Peter Davies,
This is a rather dissapointing comment. There are some significant problems with yourown statements:
1. they are simply your assertions, many are disingenuous and they are unsupported by any evidence, let alone valid,relevant evidence.
2. You say ERoEI figures are out dated. That is an irrelevant if you don’t quantify the change and whether this significantly changes the results and conclusions. ERoEI figures vary depending on the method used. However, the ones used in the analysis have been thoroughly critiqued and over all the analyses have stood up well to the critiques. Making fly-by dismissive comments like this is unhelpful and misleading for other reeaders. If you want to challenge the ERoEI figures used why haven’t you done so in the journals or on the blog sites where the experts on the subject had debated the details in depth? This comment http://bravenewclimate.com/2014/08/22/catch-22-of-energy-storage/#comment-350520 summarises the overall important outcome of those debates and gives you links to where the experts have debated the analyses – you can go there to present your opinions and get feedback from experts. There’s no point making simple dismissive comments here if you are not prepared to debate your beliefs with the experts.
3. “Typically wind power EROI for large turbines (and most of the new capacity comes as large turbines) achieve an EROI around the 25 mark.”
A disingenuous comment. The EROEI is not for wind turbines. It’s for a whole system with wind power and energy storage supplying fully dispatchable electricity with same availability baseload technologies. Read it again.
4. “Solar is becoming cheaper very fast. And unsurprisingly, the cheaper it gets, the higher the EROI becomes. ”
Wrong! ERoEI is about energy in and out and has nothing to do with the costs of the energy. ERoEI is not derived from the economics. Secondly, solar panel costs are decreasing at around 20% per capacity doubling. But the system cost is not decreasing anywhere near this fast, especially when you include the storage needed to make solar power fully dispatcable like nuclear or coal. And we cannot keep doubling solar capacity indefinitely. Fast rates of cost reduction are experienced by many technologies when they are at very low rates of penetration (as solar is now at <1% of global electricity supply). The real costs are hidden and passed on to others. Solar is not increasing as fast as coal generated electricity. So this is another misleading and disingenuous comment. Solar PV has increased its share of electricity generation at about 1/10th the rate nuclear has achieved since mid 1950s (they both started in the mid 1950s); over 25 years nuclear achieved 18% and solar <1% of global electricity supply.
5. "The figure for nuclear has been challenged by some and there are a number of estimates that put it as low as 5. There’s no clue as to where the large range comes from. 75 is certainly wildly optimistic for nuclear."
Another disingenuous comment. Of course you can find no end of ridiculous numbers to support your beliefs if that's what you are looking for. But as a PhD student you should be being trained to be more discerning and to do objective research. You should also learn to do reality checks. Consider the energy density of nuclear fuel verses solar energy strriking the Earth's surface, for example Sorry, but this comment simply demonstrates you swallow anti-nuke nonsense without challenging your beliefs. Once you're locked in in the anti-nuclear cult's agenda, there is little chance of enlightenment for a long time.
So far you've made many dismissive comments, unsupported by valid evidence, but you haven’t posted anything constructive or persuasive yourself to show that renewables can be viable at a large proportion of electricity generation.
I’d urge you to review this before you write any more: http://judithcurry.com/2013/04/20/10-signs-of-intellectual-honesty/
