Pre-emptively striking against Inconvenient Truths

I picked up a link to an article on the Monticello nuclear power plant and the alleged un-economic nature of the cost overruns of its recent power uprate, and went to try to add this to the discussion:

Let's have a look at the facts, shall we?

The Monticello nuclear plant is rated at 671 megawatts net.  The plant can be expected to average more than 90% of this figure (more than 600 MW), and since refueling outages are scheduled for seasons of low demand its useful capacity factor is close to 100% during the peaks of summer and winter.  All of that generation is free of air emissions of any kind, especially carbon.

It may be true that...

it’s enough money to install over 400 megawatts of new wind power.

But 400 nameplate megawatts of wind turbines, even at a generous capacity factor of 40%, is just 160 megawatts average (barely more than 1/4 of Monticello).  Neither does that figure include the cost of new transmission lines and other upgrades which are required by the new wind even if they're not billed to it; those can cost as much as the wind farms themselves.  Worst, wind farms go dead during winter and summer high-pressure systems which bring heat waves and cold snaps.

Ignoring these things won't make them go away.  Tragically, the advocates of "renewables" appear to be sticking their fingers in their ears to avoid hearing the words of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr:  "the plants that we're building, the wind plants and the solar plants, are gas plants".  Replacing Monticello with wind plus gas means about 2 million extra tons of CO2 emissions per year, about 30 million tons by 2030.  At a social cost of perhaps $50 per ton, that is $1.5 billion to go "renewable".

Please wake up.

However, immediately upon creating an account to enter this, I was faced with this screen:





Apparently, the drawbridge has been pre-emptively raised against any attempt of the truth to invade their little castle of delusion.



  ¶ 2/06/2015 11:20:00 AM