Energy Return on Investment for Solar, Wind, Hydro Electric, Fossil Fuels & Nuclear Serious Error to Discontinue Nuclear in USA Gary Young January 2018 1) What do advocates for nuclear power think about wind and solar energy? Referring to my Galactic Traveler series, the best way to raise the standard of living of all people on earth is easy access to reliable, cheap and abundant energy. In answering this question, falling water hydroelectric has about the best energy return on investment, solar about the worst with wind about next worse. (Off shore wind is probably the worst.) Right now natural gas combined cycle is very good. The sad thing is that nuclear could be right up there with hydro on energy return on investment if alarmists had not made the technology needlessly expensive. Solar and wind is not reliable on a 24 hour 365 day basis, It is not cheap including the required subsidies, short life times of the components, additional infrastructure to wire them all together, and being real estate limited, and will never be abundant. Nuclear wins on energy density followed by, combined cycle, coal fired steam, and hydro (dams require a lot of real-estate). The labor hours per megawatt will always be much higher for solar and wind because sun and wind are not at all energy dense and require a lot of real estate and many machines/arrays to match the power of the energy dense means of generation. Productivity is the key to higher standards of living, wind and solar are going backward in productivity requiring small armies of people to service.
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