It is not Nuclear Power but Renewable Energy: the answer to climate change

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• It is not Nuclear Power but Renewable Energy the
  answer to climate change

• Crown Eco Management

Source http//blog.crowncapitalmngt.com/it-is-not
-nuclear-power-but-renewable-energy-the-answer-to-
climate-change/
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Crown Eco Management There are a lot of people
who assumes that the sole technology that is now
available to substitute fossil fuels is nuclear
power especially when climate scientists and some
energy policy analysts take a tough-minded look
at the numbers.
Eduardo Porter of the New York Times made that
argument last week when he wrote nuclear power
remains the cheapest and most readily scalable of
the alternative energy sources.   There are many
reasons why nuclear power is a bad solution to
the climate crisis. The first reason is that the
technology is not available. Nuclear power plants
are capital-intensive, technologically complex to
manage, and difficult, if not impossible, to
site. These issues are not minor, investors chose
putting their money somewhere else and
communities are greatly against sitting a plant
in their backyard.   As a consequence, despite
our knowledge on how to use electricity this way
plus our years of experience practicing it, in
the U.S. these plants will never be built in
enough amount to reduce global warming. There is
a slight difference between the technology of
nuclear power generation and the technology of
nuclear bomb development. It is now hard to put
things back the way it used to be, let us admit
that human political systems or organizational
processes cannot manage the risks of this
technology.
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Other issues associated with current nuclear
technologies that cause them to become
problematic. For instance, the toxicity of its
fuel and waste should not be ignored. Dangerous
accidents are rare but once it happened, the
impact is intense and long-lasting. It is hard to
judge the danger posed by a poorly managed one
while a well-managed plant poses little real
danger. There is also a possibility of sabotage.
Terrorists taking over a plant and threatening to
plant accident could hold a city
hostage.   Electric utilities are natural
monopolies that necessitate government
regulation. The investment in infrastructure to
produce and send out electricity is so enormous
that it makes slight sense to permit more than
one system for each city. This investment in
infrastructure and equipment strengthens the
chance of electric utilities to be greatly
centralized, vertically incorporated
organizations. These utilities have a propensity
to be firm, dull and monopolistic.
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Other issues associated with current nuclear
technologies that cause them to become
problematic. For instance, the toxicity of its
fuel and waste should not be ignored. Dangerous
accidents are rare but once it happened, the
impact is intense and long-lasting. It is hard to
judge the danger posed by a poorly managed one
while a well-managed plant poses little real
danger. There is also a possibility of sabotage.
Terrorists taking over a plant and threatening to
plant accident could hold a city hostage.
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Electric utilities are natural monopolies that
necessitate government regulation. The investment
in infrastructure to produce and send out
electricity is so enormous that it makes slight
sense to permit more than one system for each
city. This investment in infrastructure and
equipment strengthens the chance of electric
utilities to be greatly centralized, vertically
incorporated organizations. These utilities have
a propensity to be firm, dull and
monopolistic.   Renewable energy has the chance
to change the energy business. There could be the
start of decentralized, distributed generation of
energy while some large-scale organizations will
always be part of the energy industry. Even
though the predictable wisdom informs us that
solar power, battery technology, and smart grids
will take time, the technology is only a
breakthrough or two away from a new age of
decentralized energy technology.
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• The National Renewable Energy Laboratorys
  recently published 2012 Renewable Energy Data
  Book reported that

Renewable electricity represented 14 percent of
total installed capacity and more than 12 percent
of total electric generation in 2012   The
installed global renewable electricity capacity,
including hydropower, doubled between 2000 and
2012, and represents a significant and growing
portion of the total energy supply both globally
and in the U.S.   In 2012, wind energy and
solar photovoltaics (PV) were two of the fastest
growing electric generation technologies in the
U.S. Cumulative installed wind energy capacity
increased by nearly 28 percent and cumulative
installed solar photovoltaic capacity grew more
than 83 percent from the previous year.  
Renewable electricity has been capturing a
growing percentage of new capacity additions
during the past few years. In 2012, renewable
electricity accounted for more than 56 percent of
all new electrical capacity installations in the
U.S. a major increase from 2004 when renewable
electricity installations captured only 2 percent
of new capacity additions.
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In the United States, these data grant evidence
of the growth of renewable energy, with modest,
incremental improvements in technology.
Large-scale completion of smart grid technology
would make it possible to hurry this trend. This
signifies a latent market that could inflate
quickly subsequent to a major technological
advance in solar receiver or storage technology.