Comments on: Rep. Bartlett hits House on renewables — and I don’t mean Gregory House

By: hapa

hapa — Wed, 21 May 2008 06:40:29 +0000

house is british, python’s british, your biggest hero’s a toyota, and you’re telling us we have to wait for brand-USA power generation? oy! the EU’s busy figuring out how to recycle industrial solar PV while we’re tiddly-winking. sorry: domestic IP is not a high priority. if we don’t buy the best we can get we’ll be sorrier than a boatload of political economists trying to build a domestic boat-repair industry in response to a call to abandon ship.

By: Alexander Ač

Alexander Ač — Wed, 21 May 2008 08:20:06 +0000

Hello Joe,

have you already read the critique of your article “Peak Oil? Consider it solved.” on Energybulletin by Dave Cohen? - http://www.energybulletin.net/42120.html
if so, have you responded to it?

Best,

By: Kirk Sorensen

Kirk Sorensen — Wed, 21 May 2008 11:41:28 +0000

There is definitely a double-standard with regards to solar and nuclear.

Direct cash subsidies for solar and wind: okay.

Loan guarantees for nuclear construction: not okay.

Government mandates for the use of wind and solar: good.

Government mandates for use of nuclear: bad. (not that I’ve heard of any)

Uneconomic use of wind and especially solar–”nevermind the cost!”–totally fine (especially if the gov’t has to pay for it).

Nuclear economics: bad, bad, bad, because no matter what number you show me, I decide that you have to guard the waste for ten thousand years and that makes it too expensive! Oh and you can’t process the waste to fix the ten-thousand year problem either. Oh, and you have to pay for the hole in the mountain for me to put the waste in and then for all the litigation for me to fight it…

Large corporate ownership of wind farms, wind turbines, solar panels, etc.: completely acceptable.

Local ownership of a 10 MWe nuclear battery that lasts for 30 years and replaces expensive and polluting diesel in a small Alaskan community: bad, bad, bad.

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 21 May 2008 12:46:49 +0000

Kirk: Pity poor nuclear, with its 20% market share, nearly $100 billion in subsidies, and government-limited liability.

Subsidies and mandates are for rapidly emerging technologies, especially those with noneconomic benefits, to allow them to compete with mature technologies in marketplace that doesn’t value the noneconomic benefits.

Nuclear has 20% of the electricity market and has for years. It as received several times the level of subsidies of renewables. Wind has only just achieved 1% of US electricity. Solar is, what, 2/10 of 1%?

I’d be happy to pass a law saying no more subsidies or mandates of any kind once an electricity source hits 5% of the market. Would you?

By: Kirk Sorensen

Kirk Sorensen — Wed, 21 May 2008 13:24:26 +0000

I’d be happy to pass a law saying no more subsidies or mandates of any kind once an electricity source hits 5% of the market. Would you?

Would that be nameplate or production? Because if it’s the former, wind would probably already be there.

Look at subsidies per kWh and the difference will become apparent between nuclear subsidies and solar/wind. Nuclear actually makes a lot of electricity, unlike wind/solar.

Yeah I could go for that. Solar PV will never get there, so it will be subsidies forever.