Rocky Mountain’s Real-World Data Blunders

The Rocky Mountain Institute’s summer newsletter “debunked” nuclear’s theology and their press release “doused the hype about ‘nuclear revival’ in an icy bath of real-world data”. Well, after checking out the data and doing some analyses, I was far from being doused. They argue that nuclear cannot help with climate change because it is too costly and is a "failed option". Their solution to climate change is cogeneration and renewables.

Here’s a quick summary of cogeneration and renewables:

In 2003, cogeneration accounted for 5% of total US electricity generation. Renewables accounted for 8%. Of this 5% of cogeneration, natural gas made up about 90% of its primary fuel. I could see why the graph in the newsletter was highlighting cogeneration, it’s because natural gas is booming right now.

The blunder with natural gas is that the prices are higher than the price of oil for electric generators. Check it out by looking at the EIA’s Short Term Outlook link above and selecting the Electricity tab of the Excel file. It’s under Fuel Prices which list coal, oil and natural gas. Utilities and investors thought natural gas would be an excellent buy because it was cheap and the US had plenty of it. But since 2002, natural gas prices have doubled.

Cogeneration is a good thing. It comes down to being more efficient at the way electricity is produced and steam used. But any fuel source could do this, even nuclear. It does help curb climate change, but not anywhere near the extent nuclear could. Your primary source of fuel is natural gas and it is still a fossil fuel which produces greenhouse gases.

Here’s my analysis of RMI’s analysis. Their graph and data in the newsletter was medicore at best and very misleading. I’ll give you four reasons why:

The graph they provided is only looking at capacity (GWe). What you should be looking at is generation, the real result. Typically when looking at renewables, you need three times as much capacity as nuclear to produce the same amount of electricity. Nuclear power plants’ capacity factor (how efficient a plant generates electricity) is the highest of any fuel source (90.5%). Renewables are in the 30% range, natural gas for cogeneration is about 40%.

The second reason the graph is misleading is because of yearly capacity increases. The reader only sees what was built in that year. What you should see in the graph is the total operating capacity in existence today. From the Department of Energy’s Annual Energy Outlook 2005, a table here shows the total capacity in 2003 and projected capacity for 2004 – 2025. Cogeneration and renewables make up about 15% of the US capacity and nuclear only makes up about 10%. But as I stated above, cogeneration and renewables made up a combined total of 13% of US electricity generation while nuclear was at 20%. It’s efficiency not quantity.

The third reason the graph is misleading is because it uses five different sources for its information. For example, when conducting a search on EWEA, they said that wind could supply 12% of the world’s electricity by 2020. After doing some calculations, 1,250 GW (the amount needed to achieve 12%) would be a wind farm the size of Texas. Let’s be realistic here, right now the total capacity in the US of wind is about 4 GW.

The fourth and final reason the graph is misleading is because it stops at 2010. The sources they use for nuclear are the International Atomic Energy Agency, World Nuclear Association, and the International Energy Agency. All are respectable sources. According to IAEA, there are 24 reactors being built. There are an additional 39 reactors planned, according to the WNA. It takes 5-10 years to build a nuclear reactor and the graph conceals what nuclear’s capacity will be when they are all built.

If you would have looked at the numbers in the 1970s, you would have seen nuclear’s capacity skyrocketing. In another 10-15 years, as the world has to make intelligent choices involving economic growth and environmental protection, it may begin skyrocketing again.

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