"...don't say No Nuclear Power, say Better Nuclear Power..."

Sundance 2013. Robert Stone - Ondi Timoner

The interview with Robert Stone starts at 27:10.

28:40 Robert Stone: "...the core reason why people are against nuclear energy is because they conflate it with nuclear weapons..."

29:54 Ondi Timoner: "...nuclear....this big scary thing....it may actually be the only thing that saves us from climate change..."

31:01 Robert Stone: "...I have no problem with wind power. I have no problem with solar power....you just can't power the world as it is now, with those; they just can't scale..."

31:14 Robert Stone: "...by 2050 we're going to need 3 times the energy that we have now - 3 times..."

31:58 Robert Stone: "....an enlightenment environmentalism....we're here, there's gonna be 10 billion of us....we're not gonna be retreating....the reality is we're gonna keep encroaching....how do we make that encroachment as environmentally benign as possible..."

32:20 Robert Stone: "...DON'T SAY NO NUCLEAR POWER, SAY BETTER NUCLEAR POWER..."

38:59 Ondi Timoner: "...there are not that many great films that could spark a movement. this is one of those films..."

Robert Stone's Website for the Documentary

Do you have a Morbid Fear of Invisible Radiation - Part II

Surely, even the rabid anti-nuke lobby would not attempt to claim that a United Nations Committee is in the pocket of the 'Energy Giants', would they? That's one fantasy too far.

I should now be able to respond to their claims, usually built on the 'science' of one individual - from studies bereft of control groups - that you can trust this UN report and henceforth, have no fear of low-level radiation!

In all future discourse, I feel sure they will now then drop the usual hyperbolic death figures from low-level radiation and point readers at this report.

Maybe Not - Business as usual I would guess!

Report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation

4% Wind Energy Penetration - That's the Limit for the People in the Know!

From the first couple of paragraphs of the Executive Summary:

Executive Summary

Environmentalists advocate wind power as one of the main alternatives to fossil fuels, claiming that  it is both cost effective and low in carbon emissions. This study seeks to evaluate these claims. Existing estimates of the life-cycle emissions from wind turbines range from 5 to 100 grams of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour of electricity produced. This very wide range is explained by differences in what was included in each analysis, and the proportion of electricity generated by wind. The low CO2 emissions estimates are only possible at low levels of installed wind capacity, and even then they typically ignore the large proportion of associated emissions that come from the need for backup power sources (“spinning reserves”).

Wind blows at speeds that vary considerably, leading to wide variations in power output at different times and in different locations. To address this variability, power supply companies must install backup capacity, which kicks in when demand exceeds supply from the wind turbines; failure to do so will adversely affect grid reliability. The need for this backup capacity significantly increases the cost of producing power from wind. Since backup power in most cases comes from fossil fuel generators, this effectively limits the carbon-reducing potential of new wind capacity.

The Limits of Wind Power

Wind Electricity is 1½ Times More Expensive than Nuclear!

Don't you just love it, when something you instinctively know turns out to be true?

Hot off the Press!

This is the real cost of wind energy, with some of the intermittency and grid connectivity costs added in. This is not the percentages and totals figures the wind lobby throws at us and our gullible MPs - it's what has to come out of our hard-earned taxes, somewhere along the line: Wind Lovers - get off the Band Wagon while you can!