don’t care if anyone believes you, why bother to post?
Fezziwig wrote: "When what you say is many orders of magnitude exaggerated ..."
Nonsense! In engineering and science an "order of magnitude" is 10:1, a decade. 3:1 is barely more than an octave, 2:1.
You're not very hitech. And you're distorting.
I used the term in a non-technical sense. It gets my point across. Everyone here is not an engineer. Likely, less than 10% are. And, if we are rounding numbers, you were 4:1 off.
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