Let's play around with the thought of powering all of America with renewables.
America’s coal, gas, petroleum and nuclear plants generate a combined baseload power of 405 GWavg, or “gigawatts average.” (Remember, a gigawatt is a thousand megawatts.) Let’s replace all of them with a 50 / 50 mix of onshore wind and CSP (solar), and since our energy needs are constantly growing, let’s round up the total to 500 GWs, which is likely what we’ll need by the time we finish. Some folks say that we should level off or reduce our consumption by conserving and using more efficient devices, which is true in principle. But in practice, human nature is such that whatever energy we save, we just gobble up with more gadgets. So we’d better figure on 500 GWs.
To generate this much energy with 1,000 of our 500 MW renewables farms, we’ll put 500 wind farms in the Midwest (and hope the wind patterns don’t change…) and we’ll put 500 CSP farms in the southwest deserts—all of it on free federal land and hooked into the grid. Aside from whatever branch transmission lines we’ll need (which will be chump change), here’s the lowdown:
Powering the U.S. with 500 wind and 500 CSP farms, at 500 MWavg apiece.
Steel ……………….. 503 Million tonnes (5.6 times annual U.S. production)
Concrete ………….. 1.57 Billion t (3.2 times annual U.S. production)
CO2 …………………. 3.3 Billion t (all U.S. passenger cars for 2.5 years)
Land ………………… 91,000 km2 (302 km / side)
35,135 sq. miles (169 mi / side)
(the size of Indiana)
60-year cost ……… $29.25 Trillion
That’s 29 times the 2014 discretionary federal budget.
If we can convince the wind lobby that they’re outclassed by CSP, we could do the entire project for a lot less, and put the whole enchilada in the desert:
Powering the U.S. with 1,000 CSP farms, producing 500 MWavg apiece.
Steel ………………. 787 Million t (1.6 times annual U.S. production)
Concrete …………. 2.52 Billion t (5.14 times annual U.S. production)
CO2 ………………… 3.02 Billion t (all U.S. passenger cars for 2.3 years)
Land ……………….. 63,000 km2 (251 km / side)
24,234 sq. miles (105.8 mi / side)
(the size of West Virginia)
60-year cost ……. $18.45 Trillion
#That’s to 18 times the 2014 federal budget.
Or, we could power the U.S. with 500 AP-1000 reactors.
Rated at 1,117 MWp, and with a reactor’s typical uptime of 90%, an AP-1000 will deliver 1,005 MWav. Five hundred APs will produce 502.5 GWav, replacing all existing U.S. electrical power plants, including our aging fleet of reactors.
The AP-1000 uses 5,800 tonnes of steel, 90,000 tonnes of concrete, with a combined carbon karma of 115,000 t of CO2 that can be paid down in less than 5 days. The entire plant requires 0.04km2, a patch of land just 200 meters on a side, next to an ample body of water for cooling. (Remember, it’s a Gen-3+ reactor. Most Gen-4 reactors won’t need external cooling.) Here’s the digits:
Steel ………. 2.9 Million t (0.5% of W & CSP / 0.36% of CSP)
Concrete … 46.5 Million t (3.3% of W & CSP / 1.8% of CSP)
CO2 ……….. 59.8 Million tonnes (2% of W & CSP / 1.5% of CSP)
Land ………. 20.8 km2 (4.56 km / side) (0.028% W & CSP / 0.07% of CSP)
1.95 sq. miles (1.39 miles / side)
(1.5 times the size of Central Park)
60-year cost ……… $2.94 Trillion
#That’s 2.9 times the 2014 federal budget.
Small Modular Reactors may cost a quarter or half again as much, but the buy-in is significantly less, the build-out is much faster (picture jetliners rolling off the assembly line), the resources and CO2 are just as minuscule, and they can be more widely distributed, ensuring the resiliency of the grid with multiple nodes.
And this is without even mentioning MSRs.
Was this project a complete shitshow of sheldon before seen-proportions?
Yes.
Does this mean that we should make the move towards powering the US from 100% renewables instead?
Well if you hate math and logic enough to even consider it, sure. Go ahead.
