Nuclear Power Is One Necessary Component of Electricity

Summary

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The Arjun Makhijani guest editorial is the expected response from an environmental, anti-nuclear group (Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Maryland) that monitors national news media responses that are viewed as favorable to nuclear power development. The group, sensing a funding opportunity, then responds with selected data sources that convey their message for public support. I will respond to some of the more inaccurate claims.

First quote "Renewable energy sources are quite sufficient to provide ample and reliable electricity for the United States ... wind energy potential of Midwestern and Rocky Mountain states is two times the entire electricity production of the U.S." Of course, this implies that the wind energy within the western United States be extracted from each acre of land where the wind might exhibit sufficient wind energy for development. The Department of Energy generally declares areas with a Rayleigh Distribution wind energy power class of 3 or more as potentially developable. However, the land area required for two times U.S. electricity production is immense. A rough estimate is that about 50 percent of the West must site 1.5 million 1.5 MW wind turbines for base load electrical power compounded with transmission interconnections covering the landscape.

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Extract

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Nuclear Power Is One Necessary Component of Electricity

A 1 GW coal or nuclear base load plant needs less than 500 acres. An equivalent 1 GW base load wind power at U.S. average capacity of about 22 percent wou...

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