Let's admit ...
... that the nuclear industry would have you believe that we NEED nuclear power as a response to climate change. That is false. We have less expensive alternatives that can be built faster for FAR less money. This is a good overview of their claims:
http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E08-01_NuclearIllusion
In a comparative analysis by another well respected researcher nuclear, coal with carbon capture and ethanol are not recommended as solutions to climate change. The researcher has looked at the qualities of the various options in great detail and the results disprove virtually all claims that the nuclear industry promote in order to gain public support for nuclear industry.
Nuclear supporters invariably claim that research like this is produced because the researchers are "biased against nuclear power". That too is false.
They have a preference, however that preference is not irrational; indeed it is a product of careful analysis of the needs of society and the costs of the various technologies for meeting those needs. In other words the researchers are "biased" against nuclear power because reality is biased against nuclear power. We hear this same kind of claim to being a victim of "liberal bias" from conservatives everyday and it is no different when the nuclear proponents employ it - it is designed to let them avoid cognitive dissonance associated with holding positions that are proven to be false.
The nuclear power supporters will tell you this study has been "debunked any number of times" but they will not be able to produce a detailed rebuttal that withstands even casual scrutiny for that claim too is false.
The study is peer reviewed and well respected in the scientific community; it breaks no new ground and the references underpinning the work are not subject to any criticism that has material effect on the outcome of the comparison.
They will tell you that the sun doesn't always shine and that the wind doesn't always blow. Actually they do. The sun is always shining somewhere and the wind is always blowing somewhere. However researcher have shown that a complete grid based on renewable energy sources is UNQUESTIONABLY SOMETHING WE CAN DO. Here is what happens when you start linking various sites together:
Original paper here at National Academy of Sciences website: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/03/29/0909075107.abstract
When the local conditions warrant the other parts of a renewable grid kick in - storage, geothermal power, biomass, biofuels, and wave/current/tidal sources are all resources that fill in the gaps.
Cost-minimized combinations of wind power, solar power and electrochemical storage, powering the grid up to 99.9% of the time
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378775312014759
Spending money on nuclear is counterproductive to the goal of getting off of fossil fuels as we get less electricity for each dollar spend on infrastructure and it takes a lot longer to bring nuclear online.
In the study below Mark Jacobson of Stanford has used the quantity of energy that it would take to power an electric vehicle fleet as a benchmark by which to judge the technologies.
Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security
Mark Z. Jacobson
Abstract
This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.
Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.
Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.
Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.
Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.
Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.
Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.
The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.
Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.
The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.
The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.
The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.
In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.
Full article for download here: http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/revsolglobwarmairpol.htm
Then we have the economic analysis from Cooper:
The Economics of Nuclear Reactors: Renaissance or Relapse
This graph summarizes his findings where "Consumer" concerns direct financial costs and "Societal" refers to external costs not captured in financial analysis.
A Multi-dimensional View of Alternatives
The full report can be read here: http://www.olino.org/us/articles/2009/11/26/the-economics-of-nuclear-reactors-renaissance-or-relapse
Another independent econnomic analysis is the Severance study:
http://climateprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/nuclear-costs-2009.pdf
The price of nuclear subsidies is also worth looking at. Nuclear proponents will tell you the subsidies per unit of electricity for nuclear are no worse than for renewables. That statement omits the fact than nuclear power has received the lions share of non fossil energy subsidies for more than 50 years with no apparent payoff; for all the money we've spent we see a steadily escalating cost curve for nuclear. When we compare that to renewables we find that a small fraction of the total amount spent on nuclear has resulted in rapidly declining costs that for wind are already competitive with coal and rapidly declining costs for solar that are competitive with natural gas and will soon be less expensive than coal.
In other words: subsidies work to help the renewable technologies stand on their own but with nuclear they do nothing but prop up an industry that cannot be economically viable.
Full report: http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/nuclear_subsidies_report.pdf
Renewable Electricity Futures Study
A report published by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the Renewable Electricity Futures Study (RE Futures), is an initial investigation of the extent to which renewable energy supply can meet the electricity demands of the continental United States over the next several decades. This study explores the implications and challenges of very high renewable electricity generation levels—from 30% up to 90%, focusing on 80%, of all U.S. electricity generation from renewable technologies—in 2050. At such high levels of renewable electricity generation, the unique characteristics of some renewable resources, specifically geographical distribution and variability and uncertainty in output, pose challenges to the operability of the nation's electric system.
Key Findings
Renewable electricity generation from technologies that are commercially available today, in combination with a more flexible electric system, is more than adequate to supply 80% of total U.S. electricity generation in 2050 while meeting electricity demand on an hourly basis in every region of the country.
Increased electric system flexibility, needed to enable electricity supply-demand balance with high levels of renewable generation, can come from a portfolio of supply- and demand-side options, including flexible conventional generation, grid storage, new transmission, more responsive loads, and changes in power system operations.
The abundance and diversity of U.S. renewable energy resources can support multiple combinations of renewable technologies that result in deep reductions in electric sector greenhouse gas emissions and water use.
The direct incremental cost associated with high renewable generation is comparable to published cost estimates of other clean energy scenarios. Improvement in the cost and performance of renewable technologies is the most impactful lever for reducing this incremental cost.
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A distributed grid such as the one being modeled by NREL is fundamentally different than the centralized thermal grid we have now. We will be harnessing the differences in a fashion intended to guide change. Coal and nuclear are not flexible sources of generation, and they simply cannot compete in a grid with a lot of no-fuel-cost renewable energy.
We are seeing that already as utilities start predicting their own demise due to renewables making their coal and nuclear plants too expensive to operate. Their response to these emerging conditions, of course, is an attempt to protect themselves by limiting growth in renewables. But the writing is on the wall; renewables are moving us away from the centralized generating paradigm and with it fossil fuels for generating electricity.
The key policies needed are feed-in-tariffs, strong merit order pricing regulations, and a laser focus on eliminating institutional barriers to grid access by renewable sources. With those policies at work, the system will develop of its own accord. WE are the primary source of obstruction to changing the global system and WE are the linchpin. The falling prices of renewables are making them attractive to the nations with no transmission and distribution infrastructure and to nations that are developing that infrastructure. The manufacturing base is growing in response to those markets and that is pushing further cost reductions. What makes US so recalcitrant is the amount of money we have invested in existing infrastructure that will be made obsolete. Walking away from such sunk costs is one of the hardest things in the world to do, and it is working against US more than most nations.
Some further reading:
A path to achieving 100% renewable energy is described:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030
The Civil Society "Beyond Business as Usual"
http://www.civilsocietyinstitute.org/media/pdfs/Beyond%20BAU%205-11-10.pdf
Their website is worth a visit to browse:
http://www.civilsocietyinstitute.org /
The most detailed explanation of our emerging energy system is unquestionably that of by Amory Lovins in his plan titled "Reinventing Fire". You can browse through its elements here
http://www.rmi.org/ReinventingFire
Some of his earlier work is also worth reviewing.
http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E09-01_NuclearPowerClimateFixOrFolly
http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E77-01_EnergyStrategyRoadNotTaken
