A Comparison of Nuclear Power and Solar Power In Germany

There aren't any nuclear reactors in West Virginia, and there aren't likely to be for the foreseeable future, given ample coal and natural gas reserves and  political opposition. As a practical matter, as presently configured and given current costs and regulatory restrictions, nukes can't compete economically here. Having said that, they would still be significantly more cost-effective than solar panels. 

The Breakthrough Institute has compared the  Fukushima reactors and the Germany's installed solar power generating capacity as to power produced and cost of installation to find out which is more cost-effective.  The BI post is a response to Christopher Mims' article in Grist that Germany's solar panels generate more power than Japan's Fukushima nuclear complex.  Mims' point is that nuclear power is an unnecessary risk, since solar power is already providing greater amounts of energy to the German grid.  Turns out it's not so. 

   In 2010, Germany's cumulative installed solar PV stood at 17.3 GW. In 2009, Germany's PV solar capacity factor--the ratio of actual energy output over the year and the energy the plant would have produced at full capacity--was 9.5%. This is quite low for solar PV, which typically has capacity factors around 15%, and is likely due to the fact that Germany doesn't actually get that much sun. If we assume the same 9.5% capacity factor for 2010, then Germany's 17.3 GW translates into about 14,397 GWh of actual annual electricity generation from solar cells.

By comparison, in 2010, Fukushima's six Daiichi reactors--which have a nameplate capacity of 4.5 GW--produced 29,221 GWh of power generation. That is, one nuclear power plant complex produces more than twice the power generation of Germany's entire installed solar industry.

All methods of creating energy have costs associated with them, which leads us to ask, along with Newsweek, is there any safe energy? Probably not, if you're looking to eliminate risk altogether, but then, completely eliminating risk in any endeavor is akin to trying to invent a perpetual motion machine.