Today, the Renewable Energy Industry does the research and reporting on the critical or negative characteristics of "renewable energy." Well, guess what?
In our over anxious effort to save ourselves from global warming we are spending billions of dollars each year on wind and solar energy sources that are not only unreliable but expensive and dangerous as well.
What we are overlooking is the value of nuclear energy. It is the only "clean energy" source that can outperform fossil fuel plants. A single nuclear plant can provide electricity to millions of people, not just a few thousand and do it cheaper and safer than either solar or wind.
What we are overlooking is the value of nuclear energy. It is the only "clean energy" source that can outperform fossil fuel plants. A single nuclear plant can provide electricity to millions of people, not just a few thousand and do it cheaper and safer than either solar or wind.
Nuclear Plants do not depend on the weather so they do not need to "save electricity for a rainy day" with huge banks of Lithium batteries like PV solar or by using fossil fuels for backup like wind energy. They do not produce CO2 or greenhouse gases or destroy land, forests and bays and they do not displace and kill wildlife.
No dangerous radiation has EVER been released in the U.S.A. thru the history of nuclear energy and nuclear waste does not result in undetectable, highly dangerous poisons in our landfills like millions of damaged or used solar panels and dead batteries soon will.
If the U.S.A. recycled its deposits of used nuclear fuel there would be enough fuel to power every home in America for the next 12 years and enough to power our nuclear fleet for the next 30 years with no new uranium input. Instead, we are building high maintenance wind farms and burying thousands of acres of land under PV panels to generate a fraction of the electricity produced by a single nuclear power station.
Recycling "used fuel" would provide the medical isotopes needed for the 20 million nuclear medicine procedures performed each year and reduce nuclear waste to just one cubic yard per plant.
No dangerous radiation has EVER been released in the U.S.A. thru the history of nuclear energy and nuclear waste does not result in undetectable, highly dangerous poisons in our landfills like millions of damaged or used solar panels and dead batteries soon will.
If the U.S.A. recycled its deposits of used nuclear fuel there would be enough fuel to power every home in America for the next 12 years and enough to power our nuclear fleet for the next 30 years with no new uranium input. Instead, we are building high maintenance wind farms and burying thousands of acres of land under PV panels to generate a fraction of the electricity produced by a single nuclear power station.
Recycling "used fuel" would provide the medical isotopes needed for the 20 million nuclear medicine procedures performed each year and reduce nuclear waste to just one cubic yard per plant.
Wind Farms are thousands of acres of turbines as tall as 30-story buildings, with spinning rotors as wide as a passenger jet's wingspan. Although the blades appear to move slowly, they can reach speeds up to 170 mph at the tips.
In order to get more than a couple hundred megawatts of electricity, we need bigger and bigger wind farms; from the 47,000 acre Horse Hollow to today's 100,000 acre Alta Wind Energy Center, located in the Tehachapi Mountains. Alta is now the largest wind farm in the United States with 4,731 wind turbines.
Wind enthusiasts like to talk about "installed capacity." If you add the "rating" of all the turbines at Alta, the installed capacity is 1,547 megawatts. However, wind farms, universally, are barely 40% productive. When the wind blows too slow the turbines are shut down for economic reasons. When the wind blows too hard the turbines are shut down for safety reasons. When the wind is dormant, there's no electricity. Therefore, Alta will only generate about 618 megawatts on the average.
Since wind energy cannot be stored in large quantities, these massive wind farms need fossil fuel for back-up. According to the Department of Energy, the cost of wind power is 15.1 cents per kilowatt hour if natural gas is used as the back-up fuel or 19.2 cents per kilowatt hour if coal is used as the back-up fuel. The cost is not the 9.6 cents per kilowatt hour the EIA is using for its models.
In order to get more than a couple hundred megawatts of electricity, we need bigger and bigger wind farms; from the 47,000 acre Horse Hollow to today's 100,000 acre Alta Wind Energy Center, located in the Tehachapi Mountains. Alta is now the largest wind farm in the United States with 4,731 wind turbines.
Wind enthusiasts like to talk about "installed capacity." If you add the "rating" of all the turbines at Alta, the installed capacity is 1,547 megawatts. However, wind farms, universally, are barely 40% productive. When the wind blows too slow the turbines are shut down for economic reasons. When the wind blows too hard the turbines are shut down for safety reasons. When the wind is dormant, there's no electricity. Therefore, Alta will only generate about 618 megawatts on the average.
Since wind energy cannot be stored in large quantities, these massive wind farms need fossil fuel for back-up. According to the Department of Energy, the cost of wind power is 15.1 cents per kilowatt hour if natural gas is used as the back-up fuel or 19.2 cents per kilowatt hour if coal is used as the back-up fuel. The cost is not the 9.6 cents per kilowatt hour the EIA is using for its models.
PV Solar Farms use thin-film cadmium telluride photovoltaic (PV) panels. These are the same panels and the same technology found on residential and commercial roof tops. But few people know that PV solar cells are crystalline silicon and this technology is neither "green" nor "clean."
Silicon may be made of sand but its path from sand to panel requires electricity from coal-burning plants and heat from furnaces running at an incredible 2,000° C (3,632° F) which, in turn, emits sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
The photovoltaic manufacturing process employs toxic chemicals and the panels themselves contain several toxic materials, some of which are tens of thousands times more harmful than CO2 and their toxicity comes into play during the manufacturing process, as well as when a panel is damaged or disposed of improperly.
Topaz Solar Farm has 9 million PV panels and Desert Sunlite Solar Farm has 8.8 million. Both have the same 550 Megawatt installed capacity. But again we are talking about "installed capacity," adding up the "rating" of all the PV panels. Topaz claims to produce enough electricity to power 160,000 average California homes. But, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association, the number of homes powered by one megawatt on a national scale is 164 homes. In that case the 550 Mw of Topaz would power 90,200 homes, not 160,000.
Between Topaz and Desert Sunlite there are 17.8 million PV panels that cover 20 square miles of land area. Together they can generate 1,100 megawatts under ideal conditions, at a cost of 12.2 cents per kilowatt hour. The solar industry claims the cost is down 70% but unlike other sources of energy the cost of handling end-of-life panels is NOT included in its cost per kilowatt hour.
Right next door to Topaz Solar is the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant. It generates 1,000 megawatts, all day, every day and at an average cost of 2.1 cents per kilowatt hour. This 1.4 square mile nuclear plant generates as much electricity as those 17.8 million solar panels and saves nearly 20 square miles of land that is buried under all of those panels at Desert Sunlight and Topaz. It does all this 80% cheaper than solar energy and the cost of waste disposal is included in that figure.
Silicon may be made of sand but its path from sand to panel requires electricity from coal-burning plants and heat from furnaces running at an incredible 2,000° C (3,632° F) which, in turn, emits sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
The photovoltaic manufacturing process employs toxic chemicals and the panels themselves contain several toxic materials, some of which are tens of thousands times more harmful than CO2 and their toxicity comes into play during the manufacturing process, as well as when a panel is damaged or disposed of improperly.
Topaz Solar Farm has 9 million PV panels and Desert Sunlite Solar Farm has 8.8 million. Both have the same 550 Megawatt installed capacity. But again we are talking about "installed capacity," adding up the "rating" of all the PV panels. Topaz claims to produce enough electricity to power 160,000 average California homes. But, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association, the number of homes powered by one megawatt on a national scale is 164 homes. In that case the 550 Mw of Topaz would power 90,200 homes, not 160,000.
Between Topaz and Desert Sunlite there are 17.8 million PV panels that cover 20 square miles of land area. Together they can generate 1,100 megawatts under ideal conditions, at a cost of 12.2 cents per kilowatt hour. The solar industry claims the cost is down 70% but unlike other sources of energy the cost of handling end-of-life panels is NOT included in its cost per kilowatt hour.
Right next door to Topaz Solar is the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant. It generates 1,000 megawatts, all day, every day and at an average cost of 2.1 cents per kilowatt hour. This 1.4 square mile nuclear plant generates as much electricity as those 17.8 million solar panels and saves nearly 20 square miles of land that is buried under all of those panels at Desert Sunlight and Topaz. It does all this 80% cheaper than solar energy and the cost of waste disposal is included in that figure.
Solar Thermal Plants (or CSP) use "concentrated solar thermal technology." But, unlike PV solar and wind, you don't want to try this technology at home.
Ivanpah Solar Electric is the world's largest thermal solar plant. It uses 173,500 double-mirrored heliostats which turn to keep focusing sunlight toward "boilers" located on top of three 40 story towers. The boilers create steam that is then piped to steam turbines, which generate electricity.
Approved in 2010, the Ivanpah plant was at the center of the Obama administration's push to bring alternative-energy projects to public lands. This $2.2 billion project received $1.6 billion in loan guarantees and $600 million in federal tax credits.
But, Invanpah has been a failure in many ways. It produces only about 392 megawatts of power and the cost is 3 times the cost of traditional power sources.
Ivanpah does not eliminate greenhouse gases. It burns gas at night to keep the water in the boilers heated so electric production can start up more quickly when the sun comes up each morning. It also burns gas during periods of intermittent cloud cover.
Every day a gruesome fireworks display unfolds at Invanpah. The bright light from the 5 square miles of garage-door-size mirrors acts as a mega-trap for insects. The insects attract birds. As birds fly into concentrated beams of sunlight (800 to 1,000 degrees F) they are instantly incinerated, leaving wisps of white smoke against the blue desert sky. Workers at the Ivanpah Solar Plant have a name for the spectacle: "Streamers."
Wind, Solar & Wildlife. At Invanpah, BrightSource has spent $56 million to protect and relocate the desert tortoises but still animals were crushed under vehicle tires, army ants attacked hatchlings and one small tortoise was carried off to an eagle nest, its embedded microchip pinging faintly as it receded. As for the birds, federal biologists say about 6,000 birds die every year from collisions or immolation while chasing flying insects around the facility.
PV solar projects with their millions of solar panels require massive land areas. Topaz is 1/3 the size of Manhattan. The clearing and use of such large areas of land adversely affects vegetation and wildlife in many ways, including loss of habitat; interference with rainfall and drainage; or direct contact causing injury or death.
These sprawling solar projects can also fool migrating birds into changing flight direction because they appear to be lakes from a distance. Waterbirds fly to solar fields and realize too late that the solar panels are not water. They then collide with the solar panels and are critically injured or are unable to take flight.
Ivanpah Solar Electric is the world's largest thermal solar plant. It uses 173,500 double-mirrored heliostats which turn to keep focusing sunlight toward "boilers" located on top of three 40 story towers. The boilers create steam that is then piped to steam turbines, which generate electricity.
Approved in 2010, the Ivanpah plant was at the center of the Obama administration's push to bring alternative-energy projects to public lands. This $2.2 billion project received $1.6 billion in loan guarantees and $600 million in federal tax credits.
But, Invanpah has been a failure in many ways. It produces only about 392 megawatts of power and the cost is 3 times the cost of traditional power sources.
Ivanpah does not eliminate greenhouse gases. It burns gas at night to keep the water in the boilers heated so electric production can start up more quickly when the sun comes up each morning. It also burns gas during periods of intermittent cloud cover.
Every day a gruesome fireworks display unfolds at Invanpah. The bright light from the 5 square miles of garage-door-size mirrors acts as a mega-trap for insects. The insects attract birds. As birds fly into concentrated beams of sunlight (800 to 1,000 degrees F) they are instantly incinerated, leaving wisps of white smoke against the blue desert sky. Workers at the Ivanpah Solar Plant have a name for the spectacle: "Streamers."
Wind, Solar & Wildlife. At Invanpah, BrightSource has spent $56 million to protect and relocate the desert tortoises but still animals were crushed under vehicle tires, army ants attacked hatchlings and one small tortoise was carried off to an eagle nest, its embedded microchip pinging faintly as it receded. As for the birds, federal biologists say about 6,000 birds die every year from collisions or immolation while chasing flying insects around the facility.
PV solar projects with their millions of solar panels require massive land areas. Topaz is 1/3 the size of Manhattan. The clearing and use of such large areas of land adversely affects vegetation and wildlife in many ways, including loss of habitat; interference with rainfall and drainage; or direct contact causing injury or death.
These sprawling solar projects can also fool migrating birds into changing flight direction because they appear to be lakes from a distance. Waterbirds fly to solar fields and realize too late that the solar panels are not water. They then collide with the solar panels and are critically injured or are unable to take flight.
Wind energy does not disrupt the use of land for agricultural or other purposes but the construction and maintenance of large-scale sites pose a significant threat to nearby wildlife. In addition, wind energy can only be harnessed in locations where wind speed is high and migratory birds follow these wind currents.
When wind turbines are installed near wetlands, on mountain ridges, near shorelines, or at sites subject to frequent fog or low-lying clouds, losses are great during the spring and fall migration periods. Researchers estimate that 140,000 to 328,000 birds are killed every year in collisions with the turbines' spinning rotor blades and support towers or electrocuted by power lines which carry electrical power into the grid.
Safety & Waste.The problem of solar panel disposal will explode with full force in two or three decades and wreck the environment because it is a huge amount of waste and PV panels are not easy to recycle.
The photovoltaic manufacturing process employs toxic chemicals such as hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, nitric acid, hydrogen fluoride, 1,1,1-trichloroethane and acetone. The panels themselves contain toxic materials; cadmium telluride, copper indium selenide, polyvinyl fluoride, lead and sulfur hexafluoride to name a few. And yet another toxic chemical, silicon tetrachloride, is not in the panels but is a byproduct of their production. Silicon tetrachloride is highly toxic, killing plants and animals.
When wind turbines are installed near wetlands, on mountain ridges, near shorelines, or at sites subject to frequent fog or low-lying clouds, losses are great during the spring and fall migration periods. Researchers estimate that 140,000 to 328,000 birds are killed every year in collisions with the turbines' spinning rotor blades and support towers or electrocuted by power lines which carry electrical power into the grid.
Safety & Waste.The problem of solar panel disposal will explode with full force in two or three decades and wreck the environment because it is a huge amount of waste and PV panels are not easy to recycle.
The photovoltaic manufacturing process employs toxic chemicals such as hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, nitric acid, hydrogen fluoride, 1,1,1-trichloroethane and acetone. The panels themselves contain toxic materials; cadmium telluride, copper indium selenide, polyvinyl fluoride, lead and sulfur hexafluoride to name a few. And yet another toxic chemical, silicon tetrachloride, is not in the panels but is a byproduct of their production. Silicon tetrachloride is highly toxic, killing plants and animals.
There should be a worldwide concern that PV panels use and contain chemicals that are tens of thousands times more harmful than CO2 and their toxicity comes into play during the manufacturing process as well as when a panel is damaged or disposed of improperly. When panels are damaged during natural events — hail storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc. — decommissioning them is a big concern.
When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico last September, the nation's second largest solar farm, responsible for 40 percent of the island's solar energy, lost a majority of its panels. In 2015 a tornado broke 200,000 solar modules at southern California solar farm Desert Sunlight.
When modules are broken into small bits of glass, rocks and dirt get mixed in and disposal is a major issue. They cannot be sent to recycling plants and disposal in regular landfills is not recommended as toxic materials leach into the soil.
But where are those damaged panels going now? With no dedicated national program or requirement to safely dispose of solar panels, some unfortunately find their way to landfills. If the system owner is green-minded and has the money, panels may get shipped to a recycling facility. Other industry players are warehousing damaged or old panels until a practical recycling program is established.
China and other countries that mass-produce solar panels but do not regulate how toxic waste is dumped into the environment can introduce significant health risks to the manufacturing workers and the country’s inhabitants.
There are two concerns over nuclear energy that have the greatest public impact; nuclear accidents where the core could overheat, melt down and release radioactivity and the disposal of long-lived radioactive waste.
The truth is, there have been only three accidents involving reactor core damage in the world since 1970. Three Mile Island in 1979; Chernobyl in 1986; and Fukushima-Daiichi in 2011 where 4 reactors were damaged. Although the U.S. generates 33% of the world's nuclear energy, there has never been any dangerous radiation released in the U.S.
The reality of Three Mile Island was significantly different than the mass hysteria. No significant radiation was discharged outside of the TMI facility. The reactor containment vessel worked exactly as designed and contained nearly all of the radioactive isotopes in the core. One would actually receive more radiation living at an altitude like Denver, CO than anyone near Harrisburg, PA received as a result of the accident.
As for "nuclear waste" there is no such thing. Used fuel generally retains about 95 percent of the uranium it started with and this "nuclear waste" can be recycled. The U.S. developed the recycling technology decades ago but barred its commercial use in 1977. As a result there is about 56,000 tons of "used fuel" piling up at storage facilities that, as mentioned earlier, contains roughly enough energy to power every U.S. household for 12 years and run the U.S. nuclear fleet for almost 30 years with no new uranium input.
This "used fuel" could relieve our dependency on foreign countries to provide the medical isotopes needed for the 20 million nuclear medicine procedures performed each year. The best part, if recycled the total nuclear waste produced each year at each plant would measure just one cubic yard. Solar panels create 300 times more toxic waste per unit of energy than do nuclear power stations. Nuclear waste is easily detectable unlike the toxic chemicals from damaged or disposed solar panels.
REFERENCES
When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico last September, the nation's second largest solar farm, responsible for 40 percent of the island's solar energy, lost a majority of its panels. In 2015 a tornado broke 200,000 solar modules at southern California solar farm Desert Sunlight.
When modules are broken into small bits of glass, rocks and dirt get mixed in and disposal is a major issue. They cannot be sent to recycling plants and disposal in regular landfills is not recommended as toxic materials leach into the soil.
But where are those damaged panels going now? With no dedicated national program or requirement to safely dispose of solar panels, some unfortunately find their way to landfills. If the system owner is green-minded and has the money, panels may get shipped to a recycling facility. Other industry players are warehousing damaged or old panels until a practical recycling program is established.
China and other countries that mass-produce solar panels but do not regulate how toxic waste is dumped into the environment can introduce significant health risks to the manufacturing workers and the country’s inhabitants.
There are two concerns over nuclear energy that have the greatest public impact; nuclear accidents where the core could overheat, melt down and release radioactivity and the disposal of long-lived radioactive waste.
The truth is, there have been only three accidents involving reactor core damage in the world since 1970. Three Mile Island in 1979; Chernobyl in 1986; and Fukushima-Daiichi in 2011 where 4 reactors were damaged. Although the U.S. generates 33% of the world's nuclear energy, there has never been any dangerous radiation released in the U.S.
The reality of Three Mile Island was significantly different than the mass hysteria. No significant radiation was discharged outside of the TMI facility. The reactor containment vessel worked exactly as designed and contained nearly all of the radioactive isotopes in the core. One would actually receive more radiation living at an altitude like Denver, CO than anyone near Harrisburg, PA received as a result of the accident.
As for "nuclear waste" there is no such thing. Used fuel generally retains about 95 percent of the uranium it started with and this "nuclear waste" can be recycled. The U.S. developed the recycling technology decades ago but barred its commercial use in 1977. As a result there is about 56,000 tons of "used fuel" piling up at storage facilities that, as mentioned earlier, contains roughly enough energy to power every U.S. household for 12 years and run the U.S. nuclear fleet for almost 30 years with no new uranium input.
This "used fuel" could relieve our dependency on foreign countries to provide the medical isotopes needed for the 20 million nuclear medicine procedures performed each year. The best part, if recycled the total nuclear waste produced each year at each plant would measure just one cubic yard. Solar panels create 300 times more toxic waste per unit of energy than do nuclear power stations. Nuclear waste is easily detectable unlike the toxic chemicals from damaged or disposed solar panels.
REFERENCES
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