solar

Small nuclear reactors offer extensive flexibility, and they run continuously, independent of day or night, rain or sunshine, wind or no wind. They also do not need a system for delivering a continuous fuel supply; deliveries two or three times a year would be sufficient. Nuclear power is the future.

Robert Bryce, author of “Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper,” captures the headlong rush of Western culture’s endless drive for ever better technology. It is an extraordinary impulse that has created a world in which more people live longer and more comfortably than ever before. Mr. Bryce’s policy prescriptions will be more welcome in Houston than in the White House. He contends that the pantheon of environmentalists like Mr. Gore, Bill McKibben, Amory Lovins and Greenpeace are wildly optimistic in their extravagant hopes for wind power, solar cells and biofuels.

Eric Jelinski has engineering degrees in three disciplines, teaches nuclear engineering curriculum at the University of Toronto, had a full career with the nuclear power industry in Canada and was President of Environmentalists for Nuclear - Canada. In this short essay, he outlines a few simple steps to make large improvements in energy programs for North America. So simple, but national leaders haven't implemented them so far.

Rob Jeffrey, Independent Economic Risk Consultant: South Africa is now (2018) in a recession, the fact is that South Africa does not have the financial resources to revitalise itself. The country suffers from a low savings rate and the government has no money to undertake the task of renewal and development itself. The only means to forge ahead is to make the country attractive to both domestic and foreign investment. Yet there are wild calls for expropriation without compensation, nationalisation of various industries, including one of the most damaging of the lot nationalising the SA reserve bank or using it as a pot of gold. These calls if they are implemented or gather in strength will drive South Africa into an economic death spiral similar to Zimbabwe and Venezuela.

One of South Africa’s key electricity technology energy advisors is a German renewable energy expert and supplier of German wind turbine equipment. Unbelievable. That highlights the desperate situation South African energy is in. German national energy programs based on wind and solar are only one natural crisis away from being in a disastrous situation.

Rob Jeffrey, Independent Economic Risk Consultant: The three major objectives of the country are poverty alleviation, reducing inequality and raising standards of living. These objectives can only be achieved by maintaining a high rate of economic growth, thereby reducing levels of unemployment and raising the standard of living. Electricity is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for economic growth. The necessary condition for sustainable economic growth is that there is a stable and secure supply of electricity at the lowest effective economic cost when delivered to the user. The sufficient condition requires that economic, social and political conditions must be put in place to foster and encourage domestic and foreign investment, thereby creating demand for productive and economically efficient industries.

John Shanahan, civil engineer, President of Environmentalists for Nuclear - USA: This is a simple, short comparison of wind, solar, fossil fuels and nuclear power. Two have extremely low energy density, require lots of materials, maintenance and tremendous volume of new parts every 20 to 30 years. They are also variable to non-existent sometimes and cause havoc with electrical energy grids for modern society. The other two are high to very high energy density and require much less land. The 2009 - 2017 White House, its Science Advisor, John Holdren, and Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton are strong proponents of wind and solar energy, want significant reductions in use of fossil fuels and did little to promote nuclear power for the future. Most of the rest of the elected officials in the White House and Congress from the mid 1970s through 2018 have done little to develop a national energy plan. There are programs for assisting Americans with health care and retirement, but no national energy plan, except to use what is the cheapest or what is popular with voters today.

Viv Forbes, Executive Director of The Saltbush Club, Australia: The media loves disaster stories – floods, cyclones, heat waves, droughts and fires - each one “the worst Evaaaah” (evaah since the last one). Each report of catastrophe is usually followed by a religious chant about “man-made global warming”. Pretending we can change global climate by waging a war on carbon dioxide is foolish and dangerous nonsense. When cyclones, floods, droughts and bushfires strike we need disaster-proof helipads, rail links, roads, bridges, water and electricity supply.

Irene Aegerter, physicist, Simon Aegerter, physicist: Nuclear Energy has a bad name and is allegedly not wanted by the people. Yet, even after Harrisburg, Tschernobyl and Fukushima it remains the cleanest, safest and most environmentally safe source of energy and – if done right – will become the cheapest. With new generations of nuclear reactors, the perceived dangers of nuclear power will be eliminated: The Generation IV reactors are inherently safe in normal and abnormal operations, they are proliferation resistant and they use the long lived "waste" isotopes as fuel. They utilize Thorium and all of the Uranium, thereby making the available resources essentially inexhaustible.

Alexander Stahel is a Zug, Switzerland-based commodities investor. On September 8, he posted a long thread on Twitter about Europe’s electric sector. It was excellent: comprehensive, had good graphics, and reflected a deep understanding of the crisis that has engulfed Europe. Much of that thread was used in a report that Stahel did in a report for the Global Warming Policy Foundation called “The Crisis of The European Energy System.” In this episode, he explained why Europe is facing years of electricity shortages, France’s mismanagement of its nuclear fleet, why Italy is in particularly bad shape, and the long history of anti-nuclear sentiment on the continent.

Ferruccio Ferroni, Energy Consultant, Robert Hopkirk, Engineering Research & Development, Switzerland: Photovoltaic power sources in regions of moderate insolation are analyzed using the concept of Energy Return on Energy Invested (ERoEI or EROI. The results for regions of moderate insolation levels such as Switzerland and Germany indicate that at today's state of development, PV technology cannot offer an energy source but a NET ENERGY LOSS. Our advanced societies can only continue to develop if a surplus of energy is available, but it has become clear that photovoltaic energy at least will not help in any way to replace fossil fuels.

Here is a link to a talk by Dr. Schernikau - "The Future of Energy" or is the Energy Crisis caused by Putin?

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Swiss Info, Luigi Jorio: Banning construction of nuclear power plants and limiting to 45 years the use of existing ones. That’s what a people’s initiative from the Green Party, to be voted on in November, proposes. It has not been endorsed by the cabinet or by parliament. The Swiss voted to abandon nuclear power after the utilities and regulators provided very safe, clean nuclear power for Swiss citizens for more than 30 years. With media and anti-nuclear organizations accomplishing this, enemies of democracy, freedom and capitalism don't need to lift a finger to weaken the West. Voters are doing it for them.

Ferruccio Ferroni, Dipl. Ing. ETH, Theo Schaub, Dipl. Ing. In der Schweiz ist der Begriff Nachhaltigkeit in der Bundesverfassung, Art. 73 wie folgt umschrieben: „Bund und Kantone streben ein auf Dauer ausgewogenes Verhältnis zwischen der Natur und ihrer Erneuerungsfähigkeit einerseits und ihrer Beanspruchung durch den Menschen anderseits an.“ Auf die Prozesse der Energieumwandlung angewandt heisst dies nichts anderes, als dass man der Natur nicht mehr Energie entnehmen soll, als man nach der Umwandlung gewinnt. Bei einer Nutzenergie von 2300 kWh/m2 und einem Erzeugungsaufwand von 3000 kWh/m2 ergibt sich klar eine negative Energiebilanz.

Alexander Stahel is a Zug, Switzerland-based commodities investor. The major strategic issue that threatens the grid is that a handful of people in positions of power have committed most of Europe to a dramatic reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, even though most of the rest of the world will never follow this policy. The European Commission has transformed these commitments into legal requirement to reduce emissions by 55% from 1990 levels before 2030 - the so-called "Fit for 55" laws. The scale of change to society that this implies is hard to comprehend. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Germany is responsible for about 2% of global annual CO2 emissions from energy. To match Germany’s electricity demand (or over 15% of EU’s electricity demand) solely from solar photovoltaic panels located in Spain, about 7% of Spain would have to be covered with solar panels (~35.000 km2).

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