Khosla wrote a response to Scheer and included a wide-ranging analysis of other energy issues. Scheer has now written his reply.
My new book, Energy Autonomy has been one of the topics of the panel discussion with Vinod Khosla and Michael Peevey in February in San Francisco.
During this discussion, Khosla did not respond to the book and its theses. That was understandable at that time. He might not have had enough time to read the book beforehand. But what really surprises me is that he now discusses my opinions and concepts at length, obviously without having read a single line since. His comments thus are a little spooky to me.
Khosla is not only misquoting some of my contributions during the panel--violating one of the basic principles of scientific discourse. He is voicing opinions and assumptions that are often lacking any statistical or scientific basis. They can be refuted easily, and I will try to do so with some of them.
He is aiming at condemning all kinds of renewable energy except solar thermal technologies. (He informs us that he financially supports CSP technologies.) In his text, hardly any stereotype concerning other renewables is left out. He calls his approach "pragmatic" whereas mine is labeled somewhat illusionary and "idealistic" in a bad sense.
Nuclear vs. renewables--employing a double standard
Reality looks different: The approaches I argued for have resulted in a total of 60,000 MW installed capacity of renewable energy in the electricity sector during the last years, alone 25,000 MW thereof in Germany. The approach Khosla is supporting led only to 400 MW of installed concentrated solar power in California during the beginning of the 1980s. The figures did not rise since. It amazes me that he does not ask himself why the concept that I advocate has developed dynamically, although it is supposed to be more expensive than the technologies he is supporting. Surely he must ask himself why his approach did not experience a breakthrough yet. Is that realism?
Khosla is obviously employing a double standard when ascribing the success of my concept to "huge subsidies" and to spending "taxpayers' money irrespective of the economics" and at the same time endorsing nuclear energy. The past 50 years have clearly proven that nuclear technology is a veritable tomb for R&D subsidies, investor capital and taxpayers' money. From the 1950s to 1973, the OECD countries spent over $150 billion (in current prices) on R&D in nuclear energy--but practically nothing, by contrast, on renewable energy. Between 1974 (when the International Energy Agency started collecting data) and 1992, it was again $168 billion--for renewable energy, by contrast, the figure came to just $22 billion. The EU's opulent promotion of nuclear energy is not even included in this count, and the French figures remain secret to this day. Total subsidization worldwide comes to at least $1 trillion if we include the former Soviet Union, India and China. For renewable energy, by contrast, subsidies amount to $40 billion at most over the last 30 years, including market introduction programs. Stating that there has been a "lack of R&D into nuclear energy technology" appears quite ridiculous.
But it is not only direct financial aid that counts. Nuclear energies are privileged in many other ways. Exemption from liability in case of reactor accidents because no insurance company would want to back that risk is but one example. It is unfair and dishonest to on the one hand accept market-adverse preferential treatment for atomic energy and on the other deny these financial and political privileges to renewable energies, and have them compete with the heavily funded nuclear industries on an unequal footing. Privileging nuclear energy financially and politically should come to an end--not much has been achieved compared to the large sums that have been invested to promote this energy source. Khosla's question, instead of speaking up for nuclear, should rather read: How many millions of tons of carbon emissions do we have because renewable energy has not been promoted?
The German renewable energy feed-in-law
It is downright wrong, and unveils Khosla's lack of familiarity with this policy, to state that the success of the German renewable energy feed-in-law--25.000 MW since 2000--could only have been achieved by employing taxpayers' money. The approximately $20 plus per household per year are paid by the customers and do not burden the national budget.
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renewable energy, nuclear power, approach, Germany, R&D
money spent on building nuclear plants, not research and
development. The US government spent about a billion a year
for maybe a couple of decades on research and development of
nuclear energy (rough figures from memory, I'll admit), and the
Soviets probably a lot less than that. Others just used our light
water reactor designs, and a few used the Canadian heavy water
design. Nukes were built because their energy could be
produced and delivered for a LOT less than solar and wind thirty
years ago. Wind, particularly, was tried even earlier than nuclear,
and abandoned for lack of the sophisticated technology that
goes into modern wind turbine structures, aerodynamics, and
electrical generation and control. A wind turbine is more
challenging to build than a helicopter, and helicopters were not
especially practical until the very late 50s. 50 years later, of
course, both helicopters and wind turbines have been developed
much beyond the original state of the art. Development money
is only part of the story when it comes to innovation. Ideas and
understanding also figure in, and nuclear energy was just better
understood first than the disciplines necessary for wind energy.
Its different now, of course. And the same goes for solar PV and
thermal, too.
http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/2007/04/technician-versus-venture-capitalist.html
Countries that have and are doing Nuclear R&D are doing both weapons R&D, disposal/recycle R&D, and possibly some plant redesign R&D.
My guess is that the bulk of the R&D money went towards weapon research, or possibly fusion research.
Both parties in the "fight" have their own personal agenda and myopic viewpoints.
Yes solar thermal will only work in certain areas.
Solar panels will only work part time and then there's the question of their efficiency in conversion of sunlight to electricity. Wind and wave power also have some potential too.
The truth is that we need all of the above to offset our use of fossil fuels. Get rid of petrol, you need to generate more electricity. Get rid of coal, you need to replace how its being generated.
The sad reality is that we need clean and safe(r) nuke plants. Only problem is that everyone will say "not in my backyard".
The point is that there is no simple answer.
Goldberg, Marshall. Federal Energy Subsidies: Not all Technologies are Created Equal. Renewable Energy Policy Project Research Report #11. July 2000. http://www.crest.org/repp_pubs/pdf/subsidies.pdf
In the US: "Wind, solar and nuclear power received
approximately $150 billion in cumulative
Federal subsidies over roughly fifty years, some
95% of which supported nuclear power. Perhaps
more significant, nuclear power received far
higher levels of support per kilowatt-hour
generated early in its history than did wind or
solar."
or for international comparisons:
IEA Energy R&D Statistics
http://www.iea.org/Textbase/stats/rd.asp
I worked with a number of nuclear scientists and engineers at
Argonne National Laboratory for almost two decades, and never
heard any of them assert that global warming was human-
caused. They more typically downplayed it as a conjectural
theory not solid enough to provide a good reason for promoting
nuclear energy. They were more focused on adding nuclear
energy to the other sources, not replacing any of them. If there
are any left unretired these days, some of them might have
warmed up to warming, so to speak, but I have not heard about
it.
Far from a small group of scientists trying to promote nuclear power generation, 928 peer reviewed analyses along with the IPCC's most recent reports have confirmed that climate change is both happening and being caused by human beings.
Please, let's elevate the debate beyond this level of resistant ignorance.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686
http://www.ipcc.ch/
MUCH better than any large scale power plants, whether coal fired,
nuclear, or CSP. (Other forms of micropower also fit well: read
Amory Lovins at www.RMI.org.)
This is a crucial point, especially for free-market conservatives and
all who are skeptical of concentrated power.
electricity in a grid, because of the variability of the solar
component. Unless of course energy storage is provided along with
the variable source, which perhaps doubles the cost of the energy
source. In small doses, PV or wind is a no-brainer economically, or
will be if it is low-cost enough. In larger doses, it takes some other
reason than free-market economics to fly in the near future.
We need to be addressing the application of ALL of these together, depending on location, load, distribution, and efficiency, using the more efficient (read: Clean) to lessen the load on the less efficient (polluting) power sources, and finding ways to cut energy consumption in the first place.
These myopic debates are exactly what has kept us in this same downward spiral since the seventies, and why there is so little improvement in the situation. Time to stop arguing, and start doing.
- Didn't come across well
- by ahickey April 30, 2007 5:51 AM PDT
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- re: Didn't Come Across Well
- by todiane4 April 30, 2007 6:13 PM PDT
- AHickey, I understand your being suspect in general of strongly worded critiques if they seem to come out of nowhere and to only be self serving. But perhaps you did not read the original article by Khosla to which this article is a rebuttal. Starting with its title "Scheer Nonsense", Khosla starts off "bad mouthing" Scheer from the get go in reaction to a panel discussion they had that was based in part on the book by Scheer titled Energy Autonomy. Therefore, it seems to me fair game (and not just a plug of his book) that Scheer would a) mention that book in his rebuttal, and b) defend himself against the insults that were handed to him.
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- re: Didn't Come Across Well
- by todiane4 April 30, 2007 6:21 PM PDT
- Excuse me--The title "Scheer Nonsense" for Khosla's post appears on other blogs where I read it like Huffington Post. That said, he calls Scheer's ideas such names as "folly", "plain religious dogma," so the point of my comment above remains the same.
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(19 Comments)My new book, Energy Autonomy has been one of the topics of the panel discussion with Vinod Khosla and Michael Peevey in February in San Francisco.
During this discussion, Khosla did not respond to the book and its theses. That was understandable at that time. He might not have had enough time to read the book beforehand. But what really surprises me is that he now discusses my opinions and concepts at length, obviously without having read a single line since. His comments thus are a little spooky to me.
END QUOTE
I don't trust people who start by plugging their book or bad mouth other people. If your argumnet has merit then be positive.
This whole thing looks like handbags at dawn.