The history of lead in fuel • a Veritasium video

[Garfly]

2 hours ago, Flying Binghi said:

German leaders in particular literally laughed out loud at America’s 45th president at the United Nations when he criticized their energy relationship with Russia, claiming that they were totally dependent four years ago.

Instead, Germany opted to listen to folks like Greta Thunberg — a teenager fully indoctrinated by climate change charlatans —  and push green energy.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-was-right-world-leaders-were-wrong-russia-just-cut-off-germanys-fuel-supply-whos-laughing-now

 

 

Well, the US attitude towards Europe's getting hooked on Russian energy is complicated; often with the US gas and oil industry vigorously opposing the foreign policy establishment.  It seems to have gotten a head of steam with Reagan:

 

How Europe Got Hooked on Russian Gas Despite Reagan’s Warnings

"A Soviet-era pipeline, opposed by the president but supported by the oil and gas industry, set up the dependency that today helps fund the Russian assault on Ukraine."

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/climate/europe-russia-gas-reagan.html?searchResultPosition=3

 

But by 2021, parts of the oil industry had switched from supporting the new gas pipeline (for their own reasons) to opposing it (ditto the reasoning):

 

In Deal With Germany, U.S. Drops Threat to Block Russian Gas Pipelines

The agreement infuriated both Republicans and Democrats in Congress, who accused the Biden administration of being soft on Russia.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/us/politics/nord-stream-2.html?searchResultPosition=2

 

Which brings us to Trump's supposedly prescient opposition to the idea - for reasons very different to Reagan's - and also, more latterly, Biden's.

 

Anyway, had Putin not been so obviously emboldened by his adoring Trump, to launch the disastrous Ukraine war, Germany's position on the pipeline might have worked out for them, at least as far as cheap energy goes.  So the potentate of Mar-a-Lago's foresight is better seen as his blundering into a bloody self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

Anyway, it's not him who's laughing about all that now.  If anyone, it'd be Greta Thunberg - and her cohort, which stands to benefit from the eventual (unintended and otherwise tragic) outcome.

 

 

 

 

[onetrack]

Quote

What proof have you got that French IQ has been reduced by lead?

French cars? The French must have been brain-damaged when you examine the design of some of those monstrosities. I mean to say, having to remove mudguards and bumpers just to change a headlight globe? An RAC serviceman I spoke to once, was adamant and forceful in his opinion - "Never, EVER, buy a French car!! The greatest abortions on wheels, that anyone ever manufactured!!"

[facthunter]

Bit of a SWEEPING generalisation. Non! . Is it possible there's just a little bias there.? An (singular) RAC serviceman  verses 50 million Frenchmen (who) can't be wrong( The old Renault add)  He might be a mate of the Pom who  said  to me "Wogs begin at Calais" and "why would I want to go there? Nothing to see.".. Nev

[onetrack]

I once employed a Pom (in the early 1970's) who had worked in assembly at a French car factory (I seem to recall it was Renault), and he laughed as he told me how much they hated the management, and how they purposely assembled components incorrectly, just to give managers the sXXXX. It was fairly obvious the way he spoke that employee morale there was at rock bottom.

 

Yes, I was indulging in a fair amount of generalisation - but then again, I have an intense dislike for anything manufactured in Europe, with their massive inbuilt taxes, and social welfare costs, where every factory worker retires on a pension that equates to about two-thirds of the average wage. Price gouging by European manufacturers is an art form.

 

A friend was silly enough to buy a Citroen C4 a few years ago, and when the key remote fell apart, as most European stuff does, Citroen wanted $800 for a replacement remote!

 

Edited September 3, 2022 by onetrack

[facthunter]

It's a very competitive market in the retail sector..  Second hand prices and the price of parts from a wrecker are a good indication.. If say a SH motor is a sky high price they most be a problem.. It's hard to actually know which are lemons and if you spend a lot of time in the vehicle ergonomics are important and ride etc  Very few owners will admit their purchase wasn't the best  unless the dealer/ builder is stuffing them around. Nev.

[Flying Binghi]

On 02/09/2022 at 6:29 PM, Garfly said:

 

 

Well, the US attitude towards Europe's getting hooked on Russian energy is complicated; often with the US gas and oil industry vigorously opposing the foreign policy establishment.  It seems to have gotten a head of steam with Reagan:

 

How Europe Got Hooked on Russian Gas Despite Reagan’s Warnings

"A Soviet-era pipeline, opposed by the president but supported by the oil and gas industry, set up the dependency that today helps fund the Russian assault on Ukraine."

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/climate/europe-russia-gas-reagan.html?searchResultPosition=3

 

But by 2021, parts of the oil industry had switched from supporting the new gas pipeline (for their own reasons) to opposing it (ditto the reasoning):

 

In Deal With Germany, U.S. Drops Threat to Block Russian Gas Pipelines

The agreement infuriated both Republicans and Democrats in Congress, who accused the Biden administration of being soft on Russia.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/us/politics/nord-stream-2.html?searchResultPosition=2

 

Which brings us to Trump's supposedly prescient opposition to the idea - for reasons very different to Reagan's - and also, more latterly, Biden's.

 

Anyway, had Putin not been so obviously emboldened by his adoring Trump, to launch the disastrous Ukraine war, Germany's position on the pipeline might have worked out for them, at least as far as cheap energy goes.  So the potentate of Mar-a-Lago's foresight is better seen as his blundering into a bloody self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

Anyway, it's not him who's laughing about all that now.  If anyone, it'd be Greta Thunberg - and her cohort, which stands to benefit from the eventual (unintended and otherwise tragic) outcome.

 

 

 

 

 

Hmmm…

 

Putin invaded Crimea during obama’s presidency, whilst biden were vice president.

 

Putin invaded the rest of Ukrain under the biden presidency.

 

🤨

 

 

 

 

.

Edited September 4, 2022 by Flying Binghi

[Flying Binghi]

On 02/09/2022 at 10:51 PM, onetrack said:

French cars? The French must have been brain-damaged when you examine the design of some of those monstrosities. I mean to say, having to remove mudguards and bumpers just to change a headlight globe? An RAC serviceman I spoke to once, was adamant and forceful in his opinion - "Never, EVER, buy a French car!! The greatest abortions on wheels, that anyone ever manufactured!!"

The French developed a vast and viable nuclear power industry whilst apparently suffering from all that lead poisoning.

 

It’s in recent years whilst suffering from greeny muddle-headedness that things have gone backwards.

 

 

 

 

.

[onetrack]

And the problem child in Europe today, with regard to energy supply, is ..... wait for it ...... France!

 

https://reneweconomy.com.au/frances-troubled-nuclear-fleet-a-bigger-problem-for-europe-than-russia-gas/

[Garfly]

2 hours ago, Flying Binghi said:

Hmmm…

Putin invaded Crimea during obama’s presidency, whilst biden were vice president.

Putin invaded the rest of Ukrain under the biden presidency.

Hmmm .... but if you were up for a narrative with a bit more complexity:

 

'News Analysis: Trump delayed weapons to Ukraine and praised Putin. Did that trigger war?'

 

Excerpt:

 

"Putin had already bitten off bits of Ukraine with the illegal annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014, and a swath of neighboring Georgia six years earlier. But nothing compared with the massive attack he launched across Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, on Feb. 24.

Numerous experts and current and former officials say Putin was emboldened by the Trump years. The former KGB officer, turned president, ably manipulated Trump into publicly backing his denials of having interfered — to Trump’s benefit — in U.S. elections. And, according to former aides, Putin convinced Trump to accept his claim that Ukraine was part of Russia."

 

Source:

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-03-21/trump-impeachment-ukraine-russia-putin-invasion

 

[Ian]

There are a number of things which aren't mentioned in this article.

1. Renew Economy is anti-nuclear so any article like this should be taken with a grain of salt.
2. France is an energy exporter, it generally exports power to Germany and the UK and the rest of Europe. Normally it exports power at a profit. The argument is a bit like reserving Gas for domestic consumption in Australia. However we decided to sell our gas at prices lower than we can buy it.
3. Water based nuclear power plants operate at lower thermal efficiencies than either Gas or Coal. This is simply the law of thermodynamics. Times of drought impact these types of nuclear reactors more due to available water an differential temperatures. Newer generation high temperature reactors don't suffer in this way and can be designed to be water free.
4. France has some of the lowest Greenhouse emissions in Europe and Germany is the biggest emitter. 
5. France has demonstrated the ability to manage their nuclear fleet in a load following manner working hand in glove with renewables.

The French stance on nuclear appears to have been a winner for them. Germany has undergone an abrupt turnaround in their public sentiment towards nuclear recently 

This is not to say that their aging nuclear fleet doesn't have problems, they need to standardize on a new design and roll them out in a manner similar to their first plant rollout where they achieve significant economies of scale and lowered production costs. But they are better positioned than Australia and their emissions reflect this.

 

If we go down the path of electric vehicles we're going to need an enormous increase in capacity of the electrical system. Intermittent renewables are a great supplement but aren't suitable for industrial capacity or sporadic consumer demand. For instance the whole article relates to how painful the lack of availability can be, solar and wind are this to the core so going down that path will be painful. Hydro storage works well when it's wet however Europe is dry at the moment. Australia is always dry so hydro isn't an option.

 

Australia is missing a huge opportunity to develop new nuclear plants and it's a pity because none of the other technologies quite stack up. Hydrogen's a bit of a joke, Ammonia was dangerous in the 1930, biofuels are good but don't have the capacity, batteries are expensive and wear out and fossil fuels don't work without emitting CO2.

 

Fossil fuels are going to become a much smaller part of the economy going forward and maintaining a fuel with a known neurotoxin in this mix just isn't going to fly. So fasten you seatbelts and choose one which you think will last through the change. My bet is jetfuel because it's going to be difficult to find any alternatives any politicians love their travel, however an automotive fuel would also be a good bet. 

 

 

 

 

[onetrack]

Pumped hydro is the way forward for Australia, we have staggering amounts of sunshine, and the country is full of massive mining excavations that lend themselves nicely to pumped hydro.

Utilise solar power to pump the water up, and produce power at night (when it's needed), letting the water run back down again.

 

As to transport fuels, the market will become more fractured and I can see blends becoming more common, with synthetic fuels increasing in volume.

It's entirely likely we can make a considerable volume of synthetic fuels from waste, straw, timber byproducts, and used tyres, utilising solar power. 

[facthunter]

Concentrated heat direct from the sun and high temperature SALT. Synthesise the hydrocarbons. Most synthetic oil is made from gas. Nev

[Ian]

23 minutes ago, onetrack said:

Pumped hydro is the way forward for Australia, we have staggering amounts of sunshine, and the country is full of massive mining excavations that lend themselves nicely to pumped hydro.

Considering how dry and flat Australia I'm don't think that pumped hydro is a great idea. You need your holes in the right place and 99% of mines aren't.

Look at the real capacity of Snowy Hydro2 in terms of Annual output and look at its cost it really struggles to stack up.

To get your head around the scale of the problem have a look at https://www.withouthotair.com/ there's a downloadable book on the site. It is a simple read and gets away from stupid terms like "2000 households".

It was written by David Mackay and amongst other things was chief scientific advisor to the UK government. Bill Gates has also written a good book on the subject, simple enough for most people to get their heads around the subject.

Australia's electric energy consumption was 265TWh per annum.

 

47 minutes ago, facthunter said:

Concentrated heat direct from the sun and high temperature SALT. Synthesise the hydrocarbons. Most synthetic oil is made from gas. Nev

The problem with these systems is that they don't operate 24x7 they only operate efficiently between 10-2 so you have plant sitting idle for most of the day. Not great from a capital perspective. From a capacity factor point of view not very efficient even though the power source is free.

Whereas with a permanent industrial heat source it can operates 24x7. It all depends on the cost of the plant v the inputs.

You also need a carbon source as a feed.

 

[onetrack]

Once you commence excavating massive great holes in the ground for coal or gold or other minerals, you always run into groundwater on a large scale.

Trust me, I was involved in open cut mining for many years, and I've seen plenty of mines where they struggled to keep the water level down, so they could operate.

 

Once these open-pits are finished with, they fill with water from both underground, and from surface runoff (if allowed - because all operational mines have berms or banks around the excavation to prevent flooding their operations). You may recall the floods less than a decade ago that completely filled many of the coal mines in the Eastern States.

 

The recent NSW floods delivered enough water to fill all the Snowy Scheme dams several times over. There's no shortage of massive excavations, huge amounts of water, and plenty of sunshine here, it just needs money, and some leader either in industry or the political scene, to drive pumped hydro into fruition.

[biggles]

Pumped Hydro came into fashion in 50’s when the then, base load power, came from coal fired power plants with limited turndown. The electricity authorities offered extremely low tariffs to consumers to soak up the excess generation available. Even in the early 90’s, homes using off-peak electricity were paying as low as 2c/kWh compared to around 25 cents or more today. This cheap ‘surplus’ generation was utilised to pump water back into the high level dams in readiness for future peak demand. During those early times the peak demand in Victoria was around 3500MW and increasing due to post war industrialisation, with the majority of the generation supplied by the large Brown Coal power plants in the Latrobe Valley. These days the Eastern States, with Tasmania, form an interconnected grid of some 25,000 MW. The mix of modern power plants together with better load forecasting allow more precise system control, negating the need to offer off-peak power at, or below, cost. Snowy 2 may well fill the shortfall in generation, but only time will indicate whether the economics stack up….Bob 

[kgwilson]

Baseload power is a misnomer in todays world. What is required is fast generation to deal with peak demand. Coal simply cannot do this as it needs to run at close to full capacity all the time to gain its maximum efficiency which is poor anyway. Nuclear is similar. Gas can be turned on fairly quickly but not quickly enough when there is peak demand. Hydro is pretty quick as the turbine gates can be opened within a few minutes. Electric power batteries are almost instant. The Tesla battery in SA has proven this a number of times. It is not large and cannot supply power for long but has the ability to kick in instantly and give other generation methods time to ramp up. The only reason off peak power is cheap is that coal generators can't slow the ouput down so it has to go somewhere and there needs to be an incentive to take it.

 

A study done some 10 years ago by Sydney university identified more than 10,000 potential pumped hydro plants in Eastern Australia. Not one has been developed to date. Snowy 2.0 is proving to be the monolithic disaster predicted by the experts but rubbished by the Turnbull/Morrison government.

 

What we do lead the world in is rooftop solar. A week or so back more energy was produced for a short time from solar (rooftop & solar farms) than coal. This is only a start. One of the biggest problems of course is the grid which is old and not capable of dealing with a major failure somewhere due to transmission distances and the huge energy losses with long distance transmission.

 

There are many parts to the solution and local battery storage is just one where excess rooftop solar from a group of houses is stored in local batteries either in the houses or a centralised location. This is easy electronically. You get paid for excess solar going in and pay for what you take. Batteries are getting cheaper with numerous new technologies not far from being available and the transmission losses are minimal.

[Flying Binghi]

16 hours ago, Garfly said:

Hmmm .... but if you were up for a narrative with a bit more complexity:

 

'News Analysis: Trump delayed weapons to Ukraine and praised Putin. Did that trigger war?'

 

Excerpt:

 

"Putin had already bitten off bits of Ukraine with the illegal annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014, and a swath of neighboring Georgia six years earlier. But nothing compared with the massive attack he launched across Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, on Feb. 24.

Numerous experts and current and former officials say Putin was emboldened by the Trump years. The former KGB officer, turned president, ably manipulated Trump into publicly backing his denials of having interfered — to Trump’s benefit — in U.S. elections. And, according to former aides, Putin convinced Trump to accept his claim that Ukraine was part of Russia."

 

Source:

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-03-21/trump-impeachment-ukraine-russia-putin-invasion

 

Hmmm…

 

Lets hear Trumps views on Russia in his own words whilst he were president. The percentages he refers to are re defence spending:

 

 

[Flying Binghi]

38 minutes ago, kgwilson said:

Baseload power is a misnomer in todays world. What is required is fast generation to deal with peak demand. Coal simply cannot do this as it needs to run at close to full capacity all the time to gain its maximum efficiency which is poor anyway. Nuclear is similar. Gas can be turned on fairly quickly but not quickly enough when there is peak demand. Hydro is pretty quick as the turbine gates can be opened within a few minutes. Electric power batteries are almost instant. The Tesla battery in SA has proven this a number of times. It is not large and cannot supply power for long but has the ability to kick in instantly and give other generation methods time to ramp up. The only reason off peak power is cheap is that coal generators can't slow the ouput down so it has to go somewhere and there needs to be an incentive to take it.

 

A study done some 10 years ago by Sydney university identified more than 10,000 potential pumped hydro plants in Eastern Australia. Not one has been developed to date. Snowy 2.0 is proving to be the monolithic disaster predicted by the experts but rubbished by the Turnbull/Morrison government.

 

What we do lead the world in is rooftop solar. A week or so back more energy was produced for a short time from solar (rooftop & solar farms) than coal. This is only a start. One of the biggest problems of course is the grid which is old and not capable of dealing with a major failure somewhere due to transmission distances and the huge energy losses with long distance transmission.

 

There are many parts to the solution and local battery storage is just one where excess rooftop solar from a group of houses is stored in local batteries either in the houses or a centralised location. This is easy electronically. You get paid for excess solar going in and pay for what you take. Batteries are getting cheaper with numerous new technologies not far from being available and the transmission losses are minimal.

Ummm…

 

“…Coal simply cannot do this as it needs to run at close to full capacity all the time to gain its maximum efficiency which is poor anyway…”

 

What on earth are you on about ?…🤨

 

When I can go to the light switch at any time day or night and turn it on and it works because of coal power then that to me is 100% efficiency.

 

When a factory can run, and expect to run, 24-7-365 thanks to coal power. Then that to me looks like 100% efficiency.

 

 

 

 

.

[Ian]

9 minutes ago, kgwilson said:

Baseload power is a misnomer in todays world. What is required is fast generation to deal with peak demand. Coal simply cannot do this as it needs to run at close to full capacity all the time to gain its maximum efficiency which is poor anyway. Nuclear is similar.

The term you want is dispatch-able power and nuclear can do this. The French have been running their reactors in a dispatchable manner for years and have demonstrated . Some newer reactors designs are inherently load following, by removing heat for power generation it increases the reaction rate.

12 minutes ago, kgwilson said:

A study done some 10 years ago by Sydney university identified more than 10,000 potential pumped hydro plants in Eastern Australia.

Actually have a look at that study and consider the impact of developing these sites. It would have a massive environmental impact. Most people don't remember the protests relate to damming some rivers in Tasmania however this proposes something with an impact 10 or 100 times the size.

 

Like planes everything's a compromise and all of these proposal come with huge environmental impacts. Wind farms and solar in German can't be rolled out because of the environmental impact of the high voltage power lines and local protests. Australia is seeing similar protests as landowners are being asked to accept infrastructure that the cities want but they get no gain from. They don't want to run the powerlines underground because it's too expensive. The people in cities don't want to pay for this excess. Politician will exploit this divide.

21 minutes ago, kgwilson said:

Batteries are getting cheaper with numerous new technologies

Yes they are however they're not free and they wear out, for example I just bought over a thousand Li Ion cells for a project from China. They're like car tyres in a few years they'll be shot and they'll need replacing. The tesla battery pack in SA is not economic in a daily cycling role however it makes money by:

• Getting paid for a power reserve function
• Delivering peak power when the prices is very high.

That way they maximize the return on the infrastructure without wearing the pack out.

I'm not saying that these technologies won't play a part however the scale of the problem is against them shouldering the bulk of the load. To do so would come at a considerable expense and consumers are used to things becoming cheaper not more expensive.

 

Rooftop solar is good, however it generates power when after you've driven to work (in your electric car) so you either need to store it for charging in the evening, or transfer it across the grid to the powered car park.

[Ian]

One other thing, the way that markets work is that when things are plentiful they're cheap, when they're scarce they're expensive.

We want people to invest in solar, however they'll make little or no return once there's an excess of power so investment in plant stops.

The people storing power want to buy this power as cheaply as possible to store it however the solar farm operators need a return to recoup their investment costs. Do you install solar as a loss leader and vertically integrate or buy it on the market from the suckers who have already deployed the capacity.

Essentially in the market the daytime cost of power will tend towards zero as more plant is deployed. If you have a business that is energy intensive which can run in this window go for it, however if you need constant power you're out of luck.

 

This is the real cost of intermittency and its far larger than people think.

Edited September 4, 2022 by Ian

[kgwilson]

1 hour ago, Flying Binghi said:

Ummm…

 

“…Coal simply cannot do this as it needs to run at close to full capacity all the time to gain its maximum efficiency which is poor anyway…”

 

What on earth are you on about ?…🤨

 

When I can go to the light switch at any time day or night and turn it on and it works because of coal power then that to me is 100% efficiency.

 

When a factory can run, and expect to run, 24-7-365 thanks to coal power. Then that to me looks like 100% efficiency.

 

 

 

 

.

You have no idea. Coal wastes most of its energy as heat. The average Coal powered electricity generation plant is about 33% efficient. Look it up. Along with Oil & Gas it is the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions on the planet.

[facthunter]

To have power on call costs money. It's not making money until it's wanted unless you pay for it some other way. Solar and wind are by far the cheapest power source. Coal plants fail sometimes also and are designed to run at near full output and take time to start up and close down. When steam is in the equation the efficiency is much reduced.  Nev

[Ian]

38 minutes ago, kgwilson said:

The average Coal powered electricity generation plant is about 33% efficient.

Peak efficiency is just that and tends to fall off pretty quickly especially with turbines.  Solar cells are only about 20% efficient but the input is cheaper ;-).

One of my recent surprises was the combined heat and power systems are less efficient at electrical production than their standard brethren.  It's more cost effective and flexible to generate electricity more efficiently and buy heat pumps. Otherwise you need to force people to build close to power plants on tiny blocks.

Coal, oil and gas are fossil fuels bringing carbon back into the atmosphere from millions of years ago. It cheap (excluding pollution costs), energy dense and readily available often near to where the power is required.

Solar and wind are also cheap, however they are diffuse and intermittent. Wind as a resource is good for SA and Tasmania however not so much in other areas so you have

 

Another way of looking at the problem is to look at the following

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tûranor_PlanetSolar

Nice boat but with all those solar panels it generates 93kW under the best rated conditions. I used to have a subaru which could output 200kW all day and night. Even with the streamlined hulls it can only cruise at 5 knots. Michael Phelps swam at 3.8 knots setting the world record.

 

I love solar and wind and the new storage technologies. I just think that it's a bit of a fantasy thinking that they're going to sustain modern society in anything more than a bit part. I want zero carbon and I like to use lots of energy doing stuff like flying planes and travelling.

Unfortunately I think that this can only happen if something like nuclear takes the majority of the load. Fusion's still a generation away unless someone cracks something like muon catalyzed fuision

 

At the very least look what someone smart thinks about this subject. (They also point to the fact that old nuclear plants can only load follow slowly)

https://www.withouthotair.com/c26/page_186.shtml

He covers off on what is required for pumped storage to work in a country like the UK.

 

[facthunter]

Nuclear and fossil fuel ADD heat to the aggregate. Using solar and wind does not. It's there from the sun anyhow so efficiency is not so important. . WHITE hot salt stores power and you only need mirrors  to focus heat. Solar voltaics can make hydrogen from water when there's surplus power.. Nev

[Ian]

17 minutes ago, facthunter said:

Nuclear and fossil fuel ADD heat to the aggregate. Using solar and wind does not. It's there from the sun anyhow so efficiency is not so important. WHITE hot salt stores power and you only need mirrors  to focus heat. Solar voltaics can make hydrogen from water when there's surplus power.. Nev

Fuel cost is a negligible input in nuclear. So efficiency isn't particularly important in that space either. However higher temperature plants can operate much more efficiently.

Solar salt has been more expensive than expected when implemented. You're better off installing solar PV panels and heating the salt electrically for storage.

Not to say that someone won't find a better way but no-one has become rich doing it yet.

 

In terms of land usage. https://www.nei.org/news/2015/land-needs-for-wind-solar-dwarf-nuclear-plants

Quote

 

A nuclear energy facility has a small area footprint, requiring about 1.3 square miles per 1,000 megawatts of installed capacity. This figure is based on the median land area of the 59 nuclear plant sites in the United States. In addition, nuclear energy facilities have an average capacity factor of 90 percent, much higher than intermittent sources like wind and solar.

By contrast, wind farm capacity factors range from 32 to 47 percent, depending on differences in wind resources in a given area and improvements in turbine technology. Solar PV capacity factors also vary based on location and technology, from 17 to 28 percent.

Taking these factors into account, a wind farm would need an installed capacity between 1,900 megawatts and 2,800 MW to generate the same amount of electricity in a year as a 1,000-MW nuclear energy facility. Such a facility would require between 260 square miles and 360 square miles of land.

A solar PV facility must have an installed capacity of 3,300 MW and 5,400 MW to match a 1,000-MW nuclear facility’s output, requiring between 45 and 75 square miles.