When have I *ever* stated that nuclear is the only source of energy that’s worthwhile? Jesse, you seem to think that you have cleverly read between the lines and exposed me. If you really want to see who has the smear campaign going, why don’t you check here first:

http://www.mng.org.uk/gh/cspnn.htm

When I talk about solar, I talk about its limitations — which every power source has. Without my input, the readers of this blog would find a lopsided viewpoint of these technologies – heavy criticism of nuclear power and green sugar-coated niceties for solar.

I work in the nuclear energy field. I happen to be an expert in the field of nuclear energy. Why is it so shocking that I should speak so highly of it? It’s because I know a great deal about it. I have children too! I want a future that is clean and sustainable for them! Nuclear isn’t perfect, but it sure beats a lot of the alternatives!

Now with that said, it is a breath of fresh air to see that someone will admit that Solar and Nuclear are NOT competing technologies. Nuclear is an excellent baseload energy source. Solar is one of several peaking energy sources. They can actually work together very well.

We agree that Solar is not yet a viable baseload energy source. So what is? Currently, 90% of all energy is supplied by either nuclear or fossil fuels. We both agree that fossil fuels ought to be phased out.

Like it or hate it, there is no mature technology available today in sufficient quantities to phase out fossil fuels, meet our *baseload* energy needs, and cover increased demands other than nuclear power. Can we agree on that too?

I’ve done my homework too, and with no personal or financial interest in Concentrating Solar Power, I feel obligated to defend the highly promising technology from this seemingly deliberate attempt to discredit it, lest it become a competitor for your beloved nuclear power (your angle consistently seems to be that a renewable energy technology is OK, unless they threaten nuclear power, in which case you’d better point out all the flaws of that given technology…)

As for your three specific reasons why concentrating solar power, or CSP, is a supposedly unworkable solution, your slant clearly comes through in each of them.

First, as far is the ‘inefficiency’ of CSP, you first state the fact that CSP only generates 2 tenths of 1% of California’s power demand. That has nothing to with efficiency (and I’m sure you know that), but rather speaks to the low level of market penetration of this technology. There’s only basically one CSP plant in California, , the series of SEGS plants built in the 1980s. But the low market penetration of CSP is unrelated to the efficiency of a CSP plant and to attempt to link them is misleading.

You then go on to say that the SEGS plants have “notoriously low capacity factors” that prevent them from being a reliable source of baseload power. First, I would ask you to provide a figure for the capacity factor of these plants, or better yet, for the new generation of CSP plants being built now. CPS is currently undergoing a renaissance after years of stagnant development, and the new generation of plants is both cheaper and more reliable than those build 20-30 years ago. Using the old plants as your comparison is as misleading as comparing first generation commercial nuclear facilities with current Generation III nuclear reactors or the state of the art Generation IV reactors you are so often touting at NEI Nuclear Notes.

As you mention later on, CSP plants utilize molten salts as both a heat transfer medium, and as an energy storage medium (you fail to mention the latter). The ability to store thermal energy in the salts for later use allows CSP plants to both shape their power output on a short term (inter-hourly) basis, and (if equipped with storage tanks), to provide long-term storage allowing them to even operate 24 hours a day, delivering dispatchable power to meet peak demands. That’s a major advantage over other more intermittent renewables like wind power, and leads not to “notoriously low capacity factors” as you state, but rather quite high ones. The new Solar Tres solar power tower-style plant being built will have an annual capacity factor of 65%, for example, (on par with natural gas plants, by way of comparison) and will be able to operate 24 hours a day during summer months.

Finally, arguing that CSP can’t provide baseload power is really beside the point, as baseload plants aren’t the only kind of power plants. In fact, meeting peak power demands is crucial, and CSP excels in this service. In most places where CSP is appropriate (e.g. America’s desert southwest), peak demand periods come in the summer months when A/C loads are high. That also happens to coincide with the peak production periods for CSP plants (the sun is shining when its hottest!), meaning CSP is an excellent resource to meet peak demand periods with clean, renewable and even dispatchable (i.e. reliable) power.

[Capacity factors for those who may not be familiar with the term refers to the percentage of a power plant's maximum rated output or capacity that it operates at on average (usually over a year). A baseload coal or nuclear plant may have a high capacity factor of 80-90% while a peaking natural gas plant might have one as low as 30-50% since it's only run during periods when electricity demand is high. Wind plants, because of their intermittent nature and lack of storage capacity have capacity factors of around 30-45%. A CSP plant can get much better, because of the potential for energy storage in the molten salts, perhaps as high as 65%].

Second, your figures for solar power costs include both CSP and solar photovoltaic costs. This is a common (and potentially misleading) mistake. You are essentially comparing the cost of thousands of tiny (1-3 kW) distributed PV arrays on residential rooftops installed by individual contractors (i.e. the high end of that 13-42 cents/kWh figure) with large (10s to 100s of MW) central station concentrating solar power plants which utilize an entirely different technology and realize economies of scale. But again, I’m suspicious that you knew that when you wrote these points.

Additionally, while 13 cents/kWh may sound high, you’ve got to recognize that that’s at the beginning of a new renaissance for CSP technology, and costs will likely fall, especially if CSP received anywhere near the kind of federal R&D support that the nuclear industry has received over the years. Additionally, even at 13 cents/kWh, CSP competes favorably with peaking natural gas plants. As I mentioned earlier, CSP excels at meeting peak demands, so it is most appropriate to compare them to peaking gas plants.

Finally, your point about relying on back-up generators also ignores the high capacity factors I mentioned above and the fact that the molten salt allows CSP plants to shape and firm their own output. This also assumes that CSP plants are not hybrid plants that utilize natural gas to further shape their own output, which you mention later (when condemning CSP for its supposed environmental impact).

As for your third and final point about environmental impacts, this is just silly. Yes, CSP plants can be efficiently ‘hybridized’ with natural gas-fired generation – both types of generation use steam turbines to generate power and a CSP plant can share it’s turbine with a small natural gas plant. This is a distinct advantage, not a disadvantage, and simply means that rather than build both a peaking gas plant and a CSP plant at different locations, they can be co-located, share turbines and other equipment and operate both more effectively and more economically. Saying that CSP is responsible for the environmental impacts of the natural gas plant is a bit of a stretch, since in reality, every kWh of power produced by a CSP plant is offsetting the need for a kWh of generation at a natural gas plant (the other main alternative for meeting peak power demands). The natural gas-fired power generated at the CSP-natural gas hybrid facility would be generated elsewhere even if the CSP plant didn’t exist. CSP produces clean, renewable power, plain and simple, and saying that “this renewable technology is a contributor to greenhouse gas emissions” is highly misleading.

As you conclude, “Today … CSP is no replacement for baseload energy generation sources.” I will agree with you here … for now.

Today, CPS is a clean, renewable replacement for peak energy generation resources – i.e. dirty, inefficient and expensive simple-cycle natural gas plants – and should be developed for that purpose, especially in the American Southwest, with considerably more haste than it has been.

Some day, if or when CSP grows to meet all peaking power demand in the Southwest and additional potential exists, then storage or shaping options should be considered that would enable CSP to meet baseload power needs. This is not a far-fetched possibility considering the already high capacity factors of CSP plants utilizing thermal storage in molten salts. However, after geothermal energy, CSP has the most potential of any clean, renewable energy technology to meet baseload power demands, and I’m confident that with continued innovation, CSP can even offset your precious baseload power.

Michael, I appreciate your input on this and other threads regarding nuclear power. When it comes to nuclear power, rhetoric often drowns out reason and fact (from both sides of the debate). I am not a rabidly anti-nuclear kind of person. I personally believe that all low-carbon generating technologies should at least be on the table at this point – let’s not flatly rule anything out yet – given the severity of the climate crisis. That includes nuclear power. But I would ask you to please refrain from this kind of slanted condemnation of other technologies, and stick to presenting factual information on nuclear power. We all know where your loyalties lie (or they should be obvious at least), and I’m personally happy to read past the slant of your comments for the nugget of truth (of which some of your comments have more than others). But I really can’t abide by the kind of comments you made regarding CSP. It’s the same kind of half-researched, clearly biased comment that are so often made, and you so often vehemently attack, regarding nuclear power.

Concentrating Solar Power (or CSP) is no substitute for nuclear energy!

CSP is inefficient, expensive, and has notable environmental impacts.

Inefficient
According to the California Energy Commission ( http://www.energy.ca.gov/electricity/gross_system_power.html ), all of the utility-generated solar power in the state amounts to two-tenths of one percent of the state’s electricity production. Because of the limited availability of sunlight, these systems have notoriously low capacity factors and therefore cannot be relied upon for baseload power.

Expensive
According to the California Energy Commission ( http://www.energy.ca.gov/electricity/comparative_costs.html ), at 13 to 42 cents per kWhr, solar power is *the* most expensive way to generate electricity, hands down. In a time when energy prices are skyrocketing, few people can afford a large-scale conversion to solar power. What’s more, due to its low capacity factors, solar capacity must be backed up with additional stand-by power generation, which adds to the overall cost of solar.

Environmental impact
Solar collectors also require a huge area of land, which must be dedicated to solar generation. Even in the desert, this could disrupt the delicate ecology. Additionally, in order for the salts to remain molten at night, CSP requires fossil fuels to be burned for heat. According to a US Department of Energy study ( http://www.nrel.gov/docs/gen/fy98/24496.pdf ), these systems are “hybridized” with up to 25% natural gas. Ironically, this renewable technology is a contributor to greenhouse gas emissions!

Nevertheless, concentrating solar technology, along with many other renewable power sources such as wind, tidal, and geothermal, should continue to be supported in hopes that a breakthrough will someday allow them to be a significant source of energy generation. Today however, CSP is no replacement for baseload energy generation sources. In the medium term, we cannot abandon the proven, effective, and efficient source of low-emission energy that nuclear power has to offer. To learn more about the benefits of nuclear energy, check out http://www.nei.org/index.asp?catnum=1&catid=11 and http://www.casenergy.org/WhyNuclear/TheBasics/tabid/66/Default.aspx

For example, a summary of Ross Gelbspan, author of “Boiling Point”; Sir Nicholas Stern’s Testimony to the U.S. Senate Energy Committee (in February); and British economist Adair Turner explaining why we don’t have to choose between spending on climate change reduction and poverty.

A good source to LISTEN to the planet. Free. No ads.

Alex.

But what if I was paid to talk about nuclear energy? That doesn’t mean I’m allowed to lie about it.

Krikor, why do you rail against me for not mentioning solar? I am not a solar engineer, but that doesn’t mean I’m against it. No technology can meet the future demands all by itself. We need every form of non-carbon-emitting energy if we are going to address the very real and immediate problem of climate change. And conservation too!

Chernobyl? That kind of reactor was inherently unsafe, and no one in the US has built or would consider building a reactor anything like it. It’s like saying that blimps should never be built because of what happened to the Hindenberg.

It takes a long time to get new generation on line regardless of the power source. So we’d better get started.

There’s no hope in nuclear technology? Well, the world energy markets aren’t taking your advice. There are scores of reactor construction projects going on all around the world and over 30 reactors in various stages of permitting in the US.

I’m all for having an intelligent discussion about this. I live in Richmond, Virginia, but I’ll gladly travel. It’s easy to look at these typed words and dismiss the author as some sinister villian, but on a personal note – I really do care about the earth and environment. I have two little girls that need clean air and a habitable earth. Not that this will stop anyone from making any personal attacks against me, but I’m used to it.

Your fear about an “open forum” being slanted b/c of big money in the nuclear industry etc. is interesting. I’ve never thought of that. What if the forum was conducted in a nuetral environment and in a context of finding a new moral compass for the 21st century? Perhaps it could be facilitated or led by people who have no particular interest in anything but discovering a new way of working together? This site provides an interesting framework for discussing a revolution in the way we communicate accross value spheres. Is that what you meant by culture change? Or did you mean more in terms of ecological awareness?

re: Robert — You make a good point. Facts are facts, and what kind of world we want is debatable, precisely because values and visions differ in the spectrum of humanity. You sound like you probably value distributed social/economic power and small-scale technologies. Now, what if our nuclear friend values a heiarchy of wealth and large-scale technology? Is one right and one wrong? Are both right? If both were right, then what kind of energy policy is right? I don’t the answers here, and these are not easy questions.

I just think this kind of discussion is what is needed in this fractured world of us vs. them. If we can’t learn to understand each other more deeply and work accross value-lines, I think there is little hope for the future of humanity. Too many conferences about climate change seem to be settings for what I like to call “Green” value system talking to “green” value system (i.e. “preaching to the choir”), which is FINE, and probably still important. I’m just personally convinced that until we can work with all value systems, the movement wave will only be ripples, and never the tidal wave we need ecologically.

If anyone wants to work together on organizing a conference like this for 2008, as maybe part of Focus the Nation (www.focusthenation.org), please get in touch: noahmunro@gmail.com. Happy Week of Action!

Please forgive any gross simplifications I may have made for purposes of brevity.