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Here is the problem. To meet our energy needs, based on an Energy Dept report cited by Tom Friedman, we will need:
1. 120 million new windmills, or 1 for every three people,
2. A new nuclear powerplant EVERY WEEK FOR THE NEXT 30 YEARS.The numbers are staggering.
As for battery technology, that is all well and good; but you still need powerplants to make the power to charge the batteries, don’t you?
[/quote]A typical mid-sized windmill has a peak power output on the order of 100 kilowatts. Granted, the average output might be a third of that or so. How is it that 3 average Americans are expected to consume an average of 10 extra kilowatts night and day? That is the power needed for example by 10 mid-sized window air conditioners running day and night on maximum setting. Therefore, I think there is something screwy with that figure. 120 million new windmills might be needed for the projected increase in [i]worldwide[/i] energy needs, but not for projected increase in American demands.
One has to make the electricity in some way. Increasingly, wind power is the cheapest method, especially if externalities are factored in. If you order a windmill, it can be installed and running within a month or so. A nuclear power plant, on the other hand, takes decades to become operational. This is why I predict that the electrical energy shortage that will occur in a few years (when many people switch to electric cars) will be quickly met with windmills, not nuclear power. Decades from now, some nuclear plants will finally be built. But since windmills will have already largely satisified the need for cheap clean power, there will not be much of a need left to build that many nuclear plants in the US.
Yes, you need to generate more electricity if you are going to use batteries for cars. However, most of the charging occurs at night. This means better utilization of existing facilities, in particular windmills and nuclear power plants, both of which are optimally operated around the clock. Less total pollution is made by power plants to provide power for electric cars than is made by refining and combusting gasoline in cars. Furthermore, the pollution that is produced is away from population centers and is, because of economies of scale, more well suited to scrubbing and CO2 sequestration than the pollution from gas cars.
On a worldwide basis, a nuclear power plant every week is not ridiculous. France was pumping out identical nuclear plants on practically an assembly-line basis for awhile. China is curently building coal-burning plants at about one per week. Building 50 nuclear facilities per year is the same as building one per year. The only difference is you do the same thing at 50 different building sites. Actually, economies of scale can be had by building a large number of facilities rapidly, one after the other. The real issue, however, is how to allow countries to join the nuclear power club without risking diversion of nuclear fuel. It probably cannot be done. To a lesser extent, the costs of storing the waste and the huge time lag for construction make nuclear less than optimal. Nuclear is not the best option for world electrical power production. Windmills are the way to go.
I don’t think there is or will be a true “energy crisis”, in the sense of not having energy. Rather, the price will go up moderately so as to cause a shift to less expensive non-fossil fuel means of power generation (e.g. wind and nuclear).
