Two vast worldwide programs would do the most to reduce climate warming: (1) constructing nuclear power plants; and (2) ending leaks of methane.
Climate Warming is likely to be much worse than was forecast five years ago — with catastrophic consequences. And, we are presently making climate warming worse. For these reasons we need to save the most emissions possible, and thus, the contributions of green energy will be insufficient and too slow.
Therefore, we must have a crash program of nuclear power, even if nuclear power is unpopular.
These assertions are documented on the first nine pages of this website.
Solar and wind. power are better choices than doing nothing, except that they take resources that could go to build nuclear power plants. Only nuclear power can fill in when the wind isn’t blowing, or when the sun isn’t shining, or when there isn’t room for wind turbines or solar collectors, or to eliminate the CO2 from manufacturing batteries. Moreover, it has the lowest emissions per kilowatt hour of electricity and the lowest cost. See the table below.
Fossil Fuel Savings, cost, and area coverrage from Nuclear, Wind and Solar power.
Comparison of Natural Gas, Nuclear, Wind and Solar Energy: CO2 Savings, Cost, Land Coverage
| ENERGY SOURCE | CO2 REDUCTION | COST PER KILOWATT-HOUR over lifetime of source | AREA COVERED square meters per 100,000 megawatt hours, over lifetime of sourse |
|---|---|---|---|
| FOSSIL FUEL:Combined Cycle Natural Gas | 0% | $ 0.08 or $.09 from facility | |
| Nuclear | 98% | less than $ 0.02 in France with government finance; US estimates of 0.02 to 0.07 depending upon source of capital, interest rates, etc. | 920 |
| Land sited wind | 40% for new turbines | $0.02 Midwest US, $.03 West US, $0.05 East US. | 243,000 to 425,000, more square meters for best turbine life. |
| New wind offshore in best locations | 29% to 35% depending on constancy of wind | $ 0.09 | 240,000 to 1,160,000 |
| Solar, no storage, USA Southwest, southern Spain, two-way grid connection | 32% | $ 0.05 | 8,400 |
| Solar panels, no storage, eastern USA or northern Europe with two-way grid connection | 20% | $0.11 | 17,000 |
| Solar thermal, 24 hour storage, USA Southwest. southern Spain | 69% | $ 0.16 | 57,000 |
| Solar panels, 24 hour storage, best locations, with two-way grid connection | 49% | $ 0.69 | estimated 20,000 |
| Reduce all solar savings by 20% if grid conection is only incoming and system is not sized for summer and winter. |
In the table above, I show the CO2 savings and costs from nuclear, wind and solar power, based upon the extensive calculations in the following three pages. I haven’t seen these calculations anywhere else. For fossil fuel CO2 emissions I use a natural gas in a combined cycle power plant — the lowest emitting fossil fuel system — at 330 grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour, assuming that coal, oil, and single cycle gas power plants will be phased out. (If I used 400 grams it would increase the savings percent , but also increase the remaining emissions by a much larger amount.)
Another source of cost information is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source. However much of its discussion is inconclusive and does not deal with battery backed solar.
Additional steps we should take to limit climate warming:
Methane emissions, and rogue emissions of banned chloro- and fluoro- hydrocarbons are major causes of rising temperatures. We can do much more to rein them it, for example by caping old oil and gas wells and enforcing best practices on new ones, and by eliminating gas appliances, or at least tightening standards for them.
We can remove the political restrictions on much cheaper Asian electric cars.
We can license only combined cycle gas new fossil fuel power plants when fossil fuel electricity is necessary, and finish using electricity from coal and oil.
We can greatly raise taxes on gasoline (petrol) and diesel, or institute a carbon tax.
Please see the Table of Contents Menu for links to all the supporting pages.