#she let it run out of battery because she passively wants to die

[trans-queen-administrator]

I adore Cherie Vasil for many reasons but especially because she made a dead man's switch where she'd blow up if she didn't call a phone number every so often and then she let her phone battery run out because she was having too much fun listening to some music so she almost exploded herself. Iconic really, no one does it like her.

[j-shute]

If you care about the environment, back Warren. Not Sanders.

I’m not an American, I’m a Brit. But what I’m about to say here is valid across all countries. It’s not your fault if what I’m about to say comes as a surprise to you, the main stream media have collectively failed to challenge and inform you about it. 

A while back, Bernie Sanders posted this:

This is entirely accurate. Climate change is a major issue, and we need a competent strategy to deal with it.

Bernie also posted this:

This is disingenuous. Yes, we need to transform our energy systems, but there are many ways to do that. Some fall more to the ‘pragmatic’ side, similar to the UK’s stance (use gas to end coal, while building nuclear and offshore wind). Others are on the ‘purist’ side, such as Germany (No more fossil fuel capacity, phase out nuclear, wind and solar). 

Bernie is a purist, and that’s bad.

This is the Vermont Yankee power station:

Built in the 1970′s, it produced 70% of Vermont’s (Bernie’s home state) electricity. It received an extension to run into the 2030′s but was shut down in 2014 due to being undercut by cheap gas power. 

The US reactor fleet has a 100GW capacity, and produces 20% of the countries power. It is their largest source of carbon free power. By extending the plant licenses, a common and highly regulated practice, most of them could run safely into the 2030′s, 2040′s and, in some cases, 2050′s.

Many older reactors though suffer from a financial double whammy. On one side is cheap natural gas electricity, on the other is subsidised renewables. Providing financial assistance to keep these plants open is one of the cheapest ways of stopping more emissions.

Bernie Sanders opposes any license extensions, any financial help, and any new nuclear new build.

This is a NuScale SMR

It is a mass producible small reactor that is passively safe. It CAN’T melt down. It’ll be cheap, easy to build, and has been privately financed by a set of US companies. It is one year away from passing through the US licensing requirements, with the first plant planned for operation in 2026-2027. 

Under Bernie Sanders plans, a decade of work and investment, and a potential critical tool in the fight against climate change, will be dealt a hammer blow.

But that’s not the only problem with Bernie: 

The US shale revolution dealt a hammer blow to coal, allowing the country to meet the Kyoto protocol targets without even trying. Not only is it a vital transition fuel (until the last coal plant is shut down), but it’s got a strong future in a carbon neutral world.

This is a prototype Carbon Capture power plant

Like the Nuscale SMR’s, it’s a project that’s been ticking along in the background, pushed on by private backers. It uses the Allam Cycle, named after it’s inventor, to produce electricity at the same efficiency as current gas stations, alongside pipeline ready pure CO2. 

I repeat, it’s carbon capture and storage at the same price as current electricity. This is a monster of a game changer, with the first commercial plants planned for 2022-2024.

Bernie Sanders, though, is opposed to CCS in all forms. Like nuclear, he calls it a false solution.

But couldn’t we run on renewables regardless?

Even if you feel concerned at a climate activist throwing away some of our best tools, you might feel that their drive towards the solution more than makes up for it. After all, you can run the country on wind and solar, can’t you?

Well, you can. But it’s nigh on impossible to do so.

Despite what climate activists tell you, the wind isn’t always blowing everywhere:

Above is a graph showing the change in wind production from season to season. Below is a closer look at how wind production across Europe (I couldn’t find one for the USA) can nosedive at the same time. Madrid is as far away from Helsinki as New York is from Los Angeles. Even across a continent, the wind isn’t always blowing everywhere.

Solar, meanwhile, varies everywhere according to the seasons. In northern latitudes such as the UK, a solar panel might produce ten times more power in the summer as in the winter. Even in California, solar in the summer can produce 1.5-2X what it does in the winter.

Which, in southern desert states, is good. They need little heating in the winter, and aircon in the summer. Big desert solar arrays at low latitudes are a good source of energy. Less efficient, inherently badly optimised and far more expensive rooftop solar further north (where you need lots of winter heating) are about as useful as Mao’s backyard furnaces were at making steel.

But what about batteries?

I’m sure many people will now talk about storing power. However, the idea that we can economically do this (similar to the idea that the wind is always blowing) is probably one of the most successful bits of fake news ever spun. Let me illustrate.

This is Vogtle units 3 and 4:

With a project cost of $17 billion, renewable energy enthusiasts like to paint it as a perfect example of the failures of modern nuclear.

This is Tesla’s Big battery:

Costing $50 million USD, Renewable enthusiasts like to paint it as a triumph of renewables.

The big battery stores 129mwh of electricity, which equates to $387 per kwh of storage. Or, $0.387 billion per Gwh. For $17 billion, you get 44 Gwh of storage.

Vogtle will produce that same amount of energy in just over 18 hours.

Even if you use the most expensive, finance inclusive, cost for Vogtle, it will still fill the equivalent storage potential in 29 hours.

To run a fully intermittent grid, we’d need days if not weeks of storage. Or, we could spend a fraction of that money on nuclear power, and be done.

But what about pumped Hydro?

Again, let’s use a sense of scale to explain how much you’d need. Something big, like this:

Lake Erie and Ontario are separated in elevation by 99m. Assuming you use dams and locks to turn them into a giant upper and lower reservoir, how much energy could you store?

By draining 1m of water from the smaller Ontario, and pumping it into Erie, you could store 4,600GWH of electricity.

The US uses around 2,740 per day on average. So you’d have a viable short-term store for the entire country. It wouldn’t be seasonal storage.

The equivalent storage using batteries would cost over $1.38 trillion. This is enough for 81 Vogtle plants. They would have 194GW of capacity, and produce 4196GWH a day.

Using Nuscale SMR’s at the current quoted price (which could come down if you get a dedicated assembly line going) you could get 328 GW of capacity.

What about seasonal storage?

In countries with winter heating seasons, you need a reliable source of energy or people will freeze and die. Even with Nuclear, you’re at the peak of energy requirements, so it’s uneconomical to build to that point.

Instead, you can use biogas, biomass and waste to energy. Stockpiling your fuel throughout the year, you can burn it when most needed. Even better, in many cases you can convert existing fossil fuel plants.

Credit where credit is due, Bernie Sanders is pro bio-energy (as opposed to some (even purer) greens). At the same time, he is anti-waste to energy.

So what is the point of this?

The point is that we can’t simply add ‘Wind, solar, batteries’ and get an energy system that works. There are serious technological limitations and economic realities. Long term energy storage is incredibly cost prohibitive. The wind doesn’t always blow everywhere. In any case, if we only have a short time to stop emitting carbon, why shoot your biggest contributor of green energy at the same time?

Germany lost a decade due to its closure of its reactors, and still has some of Europe's dirtiest electricity. Had they closed the Lignite plants in North-Rhine Westphalia instead, they’d of cut their emissions while opening up giant pits like the Hambach mine for conversion into pumped storage sites. I’ve done the calculations, they could run the country for half a day on that level of storage.

In contrast, France is the only developed country to turn a dirty grid into a clean grid. They did it decades ago with nuclear, but there are those in power who want to shut reactors down early. They don’t care that they can build out renewables anyway, and export the extra energy or use it for transport. They care more about killing nuclear than saving the planet.

This is why Warren is better than Sanders.

Elizabeth Warren wants a green new deal and medicaid for all, just like Sanders. Unlike him, she’s open to keeping the US nuclear fleet going. She’s open to new reactors and CCS. Both have a plan and a drive, but hers is open to more options and focuses on what the real enemy is. Bernie is a purist. Purism sounds good. But wherever you look, it’s the pragmatists that have always performed better.

I care strongly about the environment and global warming, which is why, if I could, I’d vote for Warren. Because you can’t say that global warming is the biggest threat we face and then throw away our best tools against it.