Architecture2030 is a tremendous group, with concepts that should be seized and acted upon as part and parcel of moving forward toward an Energy Smart future. Recently, they've made a bit of a name for themselves with excellent graphics that call out just how sensible John McCain's energy policy proposals are for changing the nation toward a better path forward.
Yesterday, they just released the graphic to the left.
This graphic provides an extreme look (suggesting that, 20 years from now, John McCain's 45 nuclear power plants would provide just over two percent of business-as-usual electricity generation) at a way of looking at electricity generation.
The key point/take-away: whether nuclear plants or oil drilling, John McCain's core agenda items on energy are at best part of an 'all of the above" path, and not a silver bullet to change the game.
I suggest checking out their latest news, including an energy quiz. Notice that offshore drilling provides even less in the liquid fuel domain than what nuclear power would for electricity.
[John McCain's] proposed "Bold Energy Plan" would supply a meager three percent of the 118 QBtu of energy that the Energy Information Administration projects America will consume in 2030. The 2030 Blueprint, a three-pronged solution centered on building energy efficiency, homeowner choices and renewable energy, would supply as much as 37% of America's total energy consumption, replace 100% of its fossil-fuel-generated electricity and reduce its imported oil by as much as 89%.
Hmmm ... maybe we should look to Architecture 2030 and not Sarah "Energy Expert" Palin for meaningful advice about solviing America's energy challenges.
NOTE: Architecture 2030 used a rough average of today's nuclear power plants to produce the numbers of productivity of 45 plants in 2030. This might, in fact, understate the likely power input of 45 nuclear power plants by about half. Half sounds like a large amount, which it is in many ways, but doubling the output from 45 plants still does not make nuclear power a solution for global warming.
UPDATE / CORRECTION: I should have stated this more strongly as the "two percent of electricity" doesn't fit with my rough calculations asper this summary that I've been using for awhile, as per a comment from the other day:
No matter what one thinks about nuclear power, there is a simple fact: Nuclear power cannot be "the answer". We cannot build plants fast enough. We need to be turning things around NOW if we want to avert the worst of catastrophic climate change. It takes years (a decade) to get a nuclear power plant on line. Don't expect many before 2020.
John McCain is calling for 45 new nuclear power plants to be put in 2030.
We currently have 104 nuclear power plants that provide 19.4% of US electricity.
The Department of Energy projects that electricity demand will grow about 25 percent by 2030.
While the plants will be larger, the 45 plants will represent about 15 percent of today's electricity.
In other words, John McCain's strongly promoted nuclear power won't even keep up with increased demand, let alone eliminate coal-fired electricity.
To me, this is neither a "pro" nor "anti" nuclear position, but a recognition of the capacity issues ... and, even more directly, that McCain's 45 nuclear plants are disingenuous in terms of "answering" global warming.
And, in the last paragraph, I linked to the wrong discussion. Should have linked to this
piece which had that material in it.
As for graphical representation, Bryfry has provided a better representation of nuclear power's contribution to electrical generation capacity and what 45 new plants, scheduled all to be online by 2030 (or earlier), might represent to that equation.
More importantly, an apology because the above, which I'd written before, should have been in the diary rather than material that one could get by clicking through to one piece to then click through to another.
Now, for me, the truly key point of this all? That, while nuclear power might be
part of the solution path for eliminating coal from the electricity equation, John McCain's 45 nuclear power plants will not "solve global warming" nor end America's oil addiction nor, in fact, this would not even keep up with the "business as usual" growth in electricity use.
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL FROM ARCHITECTURE 2030:
Architecture 2030: Nuclear Energy Response
- Statistics for current and projected US primary and delivered electricity are given in both quadrillion Btu (QBtu) and kilowatt hours (KWh) by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).
- The EIA estimates that 1 QBtu of delivered energy is equal to the delivered energy of thirty-seven to forty 1000 MW (capacity) nuclear plants (actual number depends on the year).
- There are 103 nuclear reactor units operating today in the US with an average unit capacity of 930 MW. Reactor units range from 476 MW to 1335 MW.
- As of June 30, 2008 there were a total of nine new commercial nuclear license applications under review for fifteen reactor units - ten at 1117 MW, two at 1400MW, one at 1520MW and one at 1600MW. These applications were submitted before the current US credit crisis and economic meltdown.
- New nuclear reactor designs are now coming in all sizes from the the Toshiba 4S (10 to 50 MW capacity) to the Westinghouse PBMR (180 MW capacity), IRIS (360 MW), AP 600 (600 MW), AP 1000 (1100 MW) and AREVA NP EPR (1600 MW).
- A new report from Standard and Poor's this week (10/15/08), "Construction Costs To Soar For New US Nuclear Power Plants", states that any new nuclear reactor contracts are not expected to have a fixed timeline or overall fixed construction cost, making it impossible to estimate the actual cost of a reactor. The cost to build a reactor has risen 173 percent since 2000.
- The projected cost of building a new nuclear plant is staggering. From the Wall Street Journal May 12, 2008, "FPL Group, Juno Beach, Fla., estimates it will cost $6 billion to $9 billion to build each of two reactors (1100 MW each) at its Turkey Point nuclear site in southeast Florida. It has picked a reactor design by Westinghouse Electric Co., a unit of Toshiba Corp., after concluding it could cost as much as $12 billion to build plants with reactors designed by General Electric Co." This was the cost in May 2008 (before the economic meltdown and tight credit) and does not include land costs, cost of new transmission lines, support facilities, nuclear waste storage and decommissioning.
- Because of the US economic meltdown, tight credit and escalating nuclear facility construction cost, Architecture 2030 believes that new nuclear plant construction will eventually be built in the mid-range of capacity (if at all). Therefore, we used an average nuclear unit capacity of 820 MW to create the graph for US Electricity Consumption.
- Even if one assumes an average new unit capacity of 1100 MW to create the graph, the total energy, i.e. primary energy (delivered energy plus losses), would be between 3.75 QBtu and 4.0 QBtu. (The delivered energy would be between 1.25 QBtu and 1.32 QBtu.) This is still a drop in the bucket compared to the 118 QBtu of total (primary) energy (85 QBtu delivered) that the EIA projects the US will consume in the year 2030.