A Calculation: How Many Trillions of Dollars of Environmental Damage Will IGCC Coal Cost? | 89 comments (89 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Intermittence (4.00 / 2)

"Because they can't generate enough power"

That's emphatically not the issue. The issue is electricity that's available 24/7, instantly on demand.

renewables like wind and solar are not available when needed, but when the resource (wind, sun) is there, which makes them less useful to respond to some form of demand.

Now, there are many ways around that (storage systems, use of that power for non-time sensitive demand, etc...), but it is an issue.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Tue Jan 9th, 2007 at 09:32:50 AM EST
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Re: Intermittence (none / 0)

If that is not the issue, what makes nuclear safer than wind or tide power? (Or geo-thermal, etc...)

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Tue Jan 9th, 2007 at 04:12:49 PM EST
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Re: Intermittence (none / 1)

The issue is not total capacity but intermittency and the inability to adjust production to demand.

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Jan 10th, 2007 at 03:41:02 AM EST
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Re: Intermittence (none / 0)

...which I think is pretty much a red-herring argument (see comments elsewhere, including Jerome's link to the wind turbines --> compressed air situation in the U.S.)

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Wed Jan 10th, 2007 at 08:17:10 AM EST
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Re: Intermittence (none / 0)

No, it's a real source of uncertainty: we don't know if we can store enough energy to buffer the unreliability of wind etc. If we can't work out a way of doing so we need to provide base-load from somewhere else.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Wed Jan 10th, 2007 at 08:32:23 AM EST
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Re: Intermittence (none / 0)

Can passive geothermal provide the baseload?

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Jan 10th, 2007 at 08:34:43 AM EST
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Re: Intermittence (none / 1)

Some of it, at least. We know it's going to have to be a patchwork depending on local conditions.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Wed Jan 10th, 2007 at 08:36:18 AM EST
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A Calculation: How Many Trillions of Dollars of Environmental Damage Will IGCC Coal Cost? | 89 comments (89 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)