Despite what some may like you to believe, the nuclear renaissance is upon us. Don’t let anyone get away with telling you otherwise — they are badly misleading you. Indeed, given that the the real-world facts are so readily available, one really does have to wonder how long these ideologues imagine they can pull the wool over the eyes of the public? Do they really care about fixing climate change?
What is happening now
The bastion of atomic energy over the next two decades will be Generation III reactors, despite the enormous medium- to long-term promise of Generation IV (as I recently explained, here). This is not idle speculation -– it is already happening in the world’s fastest-growing economies. At the time of writing this blog post, over 65 of these modern nuclear reactors are under construction (or nearly so). Twenty-three new nuclear power plants are being built in China alone, which is targeting 70 gigawatts of extra nuclear power by 2020. In addition, there are serious plans in China for two sodium-cooled fast reactors (BN-800) of the “Generation IV” design, following the completion of the first Russian unit in 2012 — the sort of reactor that some people think ‘don’t exist’.
How about this for some supporting statistics: 29 new reactors, totalling 26 gigawatts of electricity output (operating at high capacity factors without the need for energy storage/backup), will start operation in 13 different countries in the 2010 — 2012 period – that’s within the next 3 years (average reactor size is 880 MWe). Of course, this new-generation nuclear deployment rate must continue to accelerate if we’re to have any realistic chance of completely replacing fossil fuels by 2050, but it’s a great beginning!
Justifying assumptions of lifespan and capacity factors
If nuclear energy was too costly and slow to deploy, as some (such as Prof Ian Lowe in his section of the book Why vs Why: Nuclear Power), why would China, South Korea, India, Russia and other rapidly developing nations risk their precious finances on such foolhardy ventures? The answer, these governments say, is that their investment in nuclear power is both prudent and timely, and so they are willing to put their money where their mouths are. This is reality and trumps the hand-wringing concerns of disengaged critics.
With regard to the economics of new nuclear power, Prof Lowe argues (in the Why vs Why book) that my estimates of the economics of nuclear power are “unrealistic” and represent nothing more than “wishful thinking on a grand scale”. He says this is because I assume that a nuclear power station will last for 60 years and deliver power 90 per cent of the time. Let me allay his concerns with some examples from real-world experience.
For the period 2006 to 2008, the 104 reactors operating in the United States reported an energy availability factor of 91.4 per cent. In Korea, Finland and Switzerland, it was 91.9, 93.3 and 92.8 per cent, respectively. Even the Chinese, who are still accumulating experience in optimal operations, reached 86.6 per cent. Furthermore, while the reactors built in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s had a nominal design lifetime of 40 years, more than 60 of them have since been granted licence renewals, extending their operating lives out to 60 years. Others are expected to apply for similar extensions. This is actual performance data, not speculation.
Current construction costs
As I explained above, nuclear power is being most actively pursued today in China (23 reactors currently under construction), India (4), South Korea (6) and Russia (8), and in terms of forward projections through to 2020, China plans to expand its nuclear generation capacity to 70 GW (up from 8.6 GW in 2010), South Korea to 27.3 GW (up from 17.7 GW), and Russia from 43.3 GW (up from 23.2 GW). Looking further ahead, India’s stated goal is 63 GW by 2032 and 500 GW by 2060, whilst China’s 2030 target is 200 GW, with at least 750 GW by 2050. These nations are heavily focused on rapidly overcoming first-of-a-kind (FOAK) costs and establishing standardised designs based around modular construction and passive safety principles. By contrast, the country with the most installed nuclear power – the United States, with over 100 commercial reactors – has announced loan guarantees to support new plants, but has not yet started construction of any Generation III reactors.
It is therefore in the rapidly developing Asian countries that current real-world costs can be most reliably established. The two leading reactor designs now being built in China are the indigenous CPR-1000 and the Westinghouse AP-1000. Reported capital costs are in the range of $1,296 to $1,790/kW. Korea has focused attention on its APR-1400 design, with domestic overnight costs of $2,333/kW. A recent contract for $20.4 billion has been signed with Korean consortium KEPCO to build four APR-1400 reactors in the United Arab Emirates, at a turnkey cost of $3,643/kW. This price is notable considering that it is offered under near-FOAK conditions, because these will be the UAE’s first nuclear plants.
Alternatives are not stacking up
Prof Lowe touts a crystal-ball-gazing exercise by some Stanford University researchers as offering a pathway to a renewable energy solution. I have critiqued that study heavily elsewhere , but the bottom line is this:
If non-hydro renewable energy were truly as cost-effective and could be built on the scale these authors would like you to believe, why has no nation yet followed this energy pathway?
Denmark has done the most in this respect, with 18 per cent of its average energy coming from wind power. Yet, despite this investment in non-hydro renewables, the carbon intensity for electricity production in Denmark is 650 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour. By contrast, the figure for France, which draws 77 per cent of its electricity from nuclear power, is 90 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour. This is more than 7 times lower than Denmark, per unit of delivered electricity. This is the stark reality, not the spin.
Yet again, real-world experience says far more about energy truths than any ivory tower speculation. Importantly, this is an energy truth that is actually great news for carbon emissions reduction and our pursuit of a sustainable society. It’s now urgent that this message to be understood by the classic environmental movement.
Conclusion
Allow me to quote the conclusion of my recent book:
It’s time to embrace nuclear energy as a core technology in the carbon-free revolution that the world needs to address climate change.
Many environmentalists believe the best low-carbon solution is for governments to guide us back to simpler, less energy-consuming lives, a vastly less consumer-oriented world. That is unrealistic. The world will continue to need energy, and lots of it. But fossil fuels are not a viable option. Nor are renewables the main answer. There is no single solution, or “silver bullet”, for solving the energy and climate crises, but there are bullets, and they’re made of uranium and thorium, the fuels needed for nuclear plants.
It is advanced nuclear power that provides the technological key to unlocking the awesome potential of these energy metals for the benefit humankind and for the long-term sustainability of our society and the environment on planet Earth.
Brave New Climate 
264 replies on “The 21st century nuclear renaissance is starting – good news for the climate”
I think they are strongly committed to as much reduction in carbon intensity as the replacement of coal with natural gas can provide. I am often struck by their saying such things as “Use natural gas only as a transitional source for as short a term as *ka-ching* possible” or “I am a strong believer in the use of CNG as an interim *ka-ching* bridging fuel source. I’m not sure what the “*ka-ching*” means, not being old enough to have heard — um, well, really, what could it mean? Perhaps it’s Chinese for short-term temporary stand-in.
(How fire can be domesticated)
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” How about this for some supporting statistics: 29 new reactors, totalling 26 gigawatts of electricity output (operating at high capacity factors without the need for energy storage/backup) ”
I do not have problems with more nuculear, given that I am really concerned by increasing sea levels.
HOWEVER, if I believe the attached information provided underneath, a baseload nuke plant NEEDS energy storage to properly work . . .
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2010/05/taking-grid-energy-storage-to-the-edge
Taking Grid Energy Storage to the Edge, by Brad Roberts, S&C Electric Co.
The concept of storing electricity generated in a utility grid has been tried since the beginning of the power industry.
In the U.S., large-scale storage projects flourished in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s as utilities added 18 GWs of pumped hydro facilities to support the rapid build out of the fleet of nuclear power plants across the nation. Nuclear plants run best at higher power ratings, so pumping water in these hydro plants presented ideal off-peak loads during nights and weekends when customer demands are lowest.
Now, as the grid faces a rapidly growing component of renewable energy sources (wind and solar), the job of balancing generation sources and load demands is becoming more challenging. With most regions of the U.S. trying to achieve renewable portfolio standards (RPS) of 20 to 30 percent in the next 10 to 20 years, stable and reliable control of grid voltage will be a bigger task for utilities and system operators. Utilities and regulators know they must deal with this, and major changes are in the works.
http://www.renewableenergyfocus.com/view/10186/intersolar-solar-pv-conversion-and-storage-project-in-field-testing/
http://solarcoaster.blogspot.com/2008/09/solion-energy-storage-solutions-for.html
Critics of renewable energy and the fossil/nuclear energy establishment like to highlight the intermittent nature of renewable energy sources like wind and solar. I will leave it to the words of Hermann Scheer, one of the most forceful and eloquent advocates for renewable energy, for a insightful rebuttal in his book, Energy Autonomy:
In a strongly centralized and internationalized nuclear/fossil energy supply system, this simultaneity [of production and utilization of energy] is, on principle, not possible. The storage warehouse for petroleum is the oil tanker, for coal it is the coal heap, for natural gas the major storage caverns and the gas tank, for nuclear energy the fuel rod store, and for water power (if necessary) the reservoir. Transport and distribution systems–pipelines, tanker ships and trucks–take on supplementary storage function. Or else it is the power plants themselves that operate as steam power plants, that is, they produce steam, which they must then keep holding in side the power plants as a reserve in case there is a rapid increase in production. All nuclear power plants and all large fossil power plants are of this type…
In its campaign against renewable energy, the energy business never mentions its own storage capacity, as if this were not as easily usable as a reserve for solar- and wind-based electricity…The possibility that the sun might not be shining or the wind might stop blowing just when these sources are most needed to produce electricity is presented as an insurmountable obstacle–as if, by way of contrast, extra coal or uranium could be hauled out of the mines at the very moment there is a spike in demand for coal- or nuclear-based electricity.
The role of energy storage in an on-grid application—such as that of a residence with solar panels connected to the grid—is to store excess PV energy until it is needed. Effectively, energy storage will ‘time-shift’ PV energy produced during the day, peaking at noon, to make it available on demand. This will both maximize local consumption and enhance the efficiency of the PV system. Surplus energy can also be fed back into the grid, for which the owner of the PV system would be remunerated at a higher tariff.
Energy storage will also increase security of supply while making individual consumers less dependent on the grid and help to boost the development of energy self-sufficient houses and buildings and contribute to the continuous growth of PV as part of the global energy mix…
The main benefit of on-grid energy storage for utilities is that it will reduce the peak load on their grid while at the same time making PV a source of predictable, dispatchable power that they can call on when needed.
The Sol-ion kit has been developed to accommodate solar PV energy production of 5 kWp with a battery rated from 5 to 15 kWh and a nominal voltage of 170 V to 350 V. The Sol-ion battery is based on Saft’s high energy Li-ion modules, with a nominal voltage of 48 V and 2.2 kWh capacity. The compact, maintenance-free modules can easily be connected in series or parallel to create the desired voltage and capacity for each installation. Saft’s Li-ion technology has already proven a 97% energy efficiency in a recent 2-years field demonstration in residential solar PV systems in Guadeloupe.
The part that upsets me the most is the profits the damn electric companies are making!!!
In Belgium, 55% of all electricity is already being provided by nuclear power, being generated at 1.5 cents per kWh. However, when I look up my retail home electricity bill, I have to pay 18 cents per kWh. So much for cheap nuculear energy . . .
I therefore installed 4200 Watt in solar PV panels on my roof, providing me 3500kWh per year in electricity at 25 cents per kWh gross purchase price, but if I subtract the yearly green production certificates income and the income tax rebate I can receive, then my own produced electricity do cost me exactly zero cent per kWh, covering the 1300 kWh in home electricity consumption, and adding another 2200 kWh in spare reserve, to be used to power a temporary electric oil filled radiator to reduce my home heating natural gas consumption, until I can afford myself an electric car or a plug in hybrid, to be recharged using that spare 2200 kWh reserve per year, allowing me to drive for free.
Given the income taxation funds earned by the government, and given the government subsidies lavished on the FF sector, I do not have any qualms using some of that income tax money to make a personally profitable solar PV panel investment that will be repaid in full in 7 years, and will continue to operate for free for the next 20 years or more.
Click to access energy_subsidies.pdf
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-06-07-iea-stunner-global-subsidies-dirty-energy-top-550-billion-year/
IEA stunner: global subsidies to dirty energy top $550 billion a year. The IEA estimates that energy consumption could be reduced by 850m tonnes equivalent of oil — or the combined current consumption of Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand — if the subsidies are phased out between now and 2020. The consumption cut would save the equivalent of the current carbon dioxide emissions of Germany, France, the U.K., Italy, and Spain. Fossil fuel subsidies average out to 2.1% of GDP of the 37 countries surveyed.
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I have a good deal of respect for Ian Lowe.I have heard him speak on several occasions.He is on the right page in the environmental sense however I can’t understand his stubborn opposition to nuclear electricity generation.
We urgently need to get coal off the map.Here in Queensland there are more problems appearing with CSG extraction – land degradation and saline water.It shouls be obvious that we can’t continue to burn fossil fuels without horrble consequences yet a segment of society is happy to turn their backs on one of the obvious solutions.
Like the coal industry,the anti-nuclear crowd are the goats in the herd.But how to wake up the sheep,that is the question?
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The only group that counts now in the opposition to nuclear power is fossil-fuel interests that are watching in horror as the one serious threat to their hegemony is rising from the grave that they worked so hard to bury it in all those decades ago. All others, the hairshirt human-haters , and the whimpering Greens are a small annoyance, and wield almost no real power ether politically or with public opinion.
Fossil took a swift kick between the legs with the Gulf of Mexico disaster, that has come swift on the heals of some high profile gas explosions, and ash-pond breaches, that have the sector on the defensive, something that hasn’t happened for a very long time. They are reeling as the quick acquiescence of BP to President Obama’s administration demand to set up a $20 billion escrow account to help clean up the spill and compensate coastal communities for the loss of income. BP’s Chief Executive Tony Hayward’s embarrassed apology for calling victims, ‘the little people’ was just further indication of how much of the industry’s political capital is gone.
Furthermore the abject failure of wind, solar and other renewable sources to make a difference is percolating down to the general public who are becoming soured off at ‘smart’ metering, and higher rates and the other issues attending power conservation initiatives that are looking more and more like simple rationing every day.
However the game is far from won, and the pronuclear side cannot begin to think that the war is over. Paraphrasing Churchill: It’s just the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end.
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Yet another great post fro Barry!
A short look to history: Here I made a “time table” of the construction times (From Construction Started to Connected to Electricity Grid) of all NPP:s in France. The first image here:
The second image shows the growing rate of nuclear power production in France between 1974 and 1999 (light blue). The other curve is growing rate of wind power production in the whole world between 1997 and 2010 (dark blue). In other words, one single country and nuclear – compared to the whole planet and wind.
The third image shows CO2 emissions from different fuels in France during the time period 1950 to 2005. The strong blue curve is production of nuclear power and the strong orange curve is production of electricity. These two curves are not in scale. Emission curves are in metric tons of carbon.
I think this does not need any further explanation. You can try Google translation from Finnish to English if you want.
According to another source, this is not true:
Click to access Appendix%20F_r071023.pdf
The source is from EIA, showing only 358 grams for Denmark. The lowest is Iceland, one gram.
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Kai, I did a bit of searching in response to your Denmark question, and lo and behold I see that our own Peter Lang has asked the same thing, here. This is what he said (and Lightbucket’s response):
then
There is more over in the Lightbucket thread, but it didn’t seem resolved. Perhaps Peter can update us? I’ll look around for other figures.
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Thanks Barry! Your Knowledge, energy and enthusiasm influence many people.
The emergence of nuclear power as the mainstay of industrial civilisation is inevitable given that fossil fuels are going to become more and more expensive over the next few centuries, while renewables lack the capability to produce enough power at acceptable prices.
Even so, it takes people like you to make sure we do not waste too much time and treasure exploring dead end solutions
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Its nice to wake up in the morning and read some good news for a change.
I can’t vouch for the veracity of this, but I heard on Radio National the other day someone remark that pretty much everyone in the Chinese cabinet has an engineering background. Maybe that has something to do with the choices they’ve made.
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Great post. It highlights the insular parochialism of Australia … if it didn’t
happen here on the in the US/uk, it didn’t happen. The possible
silver lining to the
the GOM oil spill disaster is that it might alert people to problems that big oil
has been causing with impunity in “little countries” for many years:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-nigeria-niger-delta-shell
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[…] via The 21st century nuclear renaissance is starting – good news for the climate « BraveNewClimate. […]
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As I’m sure most of you have read the German Ministry of Finance has slapped an additional €2.3 billion ($2.8 billion) per year ‘windfall tax’ on nuclear operators as part of the 2011 Federal Budget and its financial plan up to 2014.
The government has justified the additional tax on the basis of the extra profits earned by the nuclear operators, following increased electricity prices as a result of the additional costs of carbon emissions in the sector borne by fossil fuel users, Thus in essence the nuclear plant operators must now pay what amounts to an negative carbon tax for producing clean energy. The powers of rationalizations of this type, particular it seems to the Teutonic mind, are breathtaking. Add on the fact that German nuclear power plants are currently limited by a set of generation quotas and they truly beggar the imagination.
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And the news came through this morning that Sweden has overturned a ban on new nuclear power.
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Fran – thanks for sharing that. I have friends in Sweden and they have been advocates of removing these restrictions on new nuclear reactors. It’s a pity it passed with such a thin majority but a win is a win.
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Kaj and Barry,
Regarding the Denmark emissions from electricity, this is where I got to:
1. I don’t know the source of David MacKay’s figures. It is most unlike him not to state the source. I wrote to him before the book was published to ask about the source of these figures, but he didn’t answer. (I had the draft version that was available on line for a long time before the book was published).
2. I suspect his figures are from an IEA report that is not available unless you pay for it. It costs EUR132.00. So I’ve never been able to get it.
3. I wrote to CARMA about their figures which are the ones used on Lightbucket. I think CARMA’s figures are total rubbish. I’d give them zero credibility.
4. I’d like to get hold of the IEA report. Perhaps you might have access through academic sources. http://www.iea.org/w/bookshop/add.aspx?id=36
5. Until I can get better, I’d trust David MacKay over CARMA.
6. I’ve looked around a lot for better figures and have not been able to find. I’ve done quite a bit of work extracting figures from IEA but it is not easy, so I gave up.
7. I also have a good report somewhere which shows that nearly all Denmark’s wind power is exported, some of it at a negative price, and then they buy back power at the high prices that can be charged for hydro power. Denmark is paying a fortune for its wind power.
The IEA report that I suspect is the source for David MacKay’s figures is here: http://www.iea.org/w/bookshop/add.aspx?id=36.
The section I would like to see is “CO2 emissions per kWh from electrcity and heat generation” page II.61. I hope there the country breakdown includes this information. Denmark is on page II.186 and France is on II.204
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Fantastic post thanks Barry.
Do you mind if I make a suggestion, last week I was revisiting some old posts on BNC as I was trying to talk nuclear with some anti-nuclear friends. The recent posts were quite technical and then using the search function it took a long time to give them something that could bring them up to speed quickly.
I was thinking it would be useful to have an evolving “The Essential BraveNewClimate” category or link that is a guided tour of the critical pieces of the puzzle. A bit like RealClimate’s “Start here” link – although that is a bit of a link-a-thon. Unfortunately I’m not someone who can instantly recall key facts and figures and prefer to say “this is what convinced me, you should have a look.”
A link people could just post to their facebook pages for example.
Just a thought.
Cheers
Matt
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Great piece, as usual Barry, I just disagree with one part;
“Many environmentalists believe the best low-carbon solution is for governments to guide us back to simpler, less energy-consuming lives, a vastly less consumer-oriented world. That is unrealistic.”
It might be just a case of wording (as I too don’t think guiding us back to a simpler life is realistic), however, when the US per/capita equivalent oil use is roughly twice that of someone in western Europe, but does not equate to a proportionately improved standard of living, it seems that we could trim the fat quite literately as well other inefficiencies of energy use.
Surely being more energy efficient users (and not filling the void by using that excess energy elsewhere) should be part of phasing out CO2 emitting energy supplies?
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The reasons for this discrepancy is not so much fat as it is differences in infrastructure. Far from cutting fat, changing North American transportation networks such that they would be equivalent to Europe’s would entail massive and expensive construction projects and essentially rebuilding a good percentage of the cities there.
This is not a trivial undertaking, nor would it be completed in time to do anything about the fuel/CO2 issues.
While energy efficiency is all well and good, proponents simply expect too much of this, and when one gets down with the numbers the real gains are minor compared to the costs, and the length of time needed to implement them.
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Barry,
Another excellent post. Excellent opening paragraph – and all the other paragraphs too.
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DV8 said:
I completely endorse the substantive point you go on to make about this amounting to a negative carbon tax. That said, it is telling that German nuclear power turns out to be profitable enough in a carbon constrained economy to pay taxes, whereas German renewables need subsidies.
If the RE people were honest they’d reflect on how they could possibly reconcile this fact with their claim that nuclear power is less economically feasible than renewables. Presumably, more nuclear plants would mean more taxable profits, whereas more renewables would lead to higher taxpayer overheads.
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Cheers for that DV82XL. I certainly agree with you on infrastructure.
Surely though, there must be room to improve efficiencies. Agriculture and the choice of primary foods (primarily plants), for instance, over consumption of increasingly processed produce, carnivorous species (eg. salmon, tuna etc), and large long lived herbivores (esp. cattle), should make a dent to emissions of a large country like the US?
I understand political limitations (I don’t know how often I hear someone, “it’s against freedom and liberty!”), but I can’t help but see sense in not only shifting away from fossil fuels, but changing practices (where conceivable or within appropriate time spans) to also lower energy requirements of a given practice?
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Nuclear power can provide us with a high-energy global economy far larger than the current one. No emphasis needs to be placed on reducing our energy consumption, only in transitioning to nuclear power as quickly and thoroughly as possible. The goal of reducing energy consumption is a delusion of renewables advocates.
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I just don’t see why efficiency shouldn’t play a role.
It’s like each generation has built a bigger and bigger SUV and kept the mentality of lead-foot economy. The tank runs out or (more likely and far more urgently addresses) the exhaust turns out to be doing us and all around us harm… so what? We’ll convert the engine to nuclear and keep belting it down the road?
I know the metaphor isn’t perfect, but it just addressing what I consider to be impractical – this go hard economy. We have a terrible history for inappropriate value of produce, on the back of cheap abundant energy and just moving to the next phase of energy (ie. nuclear) continues this tradition at the expense of natural resources and wider ecological systems.
This is not to say that I at all disagree with Barry, and I’m not a renewable advocate. I just disagree that we shouldn’t bother concerning ourselves with the efficiencies of our activities and thus energy consumption solely because we have an alternative. It’s basically business-as-usual under a new mask.
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To be fair Finrod the goal of reducing energy consumption is pretty damn essential in addressing climate change…
… if you ignore the nuclear solution.
Further to my last post – I just got the “yeah the fuel will run out so soon we should not use nuclear” line. I just need a link to a swift correction:)
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Thanks for the feedback everyone. I’ll have more comments tonight, e.g. on energy efficiency. Peter, I’ll try to get hold of that report, as it is important to track down these figures. Mattb, very good suggestion — this is a little project I should do, and might try to knock off this weekend. I definitely need a “BNC for Newbies” page, sooner rather than later…
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Judaeo–Christian cultures have an unconscious belief in the ethics of doing with less. Because of this some people can be convinced that small sacrifices are the correct choice, but even collectively these cannot make a significant difference unless everyone does it, and that can only come through some type of enforcement.
If you want to walk two kilometres to the market, bully for you – when you make it a crime for me to drive the same distance, if I want too, up yours.
As for convincing everyone to do this voluntarily; knock yourself out, for all I give a damn – we both know you’ll get nowhere. So in the end this debate bolls down to what penalties you intend to apply for not conforming to your personnel moral beliefs.
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DV82XL, on 18 June 2010 at 9.35 Said:
Germany has just raised the ‘windfall tax’ on nuclear power. At the same time it continually raises its subsidies for coal mines in Germany. Other countries in Europe also have a “windfall tax’ on nuclear energy.
What is the relevance of this for Australia?
1. This demonstrates that nuclear is inherently a very economic way to generate electricity. There are many other imposts in Germany which are making nuclear more expensive than it should be, such as the taxes on nuclear and subsides to coal and renewables. Plus many regulatory imposts imposed by decades of Greenwash political parties in the governing coalition. If all these imposts were removed, nuclear would be even cheaper than it already is.
2. I think Sweden and/or Finland and some other countries also have higher taxes, levies or some other penalty on nuclear energy.
3. Such actions by governments, to collect more government revenue from nuclear and use it to subsidise fossil fuels and renewables, is a real threat for investors considering investing in nuclear power. So the investors need a higher return for investing in nuclear than they would if we ensured a level playing field for all electricity generators.
4. The fact that governments even consider making these sorts of revenue grabbing, irrational policies is enough to scare investors. Investors need to be sure their capital is secure and they will get a good return. If nuclear is more risky than another investment, they will invest elsewhere or demand a higher return. If we have to pay a higher return to the investors this means we have to pay more for electricity, if we want nuclear.
5. Governments that scare the investors, raise the cost of future projects for their country. The governments create sovereign risk when they create policies that scare investors. The longer the project, the greater is the risk premium the investors demand. For a project with a 60 year life, such as nuclear,, the risk premium will be higher than for a shorter term project. This makes nuclear more sensitive to sovereign risk, and hence more expensive than it needs to be. It favours gas generation. Gas has a 30 year design life and a 2 year construction time compared with nuclear’s 60 year life and 5 year construction time.
6. The new Australian government has taken exactly the actions to increase sovereign risk, and raise the risk premium we will need to pay for nuclear. The government has announced its intention to raise a “super profits tax” on mining companies. The tax will be retrospective an apply to all existing mining projects. Investors world wide are aghast by this action. At the same time, the government subsidises our extremely uncompetitive and inefficent car industry – by around $200,000 per worker per year. The government is also in the process of legislating to devalue the assets of Telstra, a private company, so this government can set up a government owned and run National Broadband Network company. The previous government sold Telstra to investors. The investors bought it on the basis of what the Australian government said. Now this new government is changing the rules and devaluing the assets. That is sovereign risk. These types of activities will add to the cost of nuclear in Australia. As will policies like the Renewable Energy Targets.
7. I’ve been harping on for a while that nuclear could be cheaper than coal generated electricity in Australia. But not with the sort of sovereign risk we are imposing. I urge readers to take seriously consider all the cost imposts we impose on nuclear, and consider what we need to do to remove them. If we removed them all, we should be able to get civil nuclear energy in Australia at a cost less than coal. We have no chance of achieving that the way we are going. And the majority of the electorate is not going to embrace nuclear unless there is cost advantage.
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Mattb,
I think these links may answer your question:
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“Judaeo–Christian cultures have an unconscious belief in the ethics of doing with less.”
Yet America is by far doing the opposite – and are quite clearly doing so in the name of a Christian god.
As for having to enforce, again I see it differently. If you say, “stop doing what you’re doing so much and so often!” of course people are more likely to retort with, “up yours!”
However, there are a number of cases where the general population change their habits, if they see the merit. However, I’d add to this that I’m not saying, walk to the market, don’t use your car etc. Internal combustion vehicles haven’t become greatly more efficient since their invention. You’re always going to lose more energy than you use. This is inefficient. Without major infrastructural changes or expense, we’re stuck with internal combustion engines, limited range electric vehicles and rail as major transport.
This is my point. Nuclear isn’t going to solve all problems and it certainly will not allow us to keep a business-as-usual approach.
Efficient energy use much be included and technology must be continually improved upon with the hope to reduce wasted energy. We can’t simply jump mindlessly to a new source – by constantly improving (and keeping efficiency on the cards) we may not make a great deal of different to the overall phasing out of fossil fuels, but we can certainly ensure future supplies last longer and (hopefully) develop more appropriate value of products and services (included ecological).
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Someone over here is banging on about nitrous oxide production from the nuclear fuel cycle (but he never talks about volumes, only adjectives):
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/55401#comments
So, the key thing he doesn’t discuss is how much nitrous oxide is released in the production of nitric acid for dissolving uranium fuel. I imagine that once the nitric acid has been made, it can be used again and again to process uranium fuel rods. But does anyone have the figures to back up my assumption? I assume these sort of life cycle emissions are accounted for during LCAs of nuclear.
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Thanks Peter, although I was more after supply figures assuming Gen IV didn’t exist.
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Mothincarnate,
You might like to have a look at David MacKay’s ‘Plan C’.
Click to access PlanC.pdf
This is a plan to get the UK to near zero emissions from energy by 2050. It assumes massive energy efficiency improvements.
Having looked at Plan C you may like to follow the comments from here:
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Cheers Peter,
It just seems to me that you should not only talk about shifting energy supply, but also using it better.
:)
Tim (sorry for making my name known)
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Mattb,
We have discussed this many times on BNC comments, but I can’t quickly point you to the best comments. DV*2XL posted a link to the WNA page that covers this.
My answer is that there is no shortage of uranium. We’ve only scratched the Earths’s surfae in a fow places. We have hardly looked for it yet. It is as common and tin and many other metals. There is no shortage.
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“Further to my last post – I just got the “yeah the fuel will run out so soon we should not use nuclear” line. I just need a link to a swift correction:)”
I’ll just link to this essay by yours truly:
http://channellingthestrongforce.blogspot.com/2010/03/is-nuclear-power-sustainable.html
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Despite the demise of the ETS I believe that governments continue to tinker with energy prices. It appears most States will have raised household electricity prices 30% between 2007 and 2010. Perhaps this is at the behest of gas fired generators who want the public softened up. I’m not sure if big energy users like aluminium smelters will be affected but they’ll only pay a fraction of what households do. I would like to see an economic justification for this discrepancy.
I also suggest that operators of coal ports and railways should get no taxpayer assistance. After all we were supposed to be worried about CO2 at one stage. Then scrap Federal RECs and State feed-in tariffs. Then make CSG drillers pay for long term aquifer damage. Then make coal burners clean up ash dumps so no arsenic or tar can escape for the next million years. Better still modify all coal and gas plants to become ‘CCS ready’ for when the day arrives. One rule for all.
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“not” making my name known
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Essentially John Newlands, that was what I was calling for in relation to all energy sources — full internalisation of the footprint of their costs.
I note that Fran is calling for “dirty energy” to be not tax deductible and for things like the diesel fuel rebate and the FBT on cars to be scrapped. I think this is also worth pursuing. Effectively, that would mean that the company tax rate would apply to all these costs. She also suggests that the revenue raised/saved could then be handed back to most consumers in cash or tax rebates or some kind of service.
Who could be opposed to that?
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DV*
I doubt this is an accurate characterisation of Mothincarnate’s proposal. The poster seemed to be focused on fuel efficiency. Less reliance on private transport and more reliance on mass transit or car polling would also meet the standard. AFAIK, few people walk 2km in Europe to do their shopping.
There are limits to how much you can save this way, but at least during the period when ready alternatives to liquid FFs aren’t widely available, these seem fair enough.
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DV82XL, I’m happy if you drive, so long as the market charges you to park instead of spreading the cost of the parking infrastructure across the items I’m buying, subsidising your car driving habits:) And so long as you’re paying car tax and insurance on a per km rate rather than an annual fee (which encourages you to drive more and punishes those who drive less). And making sure that the carbon costs of the petrol you are using are fully internalised in the price of petrol.
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Ewen, maybe FFs is not a good acronym. I thought you had tourettes:)
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Finrod,
I’ve just read your article here: http://channellingthestrongforce.blogspot.com/2010/03/is-nuclear-power-sustainable.html.
Excellent job of bringing it all together so it is easy to understand and follow.
I have one point to add for other readers. We cannot envisage what the mining and exploration technologies will be ten or 20 years from now, let alone 50 or in future centruries, so getting convcerned about uranium supply beyond the life of reactors is not of much relevance. I’d alos like to point out that we will not have to move all the material you referred to. We are already using in situ leaching to mine uranium.
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Finrod,
It’s worth summarising your conclusion. It may be useful for the FAQ that Marion and Ms Perps are working on.
If I understand your conclusions correctly, in my words, there is sufficient uranium and thorium in the top 4 km of the Earth’s land areas to supply all the energy needs of 10 billion people at the USA’s current rate of energy consumption for 220 million years. That’s as long as far ahead as the start of the dinosaur era is behind.
That should answer the question about sustainability of nuclear fuel supplies satisfactorily for most people.
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Barry,
I wonder what your take on this Tom Blees’ quote is, from the reportage-enviro.com link you provided;
“Ironically, Australia isn’t going to be ready to build a nuclear reactor for the next 5 years. But in the next 5 years we could have these up and running…and then Australia could go straight to Generation 4 [nuclear power] and then never mine uranium for their own use. “
And I agree with the “BNC for newbies” idea. Perhaps something like the “start here” option on realclimate.org.
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Conservation isn’t an energy plan any more than starvation is a food suppy plan.
It all boils down to enforcement of some description or another, and it is all based on the moral position that less is best. You can argue and rationalize it until you are blue in the face, but this is at the bottom of this meme.
It is better in the long run to work towards making more energy available and letting the market decide what the cost is, ASSUMING (as we are with nuclear energy) that there are no other impacts, like CO2.
The conservation argument is a sideshow and the only real gains can be made by individuals which are minuscule, industry has already ‘cut the fat’ to lower costs long ago.
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it’s an ok slogan but conservation is not really the same as starvation. Conservation is an energy plan as a diet is a food plan, and we are pretty chubby.
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Thank’s Peter and Barry.
I simply don’t believe on 881 g/kWh for Denmark electricity.
I don’t trust in CARMA-databese. I found some odd things there before. For example the information of Finland is totally rubbish. As Peter pointed out in an earlier comment:
Have you noticed that the unit for intensity in CARMA is “Pounds of CO2 emitted per megawatt-hour of electricity produced.” according to their glossary?
IEA has some informative graphs. This is for Finland:
Click to access FIELEC.pdf
and this for Denmark:
Click to access DKELEC.pdf
You find all of them here:
http://www.iea.org/country/index.asp
For all kinds of statistics this is the site to go:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/contents.html
You can download information in Excel-format so it is a good tool to do some study. Here are the emission factors:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/emission_factors.html
Back to original question about emission factor for Denmark. I looked at Danish Energy Agency and found some key figures. It says CO2
”Emissions per kWh Electricity Sold kWh: 547 Gram/kWh”
Here is the source:
http://www.ens.dk/en-US/Info/FactsAndFigures/KeyFigures/Sider/DanishKeyFigures.aspx
I believe this information is the best you can find. Remember there’s a lot of CHP in Denmark, so you should know how the emission factor is calculated to fully understand the numbers.
A friend of mine should have access to IEA Repport, but he’s an holiday at the moment.
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Hello everybody,
We are living in an increasingly complex world. Increasing complexity reguires increasing energy. In fact, we are living in an exponentially growing world.
HOWEVER, we are living also in the midst of the biggest bubble bursting humankind has ever created. Thus Great Depression is probably ahead of us.
Can anybody imagine renewed nuclear growth (nuclear power plant are very much complex structures!) under conditions of economic rapid contraction and de-complexification? Who will take care about nuclear plants in an unsecure and politically instable world, ahead of us?
Could for instance Greece, or the rest of Europe for that matter, build new nuclear reactors, or replace the old ones?
In other world: *Can we rely on nuclear energy in an unclear world?*
Thanks for debate,
regards, Alexander
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A brand new paper from IEA:
Click to access nuclear_roadmap.pdf
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DV
“Conservation isn’t an energy plan any more than starvation is a food suppy plan.”
Gluttony isn’t sensible eating anymore than mindlessly chewing up energy while it’s cheap and easy.
“The conservation argument is a sideshow and the only real gains can be made by individuals which are minuscule, industry has already ‘cut the fat’ to lower costs long ago.”
Conservation is an important aspect whether it’s energy, fiscal of ecological.
Gains might be minuscule from individuals contribution (as like water savings more or less were in SA compared to industry use), however ignoring this is a defeatist attitude and would undermine efficiency measures at large.
A major aspect of efficiency is a change of attitudes and that will include everyone, regardless of how small their individual contribution would be. Otherwise, why not buy a bigger SUV next year? That’s just rubbish and counter productive.
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If we develop a global nuclear economy with synthesised hydrocarbon fuels, or truly effective electric batteries for motor vehicles, why the hell not buy a bigger SUV next year?
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Here is the core of my counter argument: I don’t agree with any of you that we use too much energy. Therefore for you to implement your ideas you will have to use the force of law and the power of the State. You will do this for no other reason than ideological ones, In a world with readily available nuclear energy usage restricted by anything other than the market, is not justifiable. I don’t care for your religious-driven morality, and I don’t want it stuffed down my throat just because you think it is right,
Do, to yourself, what ever you want. If you feel good about not using energy, knock yourself out, but do not presume to lecture the rest of us or force your ideas on us.
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Let’s hope we don’t shop at the same markets – I don’t want your pointlessly huge vehicle scratching up mine or knocking some kid.
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Now Mothincarnate has collided with the great light he has been drawn to. Faced with the defeat of his foolish paradigm he resorts to cheap shots and desperate evasion of the issue at hand.
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Just listen to yourself DV;
“core of my counter argument: I don’t agree with any of you that we use too much energy.”
You don’t agree, so I’m ideological?
lol – great rebuttal there.
I mentioned above those kinds of statements, “It’s against my free will…” etc
I don’t think I’ve mentioned force at all and yet you rush to the delusion of a governmental force working against the consumer..
You haven’t addressed my argument at all (except to say that you don’t agree) – just because we’re got lots of something doesn’t mean we should use it hard and fast without any regard for how well we use it…
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Really Finrod? Faced with defeat? I was merely trying to illustrate the bigger isn’t necessarily better, but maybe I was too subtle.
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Moth, you’ve clearly revealed yourself as a hairshirt green. Flailing around for another ten posts wont change that.
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So respond to my point. If we have a well-developed, integrated uclear economy, what’s wrong with using more energy?
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So I’m a tree-hugger? lol.. Who’s resorting to cheap shots now Finrod?
I don’t care how much we use, more how well we use it..
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But sometimes to maximise effectiveness at a certain function (such as the ability to move large quantities of rock and dirt) a vehicle must sacrifice energy efficiency for more torque, for example. Energy effficiency is just one of many dimensions to be considered in the design of machinery. If there is no shortage of energy, why elevate efficiency to some mystical status?
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Kaj,
Thank you for this post:
http://www.ens.dk/en-US/Info/FactsAndFigures/KeyFigures/Sider/DanishKeyFigures.aspx
And this
http://www.iea.org/stats/electricitydata.asp?COUNTRY_CODE=DK
You may be correct, but I’ll be interested to see what the IEA report says. I am concerned that Denmark is claiming 18% of their electricity comes from wind energy. But actually only about 3% comes from wind energy. The remainder of the wind energy Denmark generates has to be exported. Then Denmark imports electricity from the Scandinavian and European grids. The emissions intensity for the imported electricity is the average emission intensity for the grid they import from. If the emissions intensities are based on consumption, which I believe they should be, and Denmark consuming only 3% wind energy, 9% from biomass and waste and the remainder from coal and gas, I would expect the emissions intensities should be higher than those quoted. It will be interesting to get to the bottom of the discrepancy in these figures. One thing for sure is the figures are ‘all over the shop’ and there are significant discrepancies between different sources.
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Finrod and Peter Lang
Thanks for the heads up.
I have just added the link( and highlighted the brilliant quote) on Finrod’s blog, to the FAQ re: Won’t we run out of uranium? The post is just about ready to go to Barry. I have to say though that Marion done all the work ( with a very few tweaks from me)- and I am sure that, when you read it, you will think she has done a great job! It is a real CALL TO ACTION.
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Sure, work vehicles are great (I’d have a hell of a time doing my job, climbing over dunes without a 4WD), but there’s a difference between a work vehicle and the ol’ school mum SUV. The first is an efficient trade off (excusing for this case the internal combustion engine), while the second is inefficient and rather reckless.
I’m sure when fossil fuels started to make a name for themselves the “experts” at the time were sure it’d be around and used safely for centuries and this isn’t the case. Sure, we know that with these newer nuclear reactors that we can potentially produce energy for a very long time, but I think it’s naive and counter productive to go hammering through the supply of a finite source as quickly as we can.
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Oops – typo!
“Marion HAS done all the work”
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DV8, Finrod and Moth
Please -enough already!
Pragmatically,the cost of power in the future, will probably determine how much we all use on an individual basis anyway- as is the case now.
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Hmm. Moth, perhaps you might check out my essay I linked to on nuclear power sustainability to get an idea of the magnitude of the resource.
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I’ve said my piece on the issue. Ms Perps summed it up nicely, and I have nothing more to add.
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Yes, enough has been said on the matter for now.
Ms Perps and Peter Lang, thank you for your kind words concerning my essay. That was what it was written for… to help out with the pro-nuclear cause as a resource to refer people to. I’m glad people see value in it.
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To meet this growing demand for nuclear energy, there is a strong and urgent need to develop sufficient levels of human capital and expertise for both existing and new sources of energy production. Ensuring a skilled workforce for the nuclear sector is inseparable from other policy actions towards meeting growing energy demand, and this should therefore be a top priority policy issue in nuclear energy policy strategies.
There sector simply does not have enough engineers, designers, scientists, physicists and mathematicians to do the job, let alone enough skilled technicians to install and connect the machinery. The global talent pool is so small, bringing employees in from abroad is not an answer, and the reality is that a large proportion of nuclear power plant workers in the West are within 10 years of retirement.
There is an acute skills shortage that is prevalent in many sectors of this industry but, arguably, the most severe in growing nuclear energy is in building and construction sector, qualified to take on projects of this type.
This must be addressed now if we are to move forward.
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DV82XL is correct when you think about it. We do use too much of a depleting resource, and we do emit too much carbon, therefore in this context we do use too much energy. But if you find an energy source without those problems then what is too much? It will be determined by cost, with something other than carbon being the limiting factor – concrete? Some precious metal integral to the system I dunno?
The main thing is that the system needs to be set up so that a consumer just decides how much to use based on cost, and we should aim to avoid at all cost the current situation where a consumer has a decision on cost, and balanced with a decision on carbon, where reducing carbon hands a competitive advantage to someone else.
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I quite often hear a comment, that ”too” low-cost energy is increasing the consumption of other depleting resources and it is increasing pollution that way. When I look what’s happens in the world, I recognize that increasing the consumption is possible enough without nuclear power so this is not a very good argument.
Do we use too much of energy, it depends. Less energy, less emission, less NPP’s required to replace the dirty energy and most important, less time is needed to get rid of dirty energy. If you can illuminate your room by a 5 W LED instead of a 60 W incandescent lamp, it’s nothing but stupid not to prefer the LED. Or if you can save energy AND money by insulating your house, why not do it?
You can compare cars in USA and Europe and ask, is it necessary to burn more gasoline to do the same thing, move yourself from one place to another.
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Peter Lang:
Ok, now I understand what you are looking for. Actually, you can’t say where the electricity comes from that you are exporting, can you? You could export coal power and use all the wind power yourself, or vice versa. It comes from the same grid anyway. I think it’s unfair to say that only wind power is exported. So you can get different values for the emission factor and they can all be correct. Or is there some king of a standard how to calculate?
Why not email Danish Energy Agency and ask how they calculate it?
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“ The goal of reducing energy consumption is a delusion of renewables advocates. “
“ Conservation isn’t an energy plan any more than starvation is a food suppy plan. “
“ Faced with the defeat of his foolish paradigm he resorts to cheap shots and desperate evasion of the issue at hand. “
“ If we have a well-developed, integrated nuclear economy, what’s wrong with using more energy? “
“ Energy effficiency is just one of many dimensions to be considered in the design of machinery. If there is no shortage of energy, why elevate efficiency to some mystical status? “
Finrod,
There are now 6.5 Billion people out there, of which 2 Billion aren’t even connected to the grid or don’t use electricity, too poor to afford that luxury.
If 25% of ALL energy now used by mankind would be supplied by nuclear power plants, we would need to build three plants a month for the next 60 years. That’s how big our carbon energy use is right now.
Now, you don’t have to be a bright light to understand that it is simply not possible yet to achieve that goal, therefore we MUST be more careful with our energy use, and not waste it as the US Americans are doing. Yet. Until someone like you manages to find a solution to this gargantuan energy use we as mankind are now devoted to. I am not holding my breath on that one.
It basically boils down to supply-demand issues that are of balance, and can’t be balanced right now given that there are 2.5 Billion Asians that want to have the same wasteful Western lifestyle as you have.
Of course it is clear I do not share your views. As a Belgian, I was born and grew up in central Africa (Zaire), and lived a decent life with not much. Which of course I continue to this day, living and working in Western Europe. And I feel as happy as anyone else, or more, since I do not crave or do get frustrated by the lack of such status symbols as the biggest SUV to drive around, just to show off how pathetic I really am without my big shiny metal wheels.
Regards,
Alain
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5401870,00.html
http://www.biomassmagazine.com/article.jsp?article_id=2325
The European Union officially adopted a 20-20-20 Renewable Energy Directive on Dec. 17 2008 setting climate change reduction goals for the next decade. The targets call for a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2020 compared with 1990 levels, a 20 percent cut in energy consumption through improved energy efficiency by 2020 and a increase to 20 percent in the use of renewable energy by 2020. In 2005 renewable energies from hydro power, solar, wind, biomass or geothermal sources accounted for less than seven percent of the EU’s total energy consumption.
http://euobserver.com/885/28171
Mr Obama’s plan would require the average US vehicle – cars and light trucks – to achieve 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016, a 30 percent advance over current fuel standards.
China currently enforces an average fuel efficiency standard of 35.8 miles per gallon (mpg) and Japan demands 42.6 mpg.
Europe meanwhile requires vehicles achieve 43.3 mpg and by 2016 – the deadline of the Obama scheme – vehicles in the 27-country bloc will have to meet an efficiency standard of 50 mpg.
Using a slightly different measuring stick to that of the US, the EU would require that the average carbon emissions from all new cars be reduced by 18 percent to 130 grams per kilometer by 2015.
Fines for breaching the standard were also watered down. Originally to have been € 20 per excess grams, they are now to be only € 5 per grams.
http://www.renewableenergyfocus.com/view/7092/wind-power-tops-new-eu-electricity/
The European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) says 39% of all new capacity installed in 2009 was wind power, followed by gas (26%) and solar photovoltaics (PV) (16%). Europe decommissioned more coal and nuclear capacity than it installed in 2009. Taken together, renewable energy technologies account for 61% of new power generating capacity in 2009.
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/09/1733&format=HTML&aged=0&language=en&guiLanguage=en
Brussels, 18 November 2009. The agreement will strengthen the building codes and energy performance requirements for buildings across the EU and fixes 2020 as deadline for all new buildings to be nearly zero energy buildings. Moreover, the recast Directive also improves the information provided to consumers in the buildings energy performance certificate. Not only the energy performance certificate shall be shown to the prospective new tenant or buyer of the building, but the energy performance indicator of the building shall be stated in the sale or rental advertisements. Buildings are responsible for 40% of energy consumption and 36% of EU CO2 emissions. It is estimated that, by strengthening the provisions of the Directive on energy performance, the EU could achieve a reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 70% of the current EU Kyoto target. In addition to this, these improvements could save citizens around € 300 per annum per household in their energy bills, while boosting the construction and building renovation industry in Europe.
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/08/693&format=HTML&aged=0&language=en&guiLanguage=en
More energy efficient buildings provide better living conditions and save money to all citizens. The estimated impact of the recast is energy savings of 60-80 Mtoe in 2020 or the total EU energy consumption will be reduced by 5-6%. The energy consumption of buildings varies enormously; whilst new buildings can need less than 3 to 5 litres of heating oil or equivalent per square meter floor area and year, the existing buildings stock consumes, on average, about 25 litres per square meter, some buildings even up to 60 litres. Available construction products and installation technologies can drastically improve the building’s energy performance – and so reduce its energy consumption – and create net benefits: the annual energy cost savings are exceeding the annual capital costs for the investments. The best moment for energy improvements is when buildings are constructed or they are anyway renovated.
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2010/06/chilling-out-in-the-sun-solar-cooling?cmpid=SolarNL-Tuesday-June8-2010
by 2008, a total of only 450 to 500 solar cooling systems had been realized worldwide, the vast majority of which are in Europe, where the market has increased in the last five years by 50%–100% annually.
http://www.bisol.com/home/120-interview-with-james-rifkin.html
INTERVIEW WITH JEREMY RIFKIN
We are in the twilight of a great energy era
In a special edition of »European Energy Review« you can find an interview with the president of the Foundation of the Economic Trends, Jeremy Rifkin who also serves as an advisor to the European Union on issues related to the economy, climate change, energy security, and sustainable development. Rifkin served as an advisor to the Prime Ministers of the Slovenian, Portuguese and German presidency of the EU. He is the author of seventeen best-selling books on the impact of scientific and technological changes on the economy, the workforce, society, and the environment.
In the interview Rifkin calls attention to the fact that Europe has the opportunity to lead the world into a third industrial revolution that will take us away from the disruptive centralized power systems into a new age of energy – producing buildings, distributive power and smart grids.
Rifkin: »It is very clear now that we are in the twilight of a great energy regime of coal, oil, natural gas and uranium. And we have four critical problems: climate change; increasing debt all over the world, especially in the developing nations where the price of oil and gas continues to spike; increasing political instability in the oil producing countries of the Persian Gulf; and peak oil. I don’t think we have grasped the enormity of the problem of climate change. New data now shows that the permafrost is melting. The whole Arctic-Siberian continent is permafrost-covered. It’s a burial tomb for all the carbon deposits of the pre-Ice Age. What we did not anticipate is that the carbon entombed in that permafrost is going into the water and coming up as methane, which is 22 times more potent than carbon. The context is that 3°C takes us back to the temperature on earth three million years ago and we risk up to 70% of our species becoming extinct in maybe less than a century. We have only had five waves of biological extinction on this planet in 450 million years. And every time we had a wipe-out it took 10 million years to recover the biodiversity loss.«
Rifkin talks about nuclear power plants as well. There are 439 of them in the world, producing only 5 % of the energy people use. To affect climate change nuclear power would need to be responsible for 20 – 25 % of the used energy. For this we would have to build 2000 nuclear power plant, 3 every 30 days for the next 60 years. There is also a lack of water for the nuclear power which is needed for cooling the nuclear reactors. When the water comes back heated, it dehydrates the lakes and streams. We don’t have enough water to provide for nuclear power, irrigation and people.
In continuation Rifkin talks about the 4 pillars of the third industrial revolution. The first one is commitment to the 20-20-20 rule (20 % increase in energy efficiency, 20 % lower carbon emissions, 20 % renewable energies) EU made last year. The second one lies in the distributive renewable energies that are found everywhere. Every building can be a power plant. Solar roofs, wind turbines, garbage on site that can be converted into energy, agriculture and forestry waste, ocean waves and the tides on the coast, geothermal and hydro. Pillar three is about storage of the energy. That’s where hydrogen comes in as a universal storage carrier. With some forms of renewable energy, you can even get the hydrogen directly without electrolysis. The fourth pillar connects the communications revolution to the energy revolution. The question is how do we distribute this energy? Rifkin sees the solution in the »smart grid« or »intergrid«. We take the same technology that we used to create the internet and we make the power grid of the EU smart, distributed and intelligent. when millions and millions of buildings are producing their own locally generated power, stored in the form of hydrogen, the way we store digits in the form of media, the smart grid allows us to share liquidity of energy across the entire Europe. Europe started with energy: coal, steel and atomic energy. This time Europe leads the world into a third industrial revolution. Europe has 500 million consumers in the biggest internal market in the world, additional 500 million people in associated regions into the Mediterranean, the Middle East and North Africa and the most powerful currency in the world.
Rifkin says: »We can’t afford any mistakes. We’re already making big mistakes. First was corn, the biofuel mistake. Scientists have done studies for years showing the amount of energy required to produce the corn results in almost no net-benefit gain on the energy when the ethanol is finally processed. But what’s worse, it forces basic changes in the land-use pattern for arable land. The price of food goes up because the arable land is being used for corn for biofuels. As more arable land is used for biofuels, then we are deforesting. And that means more CO2 is being released.
He is against the carbon capture and storage. His team of scientists thinks storage is not commercially feasible at the present time. Maybe at some point in the future but then the question is where would you store all that CO2? The Earth’s plates are shifting all the time so if you place massive volumes of CO2 in one period of history underground or under the oceans, there’s no way to assure that it’s vaulted in for another period of history. Rifkin thinks we are in denial because we are trying to hold on to the old centralized energies and trying to create a political and public stance around them in order to convince everyone that everything’s okay. That is why he closely cooperates with EU technology platforms that are supposed to be the economic and R&D engines for the future and are essential to lay down the infrastructure for a third industrial revolution.
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OK, Alain tell me you can bring about this new energy order on the world without doing it by legislative fiat. Then tell me how you are going to get a majority of voters to select politicians that will pass this draconian laws.
Don’t any of you get it? No one but you wants this sort of low energy future. Do you not understand that you can’t mandate your 20%-20%-20% system without what amounts to rationing? Do you honestly think that the whole world will fall in behind this idea?
Practical solutions take into account the political reality, and as it stands people want to solve the energy and climate issues without dialing back their lifestyle.
You are not offering a path to a solution, you are proselytizing for your personal religion.
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Again for the ones opposing renewables :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EROEI
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Energy_return_on_investment_%28EROI%29
energy cannibalism refers to an effect where rapid growth of an entire energy producing or energy efficiency industry creates a need for energy that uses (or cannibalizes) the energy of existing power plants or production plants. The solar breeder overcomes some of these problems. A solar breeder is a photovoltaic panel manufacturing plant which can be made energy-independent by using energy derived from its own roof using its own panels. Such a plant becomes not only energy self-sufficient but a major supplier of new energy, hence the name solar breeder. Research on the concept was conducted by Center for Photovoltaic Engineering, University of New South Wales, Australia. The reported investigation establishes certain mathematical relationships for the solar breeder which clearly indicate that a vast amount of net energy is available from such a plant for the indefinite future.
The first energy breeder in the world is in Germany :
http://www.pv-tech.org/news/_a/solarworld_places_faith_in_competitive_manufacturing_in_germany/?utm_source=PV+Tech+-+Newsletter&utm_campaign=4994ccdf7a-PV_Tech_Newsletter01_06_2010&utm_medium=email
SolarWorld is investing € 350 million in the new production facility and brings internal solar wafers production to 750MW by the end of the year. To remain competitive with low-cost regions in Asia, SolarWorld has automated the entire manufacturing process as well as built facility systems that use less energy and water to reduce costs. An example of cost reductions is the use of waste heat from the crystallization process to heat the entire building, according to the company. The facility also includes approximately 1MW of solar modules on the rooftop.
Mr Röttgen said, “The constantly progressing climate change is forcing us to make our energy supply more and more carbon free. My idea is that by 2050 the renewable energies will cover our energy needs almost completely. A new market is emerging, in Germany and worldwide.”
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2010/04/women-solar-entrepreneurs-transforming-bangladesh
Women Solar Entrepreneurs Transforming Bangladesh. Dipal Barua is implementing renewable energy solutions that empower women, create jobs, facilitate rural development and protect the environment. By the end of 2009, more than 300,000 solar home systems had been installed, bringing electricity to more than two million people.
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2010/04/accelerating-solar-a-look-at-the-next-decade?cmpid=SolarNL-Tuesday-April27-2010
Many parts of the world already have electricity rates that are over $0.40/kWh. Solar today averages $0.25/kWh. In almost all of Africa, Pakistan, Hawaii, Italy and large portions of Japan, the price of electricity is already in excess of what the cost of electricity is coming from solar. Where solar goes today is largely in grid-connected applications. There’s about 15 GW of solar installed in the world. Where solar makes a big difference is in the time of day. It matches where electricity is needed during the hot summer afternoons when we all run our air conditioners. The utility-scale market is a relatively new one. It’s that market segment that caused that roughly 45 to 50 percent (cumulative annual growth rate) over the last few years. Roughly speaking, the range is somewhere between 80 and 160 GW worth of scale by the year 2020. What that translates into is roughly a scenario in which 3 percent of the electricity used around the world comes from solar over the next decade.
Where solar photovoltaics fits and where it has the greatest opportunity is in meeting peaking power needs.
The potential here on a worldwide basis is that’s about 10 percent of the electricity that’s needed and that there’s the potential for about 800 GW worth of overall business over the next decade or so. Solar is, roughly speaking, a little more than half of the current price of using a peaking gas turbine to meet that peak time of day electricity need here in the U.S. It assumes that the total installed price is around $3.50/Watt which is about where a lot of the large-scale systems are being priced today as they’re being installed. It assumes that here in the U.S. where we have an investment tax credit that’s applicable to a large number of utility or independent producers. It also assumes the cost of money is about 9 percent. 10% SunFab Panels are more economical than gas peakers even under conservative assumptions.
So given that nuclear power plants works best as baseload units, it is clear that their aren’t the solution for peak power demand, given that they aren’t designed to cycle with the daily power demand cycles.
However, I am glad that 15% of global electricity supply is supplied by nuclear power, imagine what it would be if that was coal . . .
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http://www.grist.org/article/2010-03-15-time-to-bury-cheap-coal/
Time to bury cheap coal. In 2009, nearly 15,000 megawatts of proposed coal fired power plants were canceled. To put that in perspective, that would represent about a third of all electricity generating capacity of a state the size of California. This is not a consequence of a slow economy alone; eight years ago, 36,000 megawatts of new coal plants were on the drawing boards and a mere 13 percent of those were actually built. The cheapest new power plant is the one you don’t build. California is 40 percent more energy efficient than the rest of the nation — and Denmark is a third more energy efficient than that — so real savings can be achieved while stimulating the economy with projects that replace inefficient appliances, machinery, and even simple doors/windows with modern versions that save energy. While electricity appeared cheap, little was done to be efficient. Now that we know better, efficiency can be the major source of “new” supply for a decade.
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There’s a painfully obvious correlation between periods of high wind energy production and net flows of electricity out of denmark to neighbouring Norway and Sweden.
Yes; you could engage in sophistry but that doesn’t help you figure out what proportion of electricity exports and imports are due to wind power or why the pattern of imports and exports looks like it does; or what the effect on imports and exports of adding another generator of a specific size and type to the grid is likely to be.
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” Practical solutions take into account the political reality, and as it stands people want to solve the energy and climate issues without dialing back their lifestyle.
You are not offering a path to a solution, you are proselytizing for your personal religion. ”
oooh, I not offering anything. You are a free man. I am a free man. I choose to reduce my energy consumption, and installed solar PV panels on my home. I am a shareholder of the utility that (during the night) provide me 100% green electricity through the grid. I plan to heat my home with an air/water heat pump system powered by electricity supplied by my PV panels or by the 100% green grid electricity. I am waiting till a Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle is commercially available, so that I can reload that battery using electricity provided by my PV panels or by the 100% green grid electricity. Solutions are available. We only need to implement them on a giant scale. That will get us out of the Great Depression we are now in. And apparently, I am not the only one thinking like this :
http://www.pv-tech.org/news/_a/project_focus_morocco_secures_agreements_for_9billion_solar_plans/
Morocco has now reportedly secured agreements with the World Bank, the European Commission and Germany in connection with its large-scale US$ 9 billion solar project, which is expected to produce 38% of the country’s power by the year 2020. The project consists of five power generation sites that will produce 2000MW of electricity, with a combined surface area of 10,000 hectares, in Ouarzazate, Ain Bni Mathar, Foum Al Oued, Boujdour and Sebkhat Tah.
http://www.windpowermonthly.com/news/986517/Iberdrola-outlines-renewables-expansion/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH
Spanish electricity giant Iberdrola has announced plans to invest € 9 billion in renewables over the next three years, after recording a €2.8 billion profit last year. In total, the company plans to invest 18 billion up to 2012, consolidating its international expansion and strengthening its involvement in renewables generation. Its focus for growth will be the US, which is in line to receive 39% of the company’s total investment. Much of this will go towards wind farms and electricity transmission and distribution, the company said. The company already has 3,500MW of installed wind capacity in the US, and a project pipeline of 23,500MW, reflecting the $577 million of US Treasury grants it secured last year for renewables. Meanwhile, the UK is set to receive the second largest share – 25% – of Iberdrola’s planned investment, with the bulk again earmarked for renewables.
Iberdrola already has 802MW operational and a further 5,200MW projected. Along with Sweden’s Vattenfall, Iberdrola is also in line to develop a possible 7,200MW, having successfully bid for one of the UK’s round 3 offshore zone licences. Spain will receive 24% of Iberdrola’s investment, and Latin America and other parts of the world 12%.By business area, renewables will account for the largest share of Iberdrola’s planned investment – €9 billion – while €6.3 billion and €2.7 billion will be invested in networks and generation and supply respectively.
http://www.renewableenergyfocus.com/view/6616/retail-giant-completes-major-solar-electric-installation/
Walmart has completed its largest solar power project at its Apple Valley distribution centre in southern California.
http://www.pv-tech.org/news/_a/samsung_will_invest_21bn_in_future_growth_drivers_including_solar_cells/?utm_source=PV+Tech+-+Newsletter&utm_campaign=0418f98cb1-PV_Tech_Newsletter_12_05_2010&utm_medium=email
Samsung has announced that it will invest US$21bn in renewable energy and healthcare over the next decade, identifying solar cells as one of its future growth drivers. Samsung expects that between its key growth developers, which include; solar cells, rechargeable batteries for hybrid cars, LED technology, bio pharmaceuticals and medical equipment, it will generate US$44bn of annual sales by 2020. Samsung will invest approximately $10bn in solar cells and rechargeable batteries, while Won8600bn will be spent to expand S-LCD’s LED business.
Lee indicated back in March that Samsung’s future would be tough if it didn’t rethink its business model, forecasting that most of the group’s current businesses and products would disappear in 10 years.
http://www.flanderstoday.eu/content/enfinity-signs-%E2%82%AC8-billion-contract-china
Enfinity signs € 8 billion contract with China. Flemish company to provide China’s first solar energy park. The contract is reported to be worth € 8 billion over 10 years.
http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2009/09/solar_plant_will_power_3_million_homes_in_china.html?src=rss
US-based First Solar will build a 2000 MegaWatt solar plant in China that will power three million homes. The plant will cost about $6B and will start sometime next year. As part of the deal, a plant will open in China to make the panels over there. This is currently the biggest project of that kind, although expect the record to be broken soon.
http://planetgreen.discovery.com/tech-transport/energy-cellular-network-africa.html?campaign=th_weekly_nl
An Energy-Sipping Cellular Network To Be Deployed in Africa
Over 80% of Africans live without access to the electricity grid. However, over 1/3 of the population owns a cell phone and that portion is rapidly growing. Developing nations are leapfrogging from no phone to cell phones – skipping the expensive and unnecessary infrastructure of land lines – and the use of mobile phone technology for everything from agriculture to banking services to health care is helping to improve the quality of life of people living in these areas. However, it still takes a cell phone base station to connect the mobile devices, and those take power.
Technology Review reports that a cell phone base station that uses as little as 50 watts of solar generated power has been developed by VNL, a telecom company based in Haryana, India. The base stations – which can range from requiring 50 to 150 watts of power – are easy to assemble, requiring only two people to assemble and mount on a rooftop in just six hours. That makes these ideal for use in rural villages, and the units will soon be sold in Africa, where sunshine is plentiful.
With these new solar powered base stations, an installed station can turn a profit even if customers are spending just $2 a month to access the service, as opposed to the average $6 per person required to make traditional systems cost effective. Not only is it cheaper, but it’s also using a clean source of energy.
With proper use and an inexpensively, reliably connected mobile network, cell phones can significantly boost the quality of life of people around the globe. These new base stations from VNL are a wonderful and welcome solution to networking people living far from electricity. They come in addition to the solar powered Ericsson stations that began installation across Africa last year, Huawei Technologies and their solar powered base stations going in to rural areas in conjunction with Bangladesh mobile operator Grameenphone, and likely many more to come. ABI Research predicts that over 335,000 base stations worldwide will be using powered by the sun by 2013, with 40,000 of those being completely autonomous and off-grid.
http://www.pv-tech.org/news/_a/project_focus_masdar_total_and_abengoa_to_construct_worlds_largest_csp_plan/?utm_source=PV+Tech+-+Newsletter&utm_campaign=d052329225-PV_Tech_Newsletter_14_06_2010&utm_medium=email
The Masdar initiative in Abu Dhabi has enlisted the help, expertise and investment of the bidding consortium of energy company Total and Abengoa Solar to collaborate on the construction of the world’s largest concentrated solar power plant. The 100MW plant will be located in Madinat Zayed, southwest of Abu Dhabi, and will be known as Shams 1. Encompassing an area of 2.5 km2, the new plant will be kitted out with 768 of Abengoa’s parabolic Shams 1 trough collectors. Masdar will be the major partner at 60%, and together with Total and Abengoa, will build, operate and own the new plant, which is the first of its kind in the Middle East.
http://www.grist.org/article/on-rooftops-worldwide-a-solar-water-heating-revolution/
On rooftops worldwide, a solar water heating revolution. If China and the European Union achieve their goals and Japan and the United States reach the projected adoptions, they will have a combined total of 1,180 million square meters of water and space heating capacity by 2020. With appropriate assumptions for developing countries other than China, the global total in 2020 could exceed 1.5 billion square meters. This would give the world a solar thermal capacity by 2020 of 1,100 thermal gigawatts, the equivalent of 690 coal-fired power plants. This would account for more than half of the Earth Policy Institute’s renewable energy heating goal for 2020, part of a massive effort to stabilize our rapidly changing climate by slashing global net carbon emissions 80 percent within the next decade.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectricity
Worldwide, an installed capacity of 777 GWe supplied 2998 TWh of hydroelectricity in 2006.[1] This was approximately 20% of the world’s electricity, and accounted for about 88% of electricity from renewable sources.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydropower
Hydroelectric power now supplies about 715,000 megawatts or 19% of world electricity.
There is a common misconception that economically developed nations have harnessed all of their available hydropower resources. In the United States, according to the US Department of Energy, “previous assessments have focused on potential projects having a capacity of 1 MW and above”. This may partly explain the discrepancy. More recently, in 2004, an extensive survey was conducted by the US-DOE which counted sources under 1 MW (mean annual average), and found that only 40% of the total hydropower potential had been developed. A total of 170 GW (mean annual average) remains available for development. Of this, 34% is within the operating envelope of conventional turbines, 50% is within the operating envelope of microhydro technologies (defined as less than 100 kW), and 16% is within the operating envelope of unconventional systems.
The total undeveloped hydropower resource is equivalent to about one-third of total US electricity generation in 2005.
Developed hydropower accounted for 6.4% of total US electricity generated in 2005.
Hydro-powered electricity, however is not without its drawbacks. Dam failures can be very hazardous, e.g. the Banqiao Dam, which killed 171,000. Also, rivers move silt, and therefore dams fill with silt, and eventually become unable to store enough water to provide water and power in dry weather. [6] In addition to the significant threat that dams pose to fish populations and the ecosystems of rivers and streams, hydropower can negatively impact both the flow and quality of water. Lower levels of oxygen in the water can present a threat to animal and plant life [7]. However, these issues can be addressed if fish ladders are put in place to ensure safe passage around the area, and the water is aerated on a regular basis to maintain adequate oxygen levels safe for animal and plant life [7]. The flow of water should be monitored closely to prevent the ecological dangers associated with over-stressing bodies of water. These dangers can easily be avoided by shutting down pumping operations temporarily to allow balance to return to damaged ecosystems.
http://www.epuron.de/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-204/414_read-531/
EPURON, a member of the Conergy Group, is currently developing a 1.79 megawatt biogas installation in Jüterbog, Germany (near Berlin in the state of Brandenburg). Energy generated would be sufficient to supply the entire Jüterbog community with electrical power. The installation, which will go on stream in April, is designed to handle the fermentation of approximately 24,500 tons of pig liquid manure and 31,500 tons of corn silage per annum. Input feedstocks will be supplied by a neighbouring pig farm and the Jüterbog agricultural co-operative society. A long-term supply has been contractually secured. The fermentation substrates by-product from the power generation process will, in turn, be purchased by the agricultural co-operative society and used in local fields as organic manure. This mass has less odour compared to conventional manure and does not pollute the environment. Six and a half million cubic metres of biogas will be produced annually in three fermenting vats with a total capacity of 7,500 cubic metres. The biogas will thereupon be converted to approximately 13.7 million kilowatt hours of electrical power in three block power heating stations. The electrical power will be fed into the E.ON.edis grid over a period of at least 20 years. The annual electrical power output is sufficient to supply some 4,000 households; i.e., more than the population of Jüterbog. In addition, e.distherm, a partner company of E.ON.edis, has agreed to purchase a large portion of the heat produced by the power generation and feed this into its long-distance heating network.
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2008/07/biogas-flows-through-germanys-grid-big-time-53075
As much as 20 percent of Germany’s natural gas needs could be supplied from biogas by 2020, according to Andrea Horbelt of the German Biogas Association. Horbelt said that some studies predicted that Germany could even supply its entire natural gas needs using biogas if it were able to tap the agriculture potential of Eastern Europe with sufficient efficiency.
Small-scale biogas plants that use liquid manure as a raw material have also been given a boost by a revised renewable energy law that cleared its last parliamentary hurdle on July 4, 2008. Biogas plants of 150 KW that use liquid manure will get EU €0.04 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), making them more attractive. By setting a generous tariff for manure, the government is hoping to encourage the biogas industry to switch away from corn and wheat amid concerns of rising food prices.
“Research is just beginning to look at the many types of plants that could be used to produce biogas,” said Horbelt. “We are confident there will be many alternatives to using crops such as corn.”
With the price of natural gas in Europe set to double in the next year according to some economists, Europeans will be hoping the biogas boom lasts.
The Konnern biogas plant is almost as big as the Huckabay Ridge Renewable Natural Gas facility in Stephenville, Texas, where 635,000 MMBtu of biomethane generated from cow manure and other organic waste has been injected into the Enterprise natural gas pipeline since January 2008, making it the world’s biggest.
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Alain; mining, manufacturing and other heavy industry has to happen somewhere and it sure as hell won’t be in California or Denmark; don’t forget to account for this in efficiency.
Note that Sweden, where I live, consumes 5.7 tonnes of oil equivalent per capita per year of primary energy; while Denmark consumes only 3.6; and yet, Sweden emits only 5.1 tonnes of CO2/(capita*year) versus Denmark’s 9.2.
Do you think Swedes should feel guilty for consuming so much energy(largely for having a significant mining, lumber and paper industry) or happy they emit so little CO2?
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” Alain; mining, manufacturing and other heavy industry has to happen somewhere and it sure as hell won’t be in California or Denmark; don’t forget to account for this in efficiency.
Note that Sweden, where I live, consumes 5.7 tonnes of oil equivalent per capita per year of primary energy; while Denmark consumes only 3.6; and yet, Sweden emits only 5.1 tonnes of CO2/(capita*year) versus Denmark’s 9.2.
Do you think Swedes should feel guilty for consuming so much energy(largely for having a significant mining, lumber and paper industry) or happy they emit so little CO2? ”
No, they should NOT feel guilty to consume so much energy. They pay for it dearly ($ 8 per gallon ?), unlike the US Americans who pay only $3 per gallon, thus consuming twice the amount of oil per capita and per year compared to a Swede.
Of course, Swedes could do even better, by buying electric drive machines for their mining industry :
http://www.cat.com/D7E
Caterpillar bulldozer with electric drive, using considerably less fuel.
Swedes of course should be happy to emit so little CO2. I read underneath that they intend to reduce it further with 30% in the next decade, is that true ? Oh, sorry, it is Norway. Well they have enough spare money, with all the oil&gas that they export to the rest of the world . . .
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/12/brazil-signs-into-law-bill-to-cut-co2-emissions.php
Brazil Signs Into Law Bill to Cut CO2 Emissions 39%
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/02/norway-reveals-plan-cut-emissions-30-10-years.php?campaign=weekly_nl
Norway Reveals Stunning Plan to Cut CO2 Emissions 30% in 10 Years
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Well, Alain is a real peice of work. Rarely have I recently seen so many of the tired old renewables myths presented in one package like that. I don’t really have the energy to critique each point in detail now, but for nuclear plant construction it is indeed clear that we need to educate and train many scientists, engineers, technicians and construction workers to meet the demands for those skills. So what? Ten years, fifteen, then we’ll be ready to roll out hundreds of plants each year. It’s not magic, just proper planning.
Presenting Denmark as a poster child for efficiency is just too laughable. After decades of wasting resources on wind power, they have the highest electricity costs with the highest carbon intensity in the EU. Compare them to France to see what is really possible.
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Again and again, people show up here with no grasp of basic science, basic economics, and basic sociology. They are most likely also innumerate as well. They hold forth on renewable energy and energy policy, generously sprinkled with their personal ideology, and expect us to drop whatever discussion we are having and see the wisdom of their ideas
They don’t bother to go back and read the material that is here, and see all the times that we have carefully dismantled most of these breathlessly held beliefs, not once but often several times. Worse, their little private Utopian visions are held with such conviction, and their ignorance runs so deep that reasoned arguments roll of them like water off a duck’s back.
The reality is that these people cannot be convinced of anything that falls outside their prejudiced word-view. In this they are like doctrinaire members of some religious movements, or like cranks with strange ideas held by no one but themselves. They are almost impossible to convince, and they use up vast amounts of time and energy in forums like this.
The truth is individuals of this type do not represent anyone but themselves and perhaps a razor-thin demographic of similar idealists. They are not a factor in the general debate, and if they were not being supplied a pulpit in places like this, and engaged with, they would have no audience at all.
Back in the old USENET days, those that jumped willy-nilly into threads with half-baked, and ill-conceived posts were promptly told to consult the FAQ, and not post again until they had. In the better run groups, this was an editorial policy that was enforced rigorously.
I understand that blogs, and web forums, can not be run with this sort of iron hand, but it does seem to me that keeping an up to date FAQ and demanding that it be read before posting might be an idea from that time that should be resurrected.
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3 MM/yr SLR x 60 years = 0.9 m. Looks to me that the NPPs in your picture are sited too close to the ocean. Move them up the hill just a bit.
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DV82XL said
I agree – and add a word or two :)
Ziggy Switkowski headed the Uranium Mining, Processing and Nuclear Energy and Taskforce. The report, published in 2006, said the two long lead time items for getting nuclear energy in Australia are 1) setting up the regulatory environment, and 2) developing the necessary skills in Australia.
How long would it take to develop the skills? From my position of total ignorance on this, I would expect the longest path would be establishing the top end of the experience chain of project managers. You know, the project managers and construction engineers who have had 20 to 40 years experience building nuclear power plants. We have more time to build the skills of the operators.
Sure we can import some of these top people, but the rest of the world wants them too. And sure the subordinate levels pick up skills from the higher levels. But it all takes time. My thinking on this is being influenced by Ralph Spinney. He built four projects in his life. They were four large hydro electric schemes in British Columbia. That is the sort of experience that is able to bring mega projects to completion on time and on budget and meeting the technical requirements. I recall the enormous problems encountered on one of these, and the fantastic decision making process that led to fast and correct decisions for each major problem. Since I’ve started blabbering I may as well keep going. Revelstoke Project is a 2600MW, run-of-the-river hydro project on the Columbia River, British Columbia. It was Ralph Spinney’s fourth project. The project was being built largely to export electricity to west coast USA. The key to the success of the project was to divert the river during the winter while the river was low – before the snow melt started. (By the way, the annual snow fall at Revelstoke is 26 feet and upstream and Mica dam it is 36 feet!!). When the snow melt comes the river floods. So the river had to be diverted when the river is low. To do this we had to build the diversions tunnels, the 90 m high coffer dam and divert the highway all in one season. If we didn’t succeed, the project would be delayed a year, and one year’s revenue would be lost. One year of revenue from a 2600MW baseload power station, with near immediate response time to load changes (i.e. very high value power) is an enormous amount of money to forgo. The financiers get very concerned about such a risk
Like all such projects, many things go wrong. One of the major problems that occurred was the left bank started to slide. It cut the highway before we’d completed the diversion. The decision making process was fantastic. They flew in all the skills they needed the following day and made the decisions within a couple of days. A Bailey Bridge was constructed across the Columbia River and the highway was diverted. The bridge was constructed in the area where the main dam would be constructed (just downstream of the coffer dam).
The decision making process was fantastic. It may seem simple the way I write it here, but it wasn’t. The relevance to bringing nuclear to Australia is that all large projects needs highly experienced people to lead them. It will take us time to develop that expertise.
We need to start to build the skills base by developing the education facilities. I imagine it would take at least a year, from the time funds are approved, to set up undergraduate engineering faculty. Then four years for the first undergraduate degrees. Then the graduates need experience on overseas projects. We’re looking at 10 years before from decision to proceed before we have engineers that can take even a middle level role on building an NPP. Am I being too harsh?
The point: we need to get started.
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Kaj,
This issue has been batted around for a decade or more. This is a recent report that covers it fairly well.
Click to access sharman-winddenmark.pdf
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Somewhere on this site
http://www.nuscalepower.com/
they state what large construction compnay will manufacture (and presumaly install) these modular units. Probably that compnay has international experience and probably can arrange for on-thejob training in countries with plnety of people with high skill levels.
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Obviously the first few power reactors built in Oz are going to be done by off-shore firms. Generally this means bringing in project managers from firms like SNC-Lavalin or Bechtel, who will use local contractors as much as possible. If you government is wise, they stipulate technology transfer as part of the deal so that eventually you can build NPPs with your own resources.
India cut that deal with Canada when we built the first CANDUs there, and it was understood that the Indians would start running their own builds. They did not reverse-engineer their CANDUs, an accusation I have seen made elsewhere, but were beneficiaries of technology transfer. China too will begin to make CANDUs for themselves under licence in time, again part of the deal they signed with AECL.
Nevertheless, you are most correct in seeing that you will have to have a cadre of skills to transfer the technology to, or it will not happen, and the time to start training them, is now.
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Added to a skills crisis there are likely to be problems with raising future capital, servicing debt and running an economy dependent on dwindling liquid fuels. I expect the decision for Australia to adopt NP will be made in a panic eg a heatwave-blackouts-king drought-coral bleaching-expensive gas kind of scenario.
Assuming we get an ALP-Green coalition by year’s end there will be no acceptance of NP until 2013 or later. An each way bet like sending graduates to overseas NPPs is off the cards as well. Our best hope might be modular construction of overseas prefabricated NPP. Perhaps roving crews could set them up from country to country and instruct locals as they go.
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Australia can probably leverage its large uranium export potential in return for priviledged access to top engineering expertise, so long as we have a canny government making the deals. We should also set up enrichment facilities and world class engineering institutes to ride the rennaissance for all it’s worth as a main player… but first we have to overthrow the anti-nuke faction in the Australian decision-making classes. First things first, we are going to need a mass movement to make this work. That was the idea behind N92, and once I’m out of hospital and back in circulation, I’ll be pursuing that aim harder than ever.
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David B. Benson,
I couldn’t let this go:
Am I missing something? 3mm/y for 60 years = 180mm, not 0.9m. Which amounts to “so what?” It is insignificant. It is only the mean level in the cooling water intake that is affected. This might mean we need the pipes to be 180 mm longer. I’m exaggerating just a little to make the point that worring about sea level rise in the design or a NPP is a red herring. It is easily allowed for.
By the way, did you know that the engineers who designed and built the underground hydro-electric power stations at Niagra Falls a 115 years ago included adjustors to allow for the rate the land was tilting as it recovers from the unloading of the ice sheets. I make this point to show that the sorts of problems that are often raised as serious issues, such as sea level rise as a threat to NPP’s, are acftually trivial issues. They are easily accommodated in the design.
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Yes, Oz has to leverage their uranium resource, and that definitely should include value-added services.
Given that spent fuel itself may become a valuable commodity, you should also start to think in terms of leasing fuel grade uranium, while maintaining title to the material itself once it has been used. You may think this is crazy, but mark my words: this will be the next big thing to develop in the world uranium market.
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DV82XL,
I agree. I went off the track a bit with that long post. Australia has been doing technology transfer on hydro electrcic projects to Asian countries for 50 odd years. One day they will be doing technology transfer to Australia on nuclear. By the time it happens I expect we’ll be able to afford reactors and technology transfer from North Korea, Burma and Bangladesh.
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I think that politically we should be ambitious enough to assume we can influence the result of the 2013 election and plan for official backing from then.We can still cut a deal with S Korea then.
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Small steps could be happening with uranium leverage. An ISL miner plans to produce uranium fluoride at the minesite, as opposed to the usual yellowcake which is one of several oxy-salts. While that is a long way short of enrichment facilities it brings the value adding chain a bit closer to home.
Rather than just small press releases I’d like to see a full summary of last month’s Australian Uranium Summit in Fremantle WA. I think both Federal Minister Ferguson and SA Premier Rann are closet nuclear supporters but are obliged to toe the party line.
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Education is a major export for Australia. We could set ourselves up as a nuclear training centre even before nuclear prohibition is repealed in Australia.
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As a point of interest modern yellowcake is almost pure U3O8, and is quite black in colour. The days of mixed urania as various ammonium and sodium salts is behind us.
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Kaj,
I gave the wrong link in my previous post. This is the link I intended:
Danish wind power – how much is exported?
Click to access danish-wind-power-exported.pdf
And here is another:
CEPOS, Wind energy – the case of Denmark
Click to access Wind_energy_-_the_case_of_Denmark.pdf
To keep them together, here is the link in my previous post:
Why wind power works for Denmark
Click to access sharman-winddenmark.pdf
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Right, I think I have the Denmark electricity EI sorted as best as I can. The most thorough data come from this IEA report from 2006:
Click to access denmark2006.pdf
and
http://www.iea.org/stats/electricitydata.asp?COUNTRY_CODE=DK
Although this does not report electricity EI directly, there is enough data to reconstruct it. For 2007 electricity generation figures, and at EIs (t/MWh) based on Weisser 2008 review, this yields and electricity EI of ~650 g/kWh. This is an internally consistent figure, and I believe is more reliable that either the Mackay figure (880) or the CARMA figure (370). Actually, this figure is generous to Denmark, as it assumes that all of their wind energy is used domestically, which it is not. However, they do also buy in nuclear and hydro electricity from France and Scandinavia. A figure of 600-700g/kWh feels about right to me, and sits in the upper 1/3 of European countries. You have to go to the large hydro and nuclear producers to see the lower 1/3. Using the same methodology for France, based on the IEA data, I get 90 g/kWh, which is in agreement with the Mackay figure.
As such, my revised text in the post above reads as follows:
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DV8,
You have dominated this thread and I could not be more impressed.
In awe of your insights I am planning to spend the next few months doing a “hands on” evaluation of the various Canadian beverages you have recommended even though my local liquor store has never heard of any of them.
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Concerning the staffing of NPPs (cf. P Lang, DV): some years ago I did an interesting tour of the sewage plant serving a city. It was running in automated mode with only 15 operators but around 1960 it had employed ca. 100. This seems relevant to the following:
BNC is focussed on AGW and its manmade GHGs, understandably. However, there is also volcanic activity pending (Katla in Iceland, which is said to have contributed to the French Revolution of 1789 as from 1783 by ruining French harvests); Yellowstone in the USA; any number of actives in Indonesia. There have been Krakatoa and Tomba. There have also been SARS, H1N1 and other potential pandemics fostered by the agrobusiness meat production mode probably favoured as “modern and efficient ” by the bulk of BNC. The next pandemic is waiting to happen.
Now last night I heard a claim that in the USA, 300 NPPs have only 5,000 operators. That may or may not be true but it throws up the question of what happens in the all-electric economy envisaged by BNC and providing centralised power across a grid if the operators fall ill, die, or get scared to go to work and there is nobody eg soldiers or paramilitaries (National Guard, gendarmes, carabinieri etc.) who know enough about an NPP to be ordered to take one over and keep it running.
Does NPP design over time from Gens II to IV across various countries show a secular reduction in the number of staff needed to run a given plant? are there figures to show how long a plant can run by itself, if at all, with some sort of minimal intervention by somebody who has no understanding of its operation but has been ordered by his commanding officer to press a few buttons every day in a given sequence?
The failsafe quality or not of a nuclear society is relevant to arguments by Green smallholders that decentralised home-based power production using wind turbines in a tower in the back yard and PV on the roof is “better”. That is, the pandemic death of all centralised natgas (backup) power production operators does not affect a smallholder deep-cycle battery bank using battery charger and inverter and some local power source (It is immaterial that this can never produce the aluminium for a beer can or other industrial artefact, it is the perception that matters here.)
I could envisage a statistic analogous to energy density: it would reveal the number of FTEs, full-time equivalent (employees) needed per MW produced for coal, natgas, nuclear, solar thermal, etc.
I am sure that some BNCers will say that nuclear needs the fewest employees per MW; my point would then be: once GHGs are at zero due to NPPs, how self-administering is power output? is any designer factoring this into current designs?
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Peter – capitalism entails efficiency gained from specialisation and trade. Anything that disrupts that, from pandemic to a supply shock, will lead to economic hardship. It’s the price we pay for giving up subsistence farming. Well worth it and quite managable in my view.
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‘I am sure that some BNCers will say that nuclear needs the fewest employees per MW;’
More likely the fewest per MWe.h, a very important distinction. If true, which I’m not sure.
5000 operators for 300NPPs, if true, may refer to military facilities such as submarine power plants.
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Peter Lalor,
Nuclear energy is about the safest of all the electricity generation technologies. The statistics you mentioned are distractions; they are ‘down-in-the-weeds’ stats. I’d suggest before looking at ‘down in the weeds’ stats it would be worth getting an understanding of how we know that nuclear is about the safest electricity generation technology. Once you have an understanding of this, then you’d be in a better position to discuss future scenarios.
See the second and third figures here https://bravenewclimate.com/2009/08/13/wind-and-carbon-emissions-peter-lang-responds/ and then follow the links to the sources.
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Barry,
I had a look at that link you gave for Denamrks 650 gms of CO2 per kWh. What are the CO2 numbers assigned to each method of stationary generation in Denmark (e.g. what sort of coal do they use)?
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Jeremy C said:
I don’t know (but would like to, if people had the information). As such, I used the following default values: coal = 1 tCO2/MWh, oil = 0.8, gas = 0.6, biomass/waste = 0.05, wind/nuclear/hydro = 0.01. These are based on the average emissions intensity figures given in Weisser 2007 (A guide to life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from electric supply technologies, D. Weisser, ScienceDirect, Energy, Vol. 32, Issue 9, pp. 1543-1559, September 2007). I then multiplied up using the GWh energy usage reported by the IEA for both Denmark and France. As I noted, given that the France figure came out as 90 g/kWh, which is very close to other reported figures, I am confident that the Danish figure of 650 (plus or minus ~50) g/kWh that I so derived is now about the correct value.
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