Nuclear vs. Wind, Part I

Over the past few weeks I have been engaged in a discussion over the benefits of wind and nuclear with Dave Erickson at Re/Action on Climate Protection. Two of his recent posts, Replace coal with Wind and Cost of Wind vs. Cost of Nuclear to Replace Coal, deserve further discussion.

Dave argues that wind is more cost effective than nuclear. However, his post is about climate protection and he never mentions that nuclear power is the leading source of emission free electricity in the U.S. Nuclear plants already avoid almost 700 million metric tons of CO2 annually in the U.S., and more than 2 billion metric tons of CO2 annually worldwide.

Replace Coal with Wind? Probably not. The U.S. has the largest reserves of coal in the world. Replacing coal completely with wind simply doesn't make economic sense. While coal releases significant emissions, it is getting cleaner. Any new coal plant built has to meet many stringent air requirements. To comply, coal plants are fitted with scrubbers and flue gas desulphurization emission technologies as well as other emission control techniques.

While replacing coal with wind could be beneficial for our air, I asked Dave how much land would be required. I noted that just to replace all the nuclear plants in the U.S. with wind, we would need an area the size of the state of Wisconsin. Dave contends that if wind turbines were packed closely together, to replace all of coal we'd only need an area equivalent to the size of West Virginia.

But think -- is it realistic enough land would be available? We’re talking about areas the size of states. Sure, there’s plenty of land in the Dakotas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Kansas, but the vast majority of future electricity demand will be somewhere else. What good would that do? What about offshore wind? Possibly, if everyone doesn’t mind looking out at the ocean and viewing a horizon of turbines. As we've seen, Americans are picky about our scenery.

I'll have more on Monday when we post Part II of my analysis.

Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Energy, Electricity, Environment, Cape Cod, Wind Power, New England, Riverkeeper, NIMBY