Paul Thissen: Innovation in Action

Introduction/Background

Long term storage of spent nuclear fuel, from both nuclear power plants and the nuclear navy, is a growing need.
Yucca Mountain deserves careful consideration.

My Idea

President Obama is withdrawing funding for Yucca Mountain, a storage site for spent nuclear fuel that sits in the center of a desert mountain, 1,000 feet underground and more than 90 miles from Las Vegas. Thorough geologic studies showed Yucca Mountain to be an appropriate place for our nuclear waste. Instead, we now have storage spread over 121 above-ground sites located within 75 miles of more than 161 million people in 39 states.

With Yucca Mountain, the nuclear waste problem is manageable. Just 5% of the spent fuel is highly radioactive fission products which can be separated by reprocessing as France does. The remaining 95% of the spent fuel is 94% low radiation uranium and 1% plutonium, all of which can be recycled into new reactor fuel. A Department of Energy report stated the following:

“Yucca Mountain has changed little over the last several million years. Extensive scientific studies of potential natural hazards at the site show it is highly unlikely that volcanoes, erosion, or other geologic processes and events would disrupt a repository at Yucca Mountain. In addition, by locating the repository in solid rock about 1,000 feet under the surface and on average 1,000 feet above the water table, the waste would be protected from the impacts of earthquakes. Damaging ground movement is the most intense at the earths surface and decreases with the depth underground.”

We have spent about $8 billion to develop Yucca Mountain. The issue there is political, not geologic.

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Introduction/Background

My recent editorial from the St Cloud Times, St Paul Villager, Brainerd Dispatch, etc. I will be interested to hear comments.

Rolf Westgard, St Paul (writer is a professional member of the Geological Society of America)

My Idea

In its latest Annual Energy Outlook, the U.S. Energy Information Administration(EIA) is forecasting that U.S. wind turbines will supply 101 billion kilowatt hours(bkwh) of electricity to our electric power grids in the year 2020. That is just 2.14% of total U.S. electric power supply of 4,723 bkwh projected for 2020.

Undeterred by this, our Minnesota legislature has passed SF0004, the Renewable Energy Standard Bill which requires our largest utility, Excel, to get 25% of its energy from wind turbines in the year 2020, ten times the average wind contribution estimated by the EIA.

There’s a reason for the caution about erratic and intermittent wind power by EIA’s analysts. Unlike conventional electricity fuel sources, coal, natural gas, and nuclear, which schedule their down time, wind turns itself on and off, whether the electric grids need it or not. Denmark’s electric grid is widely reported to get 20-30 percent of its fuel from wind energy. It doesn’t.

Denmark’s 5,300 turbines can produce 20 percent of Denmark’s total electric demand, but when they do, Denmark has to look around for somebody to buy it, as the grid can’t use most of the wind power at the time it is generated. Wind farms typically operate at about 25-30% of their total capacity, about one third of the 80 to 90% capacity factor of coal and nuclear.

Hundreds of giant corn to ethyl alcohol(ethanol) stills now dot our Midwest landscape. They use four tenths of a corn bushel to produce a gallon of ethanol which currently sells for $1.53/gallon. The raw corn alone for this ethanol gallon costs $1.50.

That’s before the costs of production and transportation. Even with a 30-35 cent benefit from selling by product animal feed, ethanol production doesn’t pencil out. This is a major reason why VeraSun, our largest independent ethanol producer, recently declared bankruptcy. And the wholesale price of a gallon of gasoline, which has 30% more energy than ethanol, is currently $1.09/gallon.

For ethanol to achieve 20% of our gasoline supply, a dream of state legislatures, would require our entire 10 billion bushel corn crop. Cellulosic ethanol is still a research project, and it is inherently more expensive than the corn product.

Another frequently ignored issue is the time required to bring forth a major new fuel to the world’s energy supply. Until the mid-19th Century, wood burning powered the world. Then coal gradually surpassed wood on into the first part of the 20th Century. Oil was discovered in the 1860s, but it was a century before it surpassed coal as our largest energy fuel. Trillions of dollars are invested in the world’s infrastructure to mine, process, and deliver coal and petroleum.

As Distinguished Professor Vaclav Smil of the University of Manitoba recently put it, “It is delusional to think that the United States can install in 10 years wind and solar generating capacity equivalent to that of thermal power plants that took nearly 60 years to construct.”

There is a role in our energy needs for alternatives like wind and biofuels; but the assumption that they will make a major near term supply contribution is distracting us from hard choices involving aggressive conservation and life style changes.

We do have a looming energy crisis. Coal is an increasing environmental problem, and oil supplies may well peak in the near future. We need to improve energy efficiency with upgraded buildings, high mileage vehicles, and electric public transport. The way we produce and transport food may have to be recast to avoid transporting so much of it for great distances. Funding and encouraging these efforts will require energy taxes, especially on gasoline.

Recent well intentioned statements that we can repower our electricity generation in a decade with alternatives are the kind of delusion that we cannot afford to harbor.

Resources

U.S. Energy Information Administration
Numerous peer reviewed technical papers

Introduction/Background

I have had a Wind Turbine for about five years. The energy that it produced fed into the grid. There was not much excess after my household consumption, but there was some. I live on White Earth Reservation at the edge of the North Dakota plain. My turbine almost never stops. However it stopped working about a year ago and needs repairs, but there are not enough repair people to keep up with the repair demands.

My Idea

There are a few problems that I have encountered that the state could help with.

1. My Wind Turbine is manufactured in Minnesota just south of the cities. Help that company re-design and re-fit to make their turbine more productive.

2. Assist Minnesota Technical Colleges in developing educational programs for erection and maintenance of farm and family turbines.

3. Give incentives to local Electric Companies to train personnel to help erect and maintain wind turbines.

4. Help companies manufacture different affordable energy packages to including: smaller turbines, battery packs, converts of amperage, etc.

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Renewable energy payments can increase energy security and economic development from the renewable energy industry in Minnesota.  The problem is that existing incentives for renewable energy depend on Congressional action to renew, and these incentives inhibit community-based projects – the ones with the best economic benefits for Minnesota communities.  Renewable energy payments provide a stable market for renewable electricity development from wind, solar and other technologies by providing a 20-year, fixed price contract for any renewable energy producer. 

The Problem
Existing incentives for renewable energy are largely in the form of tax credits.  This format rewards renewable energy production, but only by those who have big tax bills.   Cities, counties, non-profits, and cooperatives are prohibited from contributing toward the development of renewable energy.  Furthermore, these incentives have regularly expired, as Congressional debates have held up their renewal. 

The Solution
Renewable Energy Payments can energize broad-based development of renewable power and maximize the state’s economic benefits from renewable power.  Unlike federal incentives, these payments require no annual legislative review, do not expire, and are overseen by the Public Utility Commission.  Furthermore, they encourage community-based energy development by creating an “all in” payment that allows non-taxable entities and small developers to compete on an even field to supply renewable power to the Minnesota market.  Renewable energy payments have helped renewable power in European countries capture more than 10% of the market and have created hundreds of thousands of jobs in green energy industries. 

For more on renewable energy payments (also known as feed-in tariffs), see this report on feed-in tariffs  from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.