A 1000Mw nuclear reactor costs at least $2.5 billions to build. A 2Mw wind tower a mere $500.000, half a million bucks.You do the math... it would take 500 windmills, or five wind farms, to produce the same amount of electricity as one new nuclear reactor. Electrons produced by wind energy cost 10 cents on the dollar of what new nukes could produce them for!
So, what's the argument for nuclear power again? Radioactive waste, toxic fish, cancer... and ten times the cost for electric power? Interesting... someone please explain it to me again?
Greenpeace is fighting the wrong fight. Don't try to stop new nukes, they are dead on arrival... economically, technologically... HELP US CLOSE THE OLD DECREPIT ONES, like INDIAN POINT? Greenpeace, where are you? You never even had the courtesy to publicly reply to our petition, signed by more than two dozen anti-nuclear leaders and organizations from all over the country! What happened Greenpeace DC? Where's that gung-ho spirit displayed by your counterparts in Europe? Send the Witness up the Hudson river before Indian Point has another accident we won't duck!!!
Maybe this new organization below might start packaging the message so people will listen to reason!!!
www.aceny.org
Alliance for Clean Energy New York
194 Washington Avenue, Suite 605
Albany, NY 12210
(518) 432-1405 Fax: (518) 432-1407
ACE NY Membership
AES-Acciona-NA; Airtricity; Albany Engineering Corporation; altPower, Inc.; Arcadia Wind/Blue Water Wind; AWEA; AWS Truewind, LLC; Azure Mt. Power; Babcock & Brown; BQ Energy; BP Alternative Energy NA, Inc.; Brookfield; Citizens Campaign for the Environment; Clipper Windpower; Community Energy, Inc.; Constellation New Energy; Delaney Construction Corporation; Direct Energy; DUCE Construction Corporation; Ecogen Wind, LLC; Ecology & Environment, Inc.; EDRPC; EHN-USA; Enel North America, Inc.; Environmental Advocates of New York; Everpower Renewables; First American Title Insurance Company of New York; GE Energy; Green & Seifter, Attorneys, PLLC; Horizon Wind Energy; Hudson Valley Clean Energy, Inc.; Invenergy, LLC; Law Offices of David M. Wise, PA; Malkin & Ross; McKenna, Long & Aldridge, LLP; Mercer Asset Management Corp.; Nixon Peabody; NRDC; NRG Systems; Noble Environmental Power; PACE; Partnership for NYC, Inc. ; Plug Power, Inc.; PPM Energy, Inc.; PV Now; Read & Laniado, LLP; Renewable Energy Long Island; Reunion Power; Rudy Stegemoeller; Stewart Title Insurance Company; Sustainable Energy Developments, Inc.; Tamarack Energy, Inc.; Tetra Tech EC, Inc.; UPC Wind Management; Verdant Power, Inc.; Vestas Americas; Wendel Duchscherer; Whiteman, Osterman & Hanna, LLP; Young, Sommer;
7 comments:
I'm entirely in favor of wind, but let's get facts straight. A 2MW wind turbine installed in the US will costs roughly 2.5-3.5 million dollars, not half a million dollars. Also, that wind turbine will produce its rated output roughly a third of the time. Add these two items together and you'll see that nuclear (according to your numbers which I can't verify) and wind are almost identical in terms of initial capital costs to build the project. Of course, once the wind turbines are up, the fuel is free and clean. I can't say that for the nukes.
Anonymous is on target here. The actual capacity factor of wind turbines, although usually estimated at about 33%, most often comes in at 20 to 25%. At this time, a wind installation, on the basis of kilowatts generated, has a capital cost of at least twice that of a nuclear unit.
So, some differences of opinion on costing methods. My quesion in this debate is, " are any of you factoring into nuclears cost the huge public tax subsidies that hide the true costs of nuclear. Some examples:
1. Just here in NY, $130 of nuclear facility security costs are being born by tax payers.
2. DOE is handing out $100's of millions to colleges and universities to atart back up or improve their nuclear/physics departments.
3. GNEP alone by some estimates could end up costing American Tax payers upwards of $400 Billion in subsidies to the nuclear industry.
4. We right now are giving owners of nuclear reactors hundreds of millions because their waste streams are now officially owned by DOE.
5. The first 6 AP1000 nuclear reactors built in American will have at least 50 percent of costs of consstruction paid for with our tax dollars.
6. The wind farms do not need the financial liability exemptions of the Price Anderson Act.
If we are going to compare costs, lets truly compare apples to apples.
Some thoughtful comments here. Keng is mistaken about wind power capacity factors, however. In the U.S., a capacity factor of 33% or higher is common for new wind projects, and that number is gradually rising as wind turbines become more efficient.
Regards,
Thomas O. Gray
American Wind Energy Association
www.awea.org
risingwind.blogspot.com
Tom Gray,
Can you please supply a reference for your statement:
>In the U.S., a capacity factor of 33% or higher is common for new wind projects
Thanks.
There are some very well developed arguments posted here, but I think something to consider is that comparing Nuke to Wind power is apples to oranges. You cannot assert that one is better than the other on the basis of cost because the bottom line is that wind power cannot produce baseload power. Power companies can use it to fill in load shortages during peak hours or sell off excess power (major assumption: the wind is blowing), but you cannot use it to provide a baseload to a grid. So if you want to compare Wind power to something try gas powered turbine generators, solar, or biofuel. If you want to compare Nuke you would have to compare it to coal fired power.
Talk to any utility and they will tell you that nuke power plants are the best option for the future especially if high carbon taxes carbon taxes are inplaced.
I have seen a number of uniformed statements on this webpage and I am not here to slam the site, but it does seem very biased.
Lastly, DOE must be handing out money to wind power as well because there is a large emphasis on wind power R&D (funded by DOE) right down the hall from where I work.
I don't want to register with this site, but feel free to message me with questions at lnmb023 on AIM
Suggested reading: "Power to Save the World"
I am nobody to argue, and I will not argue. However, the person who wrote this first article needs to get his maths straight,
one nuclear power plant@ 2.5billion
500windmills@500k$ each=2.5billion as well.
Very simple math, how can you get that wrong?
And what about VISUAL POLLUTION?
(not that I think windmills are ugly, but im sure some people do, like native americans, for instance)
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