sept 8th, 2007
whatever the other merits of the nuclear deal in terms of giving china sleepless nights, it is pretty clear that india is *not* going to make that much electricity from nuclear fission, especially if that's going to be dependent on obsolete american designs. let us note in passing that america has not built a single reactor since three mile island happened in 1982. that means they have no current designs; what westinghouse/toshiba are selling to the chinese are ancient designs.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Top_scientist_questions_Indias_N-energy_dream/articleshow/2351385.cms
6 comments:
What a bunch of crock! This "scientist" must have his head examined. The US may not have not commissioned a new reactor in a while, but GE has been active in developing reactor technology. Why can't these rubes understand that what India is looking for is to join the supply web consortium. The US is all set to expand its own nuclear power generation capacity. The only area where the US has not ventured enough is FBR, where the French , and to a considerable extent India has done a lot of work. The Indian FBR program is out of bounds of the 123 agreement. China has had a lot of trouble with its nuclear power technology as with all technology areas - as with the Su-27 production it imported and managed to run to ruin in a few years! Even being able to meet 10% of our energy needs thru nuclear power is significant. What else are you going to do? Burn coal and heat the earth? Or use windmills and animal power?
oh joy, indians can now be guinea-pigs on whom to test untested GE reactors. i can't wait.
so india will import the equivalent of obsolete analog phone lines from the US while the rest of the world has moved on to cellular. lovely.
nobody is talking about meeting 10% of india's energy from fission. the long-term roadmap prepared by the indian government is only talking about, most optimistically, 7%, and more likely 3%! yeah, and what are you going to do with all the radioactive waste? eat it? or poison the most productive farmland in the world?
this is the sort of half-baked argument from nuclear fans that makes me despair. the answer is as plain as the nose on our face: it has to be solar, so put a billion dollars of research money into materials. *do not* give $10 billion to salivating american companies to buy something that's only an unproven and at best short-term solution, with a long-term albatross of radiation and radioactive waste.
Nizhal,
You live in the Bay Area right? How much of your electricity is derived from solar energy please? Already India is in energy deficit-even with all the super mega thermal projects in implementation. When we can't find a few acres here and there for an SEZ in India you are talking of setting aside 1000s of sq.KM. to install solar arrays? Are you serious? Nuclear energy remains the densest source at the infrastructural level i.e., the ratio of energy generated to plant and machinery installed. The Russian supply deal calls for returning spent fuel to the Russians! France at present is the only country in the world that has got its long term power solution under control with over 70% being generated from nuclear energy. China has announced that it is setting up 31 new reactors. Surprising isn't it that you and Comissar Carrot are on the same side!
so what you say is
1. thermal is not fine because of global warming
2. hydropwer- bad bad - no dams allowed
3. solar power - bad bad - will take up space - I mean how will we grow paddy in the sahara desert if you put solar cells there?
Solution
Let us put windmills next to leftists frontal and nether ends - whenever you pass wind we generate electricity - since you pass so much wind we will have a perpetual motion machine
There is a lot of space in the Rajasthan Desert to put solar arrays and connect them to the grid (or are you uppity jerks planning to grow paddy in the Rajasthan desert - also check up the square kms in the Rajasthan desert)
Himachal/Sikkim/Arunachal have sufficient hydropower potential to supply all the power needs of all of India - oh but you will not allow any dams to be built
Orissa has sufficent coal to generate 100,000 MW for the next hundred years.
Orissa has 61 billion tonnes of coal reserve, which can sustain power generation in the order of 100,000 MW for a century. The State, which also has vast water resources, can become the powerhouse of the nation," the Chief Minister, Mr Naveen Patnaik, said on Friday, while addressing presspersons with the Chairman of the Reliance ADA Group, Mr Anil Ambani.
And as far as wind energy goes
To dismiss wind energy as an expensive, niche green luxury, as many do, is to ignore what has happened in Spain, the world's number one wind market"
- Corin Millais, CEO of the European Wind Energy Association
Spain's wind energy reaches new high
At 5.40pm (0340 AEDT on Tuesday) on Monday, wind power generation rose to contribute 27 per cent of the country's total power requirement, Red Electrica said.
Spain's Wind Power Industry on a Roll (this article is from 2005)
As a result of its continued success, the previous Government target of 13,000 MW installed wind capacity in 2010 has been updated to 20,000 MW in 2011. In 1999, the target was 8,900 MW by 2010, considered ambitious at that time. The Government's new target would see wind energy supplying 15 percent national electricity consumption, up from 6.5 percent today.
European Wind Energy Statistics
Worldwide wind energy statistics
thanks, habc, for the powerful statistics.
truti, you are not exactly very logical, right? it is precisely because california doesnt have enough solar energy that they are putting in $1-2 billion in venture capital money into solar and other alternative fuels. smart people like VCs have figured out that there's huge profits to be made from these, not from dinosaurs like fission plants. i have to believe they have run their sums and done their due diligence, although of course they are not infallible. the indian goverment should be putting in $1 billion into solar R&D as well. others are not sitting still: a recent forbes article listed the top 25 solar energy firms in the world: they are european, american, and chinese. yes, the chinese are certainly not depending on the american white knight on his radioactive horse to rescue them, as a lot of indians seem to be.
as for space for solar arrays, that is a complete red herring. heard of rooftops? vacant land, especially in low-rise areas such as the silicon valley. google has rooftop panels. nasa ames has them. an efficient array on a rooftop gives you enough electricity to run homes and R&D establishments. the japanese have proved this too. you need a subsidy to buy the stuff because it's too expensive now, but then your consumable, sunshine, is absolutely free. so the trick is to reduce the capital cost, and to increase efficiency. for the first, you need tax subsidies: the $10 billion india is planning to spend on us reactors can go towards this. for the second, you need R&D. there are new materials that are considerably more efficient and possibly cheaper (i forget, some indium/germanium based materials and also flexible panels printed on plastic, rather than chip-quality semiconductors).
Super VC Vinod Khosla, a California based billionaire is already investing/planning to invest heavily in alternative energy generation like ethanol. Just Google Vinod Khosla and alternative energy, you will get lot of materials.
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