Onshore wind: 300 tons metal per av. MWe
Offshore wind: 400 tons metal per av. MWe
Silicon PV in cloudy climate: 800 tons metal per av. MWe
Parabolic trough (traditional thermal oil cooled): 600 tons metal per av. MWe.

These figures include copper and aluminium but >90% is iron and steel (except for PV that often uses a lot of aluminium) so in retrospect its a lot less work to just look at iron and steel.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/07/per-peterson-information-on-steel-and.html

1970s PWR: 40 metric tons steel per av. MWe
EPR: 49 metric tons steel per av. MWe
ABWR: 51 metric tons steel per av. MWe
ESBWR: 40 metric tons steel per av. MWe
(could be as low as 32 metric tons, this is an estimate)
AP1000: 42 metric tons steel per av. MWe

http://energyfromthorium.com/forum/download/file.php?id=966&mode=view

And non-metal use, mostly glass, concrete, and plastic (concrete dominates for hydro, wind, coal and nuclear, whereas PV uses lots of glass and plastic):

http://energyfromthorium.com/forum/download/file.php?id=967&mode=view

If you’re having trouble with the labels, “drieklovendam” is Three Gorges Dam Hydroelectric Project in China. “kolen” is obviously coal, PV silicium NL is monocrystalline silicon PV in the Netherlands climate. “CSP trog” is linear axis tracking parabolic trough concentrated solar thermal electric.

http://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/reports/2011/ndc-2011-15.pdf

It’s interesting how all the passive GenIII+ are so close in steel use, they’re all around 35-40 tonnes steel per MWe average. BWR (ESBWR, 32 tonnes) or PWR (AP1000, 42 tonnes) doesn’t seem to matter much either.

http://bravenewclimate.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/ap1000-footprint.jpg

The comment thread above is worth taking the time to skim through – there is a lot of interesting discussion around this issue.

This 15 tonnes per MWe average is around half that of exisiting PWRs. That’s a huge improvement. But Per Peterson says it is 42 tonnes per MWe average:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/07/per-peterson-information-on-steel-and.html

Which is closer to other advanced Gen III+ LWRs.

You’re missing the point. That quote was from news story posted almost 2 years ago and as I said, MUCH has happened since.

The point is that regardless of what has happened to any one particular invention, innovation in nano-solar is accelerating at an exponential rate

To quote famed futurist Ray Kurzweil from five years ago:

“None of the global warming discussions mention the word “nanotechnology.” Yet nanotechnology will eliminate the need for fossil fuels within 20 years. If we captured 1% of 1% of the sunlight (1 part in 10,000) we could meet 100% of our energy needs without ANY fossil fuels. We can’t do that today because the solar panels are too heavy, expensive, and inefficient. But there are new nano-engineered designs that are much more effective. Within five to six years, this technology will make a significant contribution. Within 20 years, it can provide all of our energy needs.”

- Washington Post, , Monday, June 19, 2006

Proof of the above statements is occurring now on countless levels.

17 GW of solar was installed in 2010 manufactured, shipped, and installed in 2010 that is 17 reactors. It can take decades just to install a new nuclear plant.

( I know, as of now Nuclear is a baseload resource and solar is more of a “peaking” resource, but this is changing)

China’s announced in May that it is aiming for a massive 50GW in solar by 2020. And this amount will not come close to servicing the future demand for solar. Other economies will ramp up production as the technology becomes even cheaper.

As i’ve said, I am not against nuclear if it is truly necessary. But I really don’t think you are grasping the fundamental and radical differences between these two technologies, their costs, or the difference in how quickly each technology can be deployed.

While the nuclear of the future will remain cumbersome, highly specialized work, Solar has the capacity to be infused directly into building materials. Solar windows, roofing and even solar infused into walls and road building material already exists and solar can be deployed as easily as paint.

Solar will thus put far more people to work than nuclear

***

“Barry is comparing technologies which are at or close to commercialisation, technologies we are using right now in our attempt to replace fossil fuels. He is doing so because in order to address CC it is imperative that we start building now, using the most effective technologies presently available. ”

I agree with this, so a little math is in order:

if Australia were to start building IFRs today:

First I must admit that I am ignorant of Australia’s projected energy needs, though I do know that Australia’s population might grow by maybe 2 million more people in 15 years So my first question is

1. How many more GWs will Australia need in 2025?

2. How long would it take to complete the new IFRs?

3. How much would each GW of current nuclear cost when compared to current alternatives?
– I think nuclear wins this one hands down RIGHT NOW, but…

4. Given the rate of advance in alternatives, Is there a reasonable possibility that the future costs of alternatives might derail nuclear projects and thereby making nuclear endeavors a waste of time, money, resources and CO2?

Two other things MUST be factored in: politics and waste

1. We both know that (for good or ill) nuclear is fraught with politics. It is hard to realistically forecast how much nuclear power the Australian public might be accept within the energy mix but because of nuclear’s history, such calculations are necessary. (The same could not be said of solar if they were even close to the same cost wise)

2. There is currently no such thing as wastes free nuclear. So where will Australia dispose of its nuclear waste? Or will Australia worry about waste disposal later as they are doing in all the other nations that use nuclear?

Please read

http://peakoil.com/alternative-energy/solar%E2%80%99s-getting-cheaper-fast/

This is a quote from your second link:

“Until EarthSure can raise more funds to develop a prototype device or Wang creates a start up company to produce and market, concealed solar panels will remain out of reach for most consumers.”

Stephen, there isn’t even a prototype…

At link 5 – from 31.5% to 35.8% efficiency improvement? This is news? What about nights? How does it scaled up?

Barry is comparing technologies which are at or close to commercialisation, technologies we are using right now in our attempt to replace fossil fuels. He is doing so because in order to address CC it is imperative that we start building now, using the most effective technologies presently available.

If you’re not convinced about nuclear power for reasons other than CO2 mitigation then that’s another conversation, but if it’s because you believe we have more effective options then please, show me a commercially available technology (or even suite of technologies) which has the proven capacity to replace an average 1GW coal plant, 24/7/365, because that’s what we need to do – over and over and over again.

1.

10/30/2009 – Wrapping Solar Cells around an Optical Fiber

Dye-sensitized cells get a double boost from nanowires and optical fiber. These cells work on cloudy days when light is diffuse\

-LINK: http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/23829/

2.

11/10/2009 – Cheap 3D Solar Cells – 6x More Efficient – Work Underground

-LINK: http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2009/11/10/2738182.htm

3.

11/13/2009 – SRS Energy Receives Coveted Edison Award for its Solar Power Roofing Tile

-LINK: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/srs-energys-sole-power-tiletm-receives-best-of-whats-new-award-from-popular-science-69872307.html

4.

11/13/2009 – China announces that it is aiming for 2GW in total installed solar by 2011

-LINK: http://www.pv-tech.org/news/china_aims_to_install_2gw_pv_installations_by_2011

5.

10/22/2009 – Sharp Develops Solar Cell with World Record Conversion Efficiency of 35.8%

– LINK: http://www.physorg.com/news175452895.html

What does this mean?? Just this – Due to the fact that solar is advancing at an exponential rate (untrue of nuclear efficiency), the numbers Barry cited in this article were seriously obsolete only a month after he cited them (and probably BEFORE he wrote them) and are absurdly outdated now

Solar WILL reach grid parity and the world WILL go grid-less solar. There’s no stopping it now

It would be interesting to add resource consumption for sea based wind power which is gaining popularity at the moment. Obviously this is going to be much higher because the sea based foundations are huge.

It would also be interesting to look at resource usage per GW of capacity and perhaps add something about resource usage over plant lifetime or produced GWYear. A nuclear plant may last 40-60 years whereas a windmill have to be rebuilt every 20-25 years.

Best regards
Steen

I think that’s a good proposal, let’s agree on that. As practically everybody posting here has already created his/her argumentation in a pdf, I should do something similar, but I will need some time, at least some days maybe weeks as I have currently lots of stuff to do..

Talk to you later
Michael

If you have a calculation about the costs for the “kombikraftwerk.de”-scenario we can continue to talk about this topic, otherwise we will never end debating because
*) I will say nuclear is maybe 4 ct/kWh and PV is (at the moment) 40 ct/kWh (and this will decrease) and therefore never 25 times as expensive and you will answer that you have to include some costs for storage and I will add that nuclear cannot provide any peak power and so on…

I suggest you need to do this analysis yourself. I’ve pointed out how to do it here: http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/01/09/emission-cuts-realities/

There are thousands of academic studies like the link you have pointed to. This one is dependent on hydro. But the amount of hydro available is small. None of the other renewables a recontributing to reducig the cost of electricity. They are all raising the cost. But it won’t matter how many times anyone explains it to you, you will not understand until you crunch the numbers yourself.

Michael, please read the article at the link Finrod offered you. That and other discussions about fuel for fast reactors that can be found on BNC clearly point out that not only is uranium utilized in fast reactors an essentially unlimited source of power, but the amount that we already have available as a waste product means that it is essentially free, and thus can’t be considered in the same economic sense as oil and gas. It is simply an invalid argument to conflate them.

Spain’s unfortunate experience with solar feed-in tariffs is not, alas, only their problem. Germany has also blown their wad on solar, and continue to persist on a path that is economically insane in service to eco-correctness. See my article on the subject.

As Barry has pointed out elsewhere, the question of whether solar or nuclear are more practical/economical is illustrated beautifully by the recent decision of the UAE to build four nuclear power plants in a country with vast areas of sunny desert that is arguably one of the best locations in the world for maximum insolation. One can reasonably assume that before making such a multi-billion dollar investment decision they carefully weighed their options.

The price of power from a nuclear plant is not strongly driven by the price of uranium. The main cost of nuclear power is the capital cost of building the plant. Fuel coss are so minor that the price of uranium would have to rise greatly to have even a minor impact on the price of power. If the Japanese are correct in their claim to be able to produce uranium from sea water at US$100-300/kg, this represents a cap on its price for the forseeable future.

@ http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/germany/Germany_Study_-_FINAL.pdf
this study wants
a) emission trading
b) R&D
to “support” renewables.

a) is completely wrong as I said in my post at 6.36
b) is fine, but R&D can never compensate for economies of scale! Only the combination of R&D and economies of scale lead to considerable price drops in technologies like PV.

Further, this paper is talking about things like “total burden for past installations”, page 39 of 42. You currently cannot say how much people will have to pay during the next 20 years. The costs can even become zero if electricity prices continue to increase and power plant operators sell the electricity on the market instead of using the feed-in tariffs. So you can only calculate the actual costs and these have been 1.46 EURct/kWh in 2008 (total price is around 20 EURct/kWh for an average household). I am sorry I did not find latter numbers.

One of the economic advantages of renewables is that you can more or less “predetermine” your energy price for the next years. Wind, PV etc. only have neglectible operating costs. Once installed you do not depend on fuels like gas, oil or uranium, which are all traded on the stock exchange and you can therefore never be sure how much the price will be in the future.

@ http://www.juandemariana.org/pdf/090327-employment-public-aid-renewable.pdf

I did not fully read it – just two points:

*) Yes, Spain had this PV bubble, unfortunately they tend to overreact sometimes – see also the real estate bubble, I think Spain has brand new homes for 4 million people and nobody knows what to do with them because they were just built for investment reasons – economy is weird sometimes…

*) Anyone can manipulate statistics to achieve an agenda so we should take all of these reports with a grain of salt. I could post now e.g. 3 studies that “prove” a positive effect and you will send me back 10 more “proving” the negative effect, that’s senseless. To be honest: maybe it is like that, maybe it is not, I do not know.

I will write comments to all other posts later – because of the time shift I must go to bed now, sorry

I am not a school teacher but a mechanical engineering student and I am holding these seminars just for fun on a summer academy for highly gifted students. They are usually very critical and it is great fun discussing with them.

I just started reading your first link about PV costs and I don’t accept any further calculation about the costs of renewable energies as long as the scenario does not include at least the 5 technologies wind, pv, solar thermal, hydro and biomass. If you have a calculation about the costs for the “kombikraftwerk.de”-scenario we can continue to talk about this topic, otherwise we will never end debating because
*) I will say nuclear is maybe 4 ct/kWh and PV is (at the moment) 40 ct/kWh (and this will decrease) and therefore never 25 times as expensive and you will answer that you have to include some costs for storage and I will add that nuclear cannot provide any peak power and so on…

See my article here:

http://channellingthestrongforce.blogspot.com/2010/03/is-nuclear-power-sustainable.html