Clean Energy Insight - Moving Energy Forward

[Approx. Read Time: 4 minutes]

I found a pretty interesting video a couple of months ago of Google CEO Eric Schmidt giving his strong opinion on nuclear power.  We were still designing this website at that time, so I have been waiting to post this for a while.

Watch the video before you continue:

What really strikes me is the pompous attitude Mr. Schmidt carries with him throughout the video clip.  Where did he get this information that he is so confident in?  Nuclear power just doesn’t “cost out” against renewables?

I believe that Mr. Schmidt’s flawed assumption is that wind and solar installations will last forever, just like their energy sources–the sun and wind. That is obviously not the case, these installations must be replaced on a large scale every 15 to 20 years (if everything goes as planned).

Wind and solar installations aren’t made by Ron Popeil.  You don’t “set it and forget it”. Other than having proverbial maids go around and wash off those solar installations every three to four days (which are ironically best placed in the desert), the installations must be replaced every 20 years.  All in the face of a 60-80 year lifetime for nuclear plants.  (The lifetime promise is the same for wind turbines; but, Danish turbines are only lasting for an average of 16 years.)

Anyway, Clean Energy Insight created this graph “Comparing Clean Energy Costs” with information from the Energy Information Administration’s 2009 Annual Energy Outlook.  Annually, the EIA completes energy forecasts for the following 20 years based on current information.  Back in April, they updated their forecast to include Stimulus provisions.  This includes subsidies for renewables in an attempt to make them more competitive.  Even Schmidt admits in the video that renewables rely on federal subsidies to be competitive.  Something that Nuclear power does not rely on.  As you can see, nuclear is far cheaper than any variation of wind and solar technologies.

Here is a link to the full-size graph.

Here is a link to a decent explanation of the information used.

Finally, I would like to address Mr. Schmidt’s claim that solar thermal power can power the entire United States with a 10,000 sq mile installation.  I’ll bring back my methodology from What Does Renewable Energy Look Like? Parts I and II to debunk this claim.  I’ll even ignore the fact that current transmission technology isn’t even able to do this in the first place, and even the biggest planned solar thermal installation is only 340 MW and yet to be proven.

According to the Energy Information Administration Solar Thermal installations have a capacity factor of 0.312.

Mr. Schmidt proposes a 100 mi x 100 mi = 10,000 square mile area of solar thermal panels will power the entire United States.

The 340 MW Arizona installation uses approximately 4,000 acres or 6.25 sq miles.  We’ll use that ratio for this quick calculation.

This means that for 1,000 MW, solar thermal would need approximately 18.4 square miles.

The United States uses an approximate hourly average 3,310,502 MW of power.

Mr. Schmidt’s proposed 10,000 square mile solar thermal installation will reliably provide:

18.4 sq mi / 0.312 capacity factor = 59 sq mi per 1,000 MW

Therefore, 10,000 sq mi of solar thermal panels will yield only 169,491 MW of power.

5.1% of the energy consumption of the United States.  That’s 3,141,011 MW short.

Someone recently commented on one of the “What Does Renewable Energy Look Like” posts and said that I was at least 95% off in my calculations.  It’s pretty ironic that Mr. Schmidt is actually 95% off in his claim.  I would really like to see the study Mr. Schmidt used for his claims, and would welcome the chance to see the methodology and calculations of the study.

I wonder why the CEO of Google would make such blatantly false claims like this about solar power?