The low-carbon platform

The Wall Street Journal reports that energy ministers from the world's eight richest nations said on May 24 they would work to create a common low-carbon technology platform as solution to climate change and energy security. And in that scheme of things, nuclear will be given a big role!
The oil-producing nations are also concerned that a future run up of the price of oil could tank global demand and with it their own investment strategies.

The meeting, held in Rome, saw the energy ministers from the Group of Eight leading nations, plus the European Commission, say, "In the opinion of a growing number of countries, the use of nuclear energy can contribute to energy security while reducing greenhouse emissions."

The group called for international collaboration among countries interested in the civil use of nuclear energy. The G8 statement was endorsed by Saudi Arabia, India and China, all fast developers of nuclear energy.

Contrast this with the recent statement of Jon Wellinghoff, the new chairman of the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Wellinghoff said that the U.S. will never need to build another coal or nuclear power plant. He claims that all of the new capacity that is required could be delivered by new wind, solar, and biomass plants.

Nuclear and coal plants are too expensive. A new nuclear power plant costs $7,000 a kilowatt, which is more than solar energy. Coal plants are sort of in the same boat, although they are not quite as expensive, as an expert put it.

To the common refrain that renewables cannot provide the baseload energy, Wellinghoff retorted that the 'baseload' concept comes from the time when we had cheap but inflexible nuclear and coal plants, and flexible but expensive natural gas plants. But when wind is the cheapest source, it will be dispatched first, and that requires a completely different approach. We will have 'distributed generation' just like we have 'distributed computing'.

Solar and wind electricity systems have been seen as disadvantageous as they must be backed-up 100 percent by other forms of energy to ensure against blackouts. But, is that true?

Big nuclear and coal plants require more 'back-up' than wind farms, say some. The spinning reserve on the grid must indeed be tuned to the size of the biggest single generator. If that generator unexpectedly drops out, back-up should still be provided. If wind farms are spread over a large enough geographical area, they are less likely to drop out all at once and thus require less back-up.

Is nuclear being given undue prominence? Is the ‘clean’ aspect of its zero emissions balanced out by its costs and timeframes?