Germany’s grand energy experiment

Posted on 29 July 2011 by Barry Brook

Most readers of BNC know the story — after the Fukushima nuclear crisis, the German government announced that Germany would phase out all of its nuclear generation capacity by 2022. In almost the same period, Germany also aims to cut its national greenhouse gas emissions to 40% of 1990 levels (by 2020). Their emissions have already fallen by 22% since 1990, due in part to the reunification of West and East Germany and the subsequent closing down of the most polluting industrial and energy plants. So they have another 18% to go. Given the nuclear policy, can it be done?

According to this study by the Ecologic Institute (published prior to the nuclear shutdown announcement), Germany will have to initiative a range of aggressive measures, focused on energy efficiency, smart metering, car taxation, renewable energy heating systems, etc. etc. This was to make up a ‘gap’ compared to 2009 policies of 70 – 90 million tonnes (Mt) of CO2-e. The gap is now much larger.

Let’s look at the task ahead.

In 2010, 16.9% of Germany’s electricity came from renewable energy sources; nuclear provided 23.3%. The relative share, spread across renewable-based electricity (not final energy), is shown in the figure on the right. The installed renewable capacity was 55.7 GWe, producing 101.7 TWh of electricity, for an all-tech-averaged capacity factor of 20.8%. The aim is for renewables to provide 35% of electricity by 2020.

Nuclear provided 141 TWh of electricity in 2010. If this had come from coal instead (assuming an EI of 1.12 t/MWh), it would have produced about 158 Mt of additional CO2-e. Germany’s total emissions for 2010 were 960 Mt CO2-e, compared to 1230 Mt in 1990. The 2020 target is 740 Mt, with the remaining gap, to fill in the next 9 years, being 220 Mt. If we wipe out consideration of the now-to-be-retired nuclear fleet, that brings the ‘gap’ up to almost 380 Mt CO2-e.

Note that total final energy use in Germany in 2010 was 8,984 PJ, which is 2,495 TWh. So the economy-wide emissions intensity (EI) is 0.385 tCO2-e/MWh. This breaks down to a mix of 34.6% oil, 22.5% coal, 21.7% gas, 11% nuclear, 1.5% wind, 0.8% hydro, 0.9% solar and 7.9% biomass combustion. I calculate, based on standard EI values, that about 40% of Germany’s total 960 Mt CO2-e comes from oil emissions, 39% from coal, 20% from gas and ~1% from other.

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Filed under: Emissions, Nuclear, Policy, Renewables | 108 Comments »

Fukushima, IFRs and an MIT debate

Posted on 25 July 2011 by Barry Brook

Back in May, I published a critique of an MIT report on the future of the nuclear fuel cycle (MIT FNFC), on behalf of Yoon Chang and the Science Council for Global Initiatives.

Since that time, SCGI member Steve Kirsch (a MIT alumnus and benefactor) has been trying to get MIT to engage with their critics, to little avail. Some recent details were posted on Rod Adam’s blog ‘Atomic Insights‘, here: Fast reactor advocates throw down gauntlet to MIT authors.

As you’ll note from Rod’s post, the reaction from MIT has been to (i) ignore us, then (ii) try to divert the debate to other matters (“Fukushima is now the only thing that is worth discussing” — or words to that effect), or (iii) to change the debate topic to make it so broad that no one will end up concluding anything. So Steve, like the bulldog he is, has sent another letter to the MIT nuclear guys, outlining our case for having an open and public discussion on this, will all the facts on the table and experts in the chairs. I reproduce an edited version of the letter below. Steve also gives an interesting take on the implications of Fukushima Daiichi, which I’m sure you’ll find interesting — and probably want to discuss in the comments below.

Steve Kirsch, SCGI

———————————–

Steve Kirsch’s letter to Head of MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering

I’m confident that MIT is capable of telling the Fukushima story without our help.

Personally, here are some of the lessons I learned:

1) The world is in serious trouble with carbon emissions. We need to be deploying every form of clean power we can as fast as we can. Fukushima doesn’t change that goal or strategy one bit.

2) We now can update our statistics on public deaths due to nuclear power over the last 50 years by adding 0 deaths affecting the public. As we expected, nuclear is still by far the safest way to generate power (fewest deaths per MWh generated). It is important that we tell the world that they should be shutting down the most dangerous forms of power generation first. It makes no sense whatsoever to be shutting down the safest form of power generation first.

3) We learned it is a bad idea to put generators in the basement of a plant near a large body of water subject to tsunamis. But their design spec was a smaller tsunami. So we learned that sometimes, accidents happen that are beyond our design center and people will get killed. Does that mean we should spend huge additional sums to over-design everything we build to account for the worst possible disaster? Probably not. I think Haiti is a good example of setting your standards too low. But I don’t think that is the case here. I think the lesson of Fukushima is that natural disasters cause deaths that we can’t always avoid.

4) We learned that 40 years ago, people didn’t design reactors as safely as we do today.

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Filed under: Nuclear, Policy | 135 Comments »

Radiation hormesis?

Posted on 21 July 2011 by Barry Brook

At the height of the Fukushima Daiichi crisis, there was a lot of discussion in the comments of this blog about the impact of radiation on human health. In particular, there was a debate about whether the linear no-threshold hypothesis (LNT) or the hormetic dose response (RH) was more scientifically robust model for assessing the implications of a Chernobyl or Fukushima release event.

In short, the LNT hypothesis says that there is a directly proportional relationship between the dose received and the probability of biological damage from ionizing radiation. (That is, there is no safe level.) The RH model, by contrast, posits that low-dose radiation (at or somewhat above background levels) is actually beneficial to health, perhaps because of stimulation of natural repair mechanisms in the body. (High doses still are still detrimental). The following figure (from Luckey, cited below) illustrates the RH:

The hormesis does response model for biological effects of ionizing radiation (from Luckey 2011)

Now that the situation in Japan has (more-or-less) stabilised and radiation levels are low, it is probably useful to revisit this topic. First, the radiation update from Fukushima from WNN:

Provisional analyses based on radiation dose rates at the site boundary show that emissions to air have reduced by a factor of two million compared to those at the height of the crisis, when the torus suppression chamber of unit 2 ruptured on 15 March. Someone standing at the western border of the power plant today could expect to receive a maximum of 1.7 millisieverts per year (mSv/y) from airborne radioactivity from the three ruined reactors. This compares to the 2.4 mSv/y average that people worldwide receive from background sources, and the operational limit for nuclear power plants in Japan to limit public exposure to 1.0 mSv/y.

Dose rates from emissions drop dramatically away from the site: five kilometres away the maximum rate from newly released radiation is 0.3 mSv/y; ten kilometres away it is 0.09 mSv/y; and 20 kilometres away it is 0.03 mSv/y. It is important to note that these figures apply only to the rate of release of radiation now, and do not include the effects of any materials already deposited on the ground, some of which will continue to emit radiation for many years. There are areas totalling about 1000 square kilometres where dose rates have been elevated beyond 20 mSv/y due to caesium-137 deposited on the ground.

… and some relevant recent posts/comment threads on BNC about LNT and RH:

Radiation – facts, fallacies and phobias


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Filed under: Nuclear, Policy | 64 Comments »

For climate’s sake, nuclear power is not an ‘option’, it is a ‘necessity’

Posted on 17 July 2011 by Barry Brook

[This is an abridged amalgam of writings by me on nuclear power and climate change that I've published on BNC and elsewhere over the last two years. It has been updated with some commentary on recent events - the Fukushima Daiichi crisis, Germany's announced withdrawal from nuclear energy, and so on. I hope you find it useful].

Let’s start by establishing some common ground between my views and those ‘traditional’ environmentalists who oppose nuclear energy. As the Director of Climate Science and active researcher on the impacts of global warming on the biosphere at the University of Adelaide (Australia), I understand the seriousness of the climate crisis and the imperative for a rapid transformation of our energy system to technologies that emit no carbon when generating power. I also agree that atomic weapons pose substantial risks to the security of global society and need strict regulation, and that issues of nuclear safety must be held to high standards. I also suspect that most environmentalists recognise the dangers that many countries face – including Australia, Germany, Japan and so on – in being dependent of foreign oil for transportation infrastructure and agriculture, two of the arteries of the economy. Indeed, it is in the interest of all nations needs to move to energy independence that is based on clean, sustainable sources.

However, where I part way with many environmentalists in on our view as to what the solutions to these problems are. Many well-intentioned people hope to see a world without nuclear weapons or nuclear power, and unfortunately consider (wrongly) that the two are irrevocably intertwined. In the typical environmentalist worldview (I am, of course, deeply environmentally conscious), nuclear power is not only dangerous, but also unnecessary. Renewable energy, from sunlight, wind, waves and plant life, are clearly the answer, they believe. This is a widespread view – almost ‘common wisdom’ – and would be perfectly acceptable to me if the numbers could be made to work. Unfortunately, they can’t, and there is no prospect of this changing.

To keep things in proper context, let’s quickly review the challenge. In the developed world (US, Europe, and other members of the OECD), we’ve enjoyed a high standard of living, linked to cheap fossil energy. This has encouraged energy profligacy, and we clearly and should cut back on wastage where feasible (and in situations where it is not being done due to market failures) – but this doesn’t remove the fact that we must also replace oil and gas, and that means a future surge in electrical substitution. In the bigger, global picture, however, there is no realistic prospect of even reducing traditional stationary power demand. A third of the world’s people have little or no access to electricity yet strongly aspire to get it. Even if a country like India, with more than 1 billion people, reached just a quarter of Australia’s per capita use, that country’s national energy demand would more than triple! It’s a huge challenge.

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Filed under: Emissions, Nuclear, Policy | 74 Comments »

Climate change update by the numbers

Posted on 13 July 2011 by Barry Brook

Here are some figures to illustrate the latest global data on global warming. Data are from NCDC and GISS.

First, a 12-month running mean of global surface temperature anomalies since 1980 (i.e. for each month, an average is taken of the previous 12-month period – ‘calendar year’ is irrelevant):

The IPCC AR4 model results track closely with observations:

The global temperature data can be smoothed by taking an 11-year running mean (which tends to average out ENSO and solar cycles). It shows a 0.2C rise over the last decade, and is now at record levels:

A further smoothing, by taking a 22-year running mean, shows how steady the rise has been in the last few decades, when averaged over a climatically relevant period: (more…)

Filed under: Clim Ch Q&A, Hot News | 51 Comments »

Why pro-nuclear environmentalism has failed when anti-nuclear has succeeded – and how to change this

Posted on 9 July 2011 by Barry Brook

…means No Chance of halting climate change

With George Monbiot on the debating warpath against Greenpeace and in support of nuclear power as a serious mechanism for tackling climate change, and Mark Lynas’ new book on planetary boundaries and techno-fixes, “The God Species“, now out (despite some weird problems on the launch day), it really is time for environmentalists to get serious about starting (and sustaining) a pro-nuclear movement. Not just arguments of logic, science and engineering and not just appeals for people to ‘do the numbers and figure it out’ (although these are still important) — no, we need a real ‘can do, must do‘ movement. What do I mean, and how do we achieve this? I’ll let my friend Ben Heard explain, in the brilliant guest post below (which is also up on DecarboniseSA.com).

p.S. I’m reading The God Species right now (it’s excellent) — will do a review in due course.

——————————

Why pro-nuclear has failed when anti-nuclear has succeeded

Guest Post by Ben Heard. Ben is Director of Adelaide-based advisory firm ThinkClimate Consulting, a Masters graduate of Monash University in Corporate Environmental Sustainability, and a member of the TIA Environmental and Sustainability Action Committee. After several years with major consulting firms, Ben founded ThinkClimate and has since assisted a range of government, private and not-for profit organisations to measure, manage and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and move towards more sustainable operations. Ben publishes regular articles aimed at challenging thinking and perceptions related to climate change and sustainable energy at decarbonisesa.com.

There is no point denying it. The anti-nuclear movement in Australia has been remarkably effective. Combined with abundant cheap coal, Australia’s anti –nuclear movement has kept us the only one of the world’s top 16 economies not to employ nuclear power. It made people like me grow up anti-nuclear without ever really being asked to think about it. The result is some of the highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions in the world; in South Australia around 720g CO2-e/kWh (which is one of the lowest levels in the country I might add. NSW, Victoria and Queensland are all much higher), compared to a mere 90g CO2-e/kWh in nuclear dominated France.

Meanwhile, the pro-nuclear position has, to my observation, failed to ever really gain much traction, and has evidently failed to deliver change. This is said with all respect to the many smart and passionate people who have worked on the issue for much longer than I.

Why has the anti-nuclear movement succeeded? It is easy and tempting to write-off its success to dishonourable actions from the leadership of the movement which:

  • Lies
  • Distorts information
  • Grants itself the luxury of being single-issue, and ignores the rest of the world’s problems when they don’t suit them
  • Uses fear-mongering freely and to great effect
  • Never, ever feels obliged to correct the record when their fear-mongering is subsequently shown to be completely false

Um…then how are you holding the sign?

While these points and things like it are arguably true (I have certainly encountered all of the above myself), it grants the anti-nuclear movement all the power by taking the focus off the shortcomings of the pro-nuclear approach.  It’s also clear that we can challenge these things when the opportunities arise, but we can’t change them. This makes it all largely beside the point.

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Filed under: Emissions, Future, Nuclear | 135 Comments »

Carbon tax in Australia in 2011

Posted on 6 July 2011 by Barry Brook

Australia is set to introduce a carbon tax (details to be released on Sunday 10 July 2011). This post is the place to discuss this policy — the good and the bad.

A description, from the Australian Parliamentary Library:

A carbon tax is a tax on energy sources which emit carbon dioxide. It is a pollution tax, which some economists favour because they tax a ‘bad’ rather than a ‘good’ (such as income). Carbon taxes address a negative externality. Externalities arise when an individual production or consumption activity imposes costs or benefits on others. In market transactions, these costs and benefits are not normally reflected in the prices involved in the transaction, or taken into account in the transaction decision.

By placing a cost on these negative externalities the underlying purpose of a carbon tax is to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and thereby slow global warming. It can be implemented by taxing the burning of fossil fuels—coal, petroleum products such as petrol and aviation fuel, and natural gas—in proportion to their carbon content.

There is some political support for a carbon tax in Australia as a means of implementing a carbon price. Some groups favour this approach as an interim step on the way to an Australian emissions trading scheme.

Here is what I (Barry Brook) said about Australia’s proposal a while back, in response to the 2011 update papers of the Garnaut Climate Change Review :

Garnaut has elaborated and updated his report in line with the latest science and lack of effective action nationally and globally. But the bottom line, in my opinion, remains the same. We need to scrap the renewable energy target (RET), Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) and feed-in tariffs (FiTs), set a low initial carbon tax at about $10/t, establish an equivalent of the Board of the Reserve Bank to manage the tax and set future prices, and have some legislated schedules (gateways) such as a floor price of $20/t by 2015, $30/t by 2020, and so on. The rising price – with short-term decisions taken out of Government hands to avoid distortions arising from political expediency – is absolutely key. Finally, and in line with eliminating the RET and FiTs, we need to really level the energy playing field and allow nuclear to compete with renewables and fossil fuels with carbon-capture and storage (CCS).

Here is a useful description of some other carbon prices worldwide (Finland, The Netherlands, Sweden, India, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Ireland, Costa Rica).

Australia is proposing an initial carbon tax, followed some years later by a cap-and-trade system. What is the difference? Here is a brief summary (my perspective, with bad points in red and good points in green):

CARBON TAX

  • Politicians or bureaucrats set costs – inefficiencies and pressure
  • No guarantee that emissions will fall
  • Clear forward price projection = investment certainty
  • removes incentives for hedge funds, derivatives etc.
  • better allows for long-term business planning
  • Can use current tax system
  • Better handles emission-intensive trade-exposed industries via import/export carbon tariffs/refunds

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Filed under: Emissions, Policy | 350 Comments »

Lacklustre results from the Colorado Integrated Solar Project

Posted on 3 July 2011 by Barry Brook

A common lament of those analysts wishing to get to grips with the real-world performance of solar thermal power plants has been, well… an absence of data. Trainer noted, in ‘Solar Thermal Questions‘:

It would be great to get some actual data on their year round performance. I have found it fiendishly difficult to get such data out of anyone; they seem not to want to make it public, and this makes evaluation of claims very difficult.

During the Equinox Energy 2030 summit, Jay Apt noted some issues with utility-scale PV farm performance, as illustrated in the figure below (from this paper):

Note that this is from a solar PV farm in the Arizona desert — one of the best locations in the US for this type of facility. The associated commentary said:

Observed rapid and deep fluctuations at time scales of 10 seconds to several minutes may indicate that a component of the intermittency is due to low, scattered clouds with significant opacity. We observe a number of examples of output power rising above nameplate capacity before and after deep drops in power. This may be due to focusing of sunlight around the edges of low clouds. If PV becomes economically attractive enough to be deployed at large scale, intermittency is likely to be matched with dispatchable power, storage, and / or demand response

The implied ramp rates to compensate for these types of fluctuations will be challenging. Indeed, some form of large-scale battery energy storage seems vital to maintain quality of the electricity output.

That is PV. Now, at last, I have some data on solar thermal performance. It comes from the final report of the Colorado Integrated Solar Project, which you can download here (25-page PDF).

First though, some details on the facility:

The world’s first hybrid solar/coal power plant has been built near Palisade in Colorado. Xcel Energy and Abengoa Solar are partnering on the demonstration project which uses solar parabolic trough technology to supplement the use of coal. Initially, it’s expected to reduce the emissions generated by the Cameo Station’s Unit 2 plant by three to five percent, but it’s thought that this could increase to up to ten percent.

The system focuses solar energy on mineral oil, which is then passed through a heat exchanger where it’s used to preheat the water used by the coal-powered part of the 49MW plant.

You can also go to its National Renewable Energy Laboratory page for further technical specifications on the plant. In short, the expected generation was 49 MWh per year for the 6 acre parabolic trough facility, with a 2 MW turbine capacity. The NREL page says:

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Filed under: Emissions, Renewables | 90 Comments »

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