In chapter 7 of his book “The Nuclear Energy Option“, Prof Bernard Cohen wrote the following provocative statement:
It is very difficult to predict the future of scientific developments, and few would even dare to make predictions extending beyond the next 50 years. However, based on everything we know now, one can make a strong case for the thesis that nuclear fission reactors will be providing a large fraction of our energy needs for the next million years. If that should come to pass, a history of energy production written at that remote date may well record that the worst reactor accident of all time occurred at Chernobyl, USSR, in April of 1986.
How could he have the audacity to make such a prognostication? Simple — because he, like most scientists, engineers and actuaries, understands the meaning of probability and risk (as well as the fundamental physics of modern reactor design). In chapter 8, called “Understanding Risk“, he goes on to say:
One of the worst stumbling blocks in gaining widespread public acceptance of nuclear power is that the great majority of people do not understand and quantify the risks we face. Most of us think and act as though life is largely free of risk. We view taking risks as foolhardy, irrational, and assiduously to be avoided. Training children to avoid risk is an all-important duty of parenthood. Risks imposed on us by others are generally considered to be entirely unacceptable.
Unfortunately, life is not like that. Everything we do involves risk. There are dangers in every type of travel, but there are dangers in staying home — 25% of all fatal accidents occur there. There are dangers in eating — food is one of the most important causes of cancer and of several other diseases — but most people eat more than necessary. There are dangers in breathing — air pollution probably kills 100,000 Americans each year, inhaling radon and its decay products is estimated to kill 14,000 a year, and many diseases like influenza, measles, and whooping cough are contracted by inhaling germs. These dangers can often be avoided by simply breathing through filters, but no one does that. There are dangers in working — 12,000 Americans are killed each year in job-related accidents, and probably 10 times that number die from job-related illness — but most alternatives to working are even more dangerous. There are dangers in exercising and dangers in not getting enough exercise. Risk is an unavoidable part of our everyday lives.
That doesn’t mean that we should not try to minimize our risks, but it is important to recognize that minimizing anything must be a quantitative procedure. We cannot minimize our risks by simply avoiding those we happen to think about. For example, if one thinks about the risk of driving to a destination, one might decide to walk, which in most cases would be much more dangerous. The problem with such an approach is that the risks we think about are those most publicized by the media, whose coverage is a very poor guide to actual dangers. The logical procedure for minimizing risks is to quantify all risks and then choose those that are smaller in preference to those that are larger. The main object here is to provide a framework for that process and to apply it to the risks in generating electric power.
…
The failure of the American public to understand and quantify risk must rate as one of the most serious and tragic problems for our nation. This chapter represents my attempt to contribute to its resolution.
In this BNC post, Peter Lang provides a simple explanation of risk in relation to energy generation. In an Endnote, I quote a few passages from my recent book that also relate to this important — but often misunderstood — concept.
—————————————–
What is risk? A simple explanation
Guest Post by Peter Lang. Peter is a retired geologist and engineer with 40 years experience on a wide range of energy projects throughout the world, including managing energy R&D and providing policy advice for government and opposition. His experience includes: coal, oil, gas, hydro, geothermal, nuclear power plants, nuclear waste disposal, and a wide range of energy end use management projects.
A recent comment on BNC stated:
I for one am glad nukes are being forced to be orders of magnitude safer than coal because the risks are orders of magnitude greater
In fact, the risks from nuclear are orders of magnitude lower than coal, not greater. Let me explain.
Risk is Consequence of an event multiplied by the Probability of that event occurring.
We need to define what we mean by the Consequence.
For electricity generation the consequence could be (for example):
1. Fatalities
2. Work-days-lost
3. Total health effects
4. Total damage costs (including health, environmental, etc.)
Fatalities can be subdivided into ‘immediate fatalities’ and ‘latent fatalities’. Fatalities can be subdivided into ‘workers’ and ‘public’.
We must define which measure of ‘Consequence’ we are using. Let’s keep it simple and use ‘immediate fatalities’ as our measure of ‘Consequence’.
The consequence of an accident might be 30 immediate fatalities (as happened at Chernobyl). The probability of occurrence might be 1 in 14,000 GW-years (123,000 TWh). The risk of such an accident is 1 fatality per 4,000 TWh (equivalent to 1 fatality in 20 years from severe nuclear accidents if all of Australia’s electricity was generated by nuclear power).
Now refer to Figure 1. To understand what this chart is telling us, consider the pink dot labelled “Chernobyl”. This is plotted at 28 Fatalities on the x-axis. Reading off the y-axis we see the frequency of nuclear accidents causing 30 or more immediate fatalities is 1.1 x 10-4 GW-years (or 1 occurrence in 9,000 GW-years of electricity supplied). That is about 1 immediate fatality in 2,800 TWh (equivalent to about 1 immediate fatality in 14 years from severe nuclear accidents if all Australia’s electricity was generated by nuclear power).
Figure 1: Risks of severe accidents in the different energy chains in the EU. Original Source of this chart (link no longer available). Original Data is in Figures 7 and 8 is here.
Now look at the coal accidents (the brown line). For accidents with the same number of immediate fatalities as Chernobyl we see that the frequency is about 1.15 x 10-3 GW-years. So, the frequency of severe accidents that causes 30 or more early fatalities is 15 times greater for coal generation than for nuclear generation.
Also on Figure 1, notice the pink line in the lower left corner of the chart. This is the Probabilistic Safety Analysis (PSA) of nuclear generation. It indicates that nuclear is about 4 orders of magnitude (10,000 times) safer than coal generation.
This chart includes only the immediate fatalities caused by severe accidents. It does not include the latent fatalities. For coal generation most of the fatalities are latent fatalities and these occur in the general public, not in the workers. However, in nuclear and renewable energy generation most of the fatalities are amongst workers in the industry — workers anywhere in the chain from mining materials, processing, manufacturing, construction, transport decommissioning and disposal. The figures are from full life cycle assessment.
For nuclear and renewables the Fatalities per TWh of electricity supplied are roughly in proportion to the quantity of materials needed per TWh over the plant life. However, for fossil fuels, the fatalities are dominated by the fatalities to members of the public due to the toxic emissions. The fatalities to the workers are dominated by those involved in the fuel extraction.
Figure 2 compares the total health effects of the main types of electricity generation in the EU. It shows that, in the EU, nuclear is about 50 times safer than coal generated electricity. Nuclear is safer than all except hydro in the EU.
Figure 2: Mean values of health effects, presented as deaths/TWh for the respective forms of electricity generation throughout the EU (Source here).
Outside the OECD, fossil fuel and renewable energy generation is much more dangerous that in the EU so nuclear is even safer by comparison.
—————————————–
Endnote (Barry Brook): Here are some extracts on this topic from recent book, Why vs Why: Nuclear Power:
Nuclear safety and serious accidents
Safety is the most common fear about nuclear power, yet the nuclear power industry has an excellent operational safety record.
A study of 4,290 energy-related accidents by the European Commission’s ExternE research project examined the number of deaths per terawatt hour of energy for each of various technologies. It found:
- oil kills 36 workers a terawatt hour
- coal kills 25
- gas kills 4
- hydro, wind, solar and, yes, nuclear, all kill less than 0.2
(These figures ignore deaths from pollution and global warming.)
…
The fearsome reactor meltdown or terrorist act: what is the worst case scenario?
There is no limit to what the imagination can come up with regarding industrial accidents.
Imagine if a fire broke out in a natural gas refinery on the outskirts of a city. High winds then carried the hot embers aloft, setting ablaze nearby suburbs and the surrounding forest. What if this triggered explosions in adjacent chemical plants? This chain of events might ultimately lead to a city-wide conflagration that killed hundreds of thousands of people. Such a scenario is exceedingly unlikely, but not impossible. In the end, it is the probability that matters.
There is, for instance, some risk that a terrorist could hijack an aircraft, hit a reactor with pinpoint accuracy, breach containment, and cause the release of nuclear material. However, it is an incredibly low risk that all of these things will occur together. For instance, it has been estimated that only about one in every 1,000 direct aircraft strikes might crack a steel-reinforced concrete containment dome.
…
If we want to increase global security, then it is counterproductive to hope nuclear power will simply go away. We should instead discuss how to use this low-carbon energy source safely and cleanly, with minimum risk and maximum advantage. The risks of not employing nuclear power vastly outweigh the dangers of continuing to use fossil fuels or running out of energy.
Brave New Climate 
168 replies on “What is risk? A simple explanation”
Hi guys,
interesting stuff. I think I pretty much agreed with the main points you’ve raised above if you read all my comments in context.
Analysis like this will keep the bean-counters happy about ‘generic risk’, which is the rational global way to think about risk. However, as I said in the context of the debate,
Which is of course why I wanted to see the language about ‘not paying too much for safety’ turned down somewhat, as it implies cost cutting on the power plant itself. And as we saw in the discussion, this is not what Peter was arguing at all!
LikeLike
Barry, The EU’s assessment of the risks associated with hydro are most certainly low. Mass hydro related deaths can be triggered by unusual rain events.
LikeLike
[…] on July 4, 2010 Barry Brook made a post on Facebook that I particularly like. It’s a link to some quotes from Prof Bernard Cohen’s book “The Nuclear Energy Option.” Remember Barry Brook being Australian has even more work […]
LikeLike
Charles. Your “contribution” is rather disconcerting.
How about clean up workers from Chernobyl? Where are those accounted for?
There is no such risk in hydro. When the water is gone everything thats left is structural damage.
There would be also some risk in cleanup.
Has there ever been any fatality from a failing wind turbine?
LikeLike
Thank’s Barry and Peter. This is an important issue to discuss about. The numbers are clear, but people have emotions about something far more dangerous and that is difficult to change by showing numbers. The ‘big risk’ of nuclear is a very common argument against NP. Greenpeace said in one document that radioactivity released from nuclear veapons and from nuclear power are going to kill one million people worldwide. This was an argument against the two new NPP’s in Finland. How would you answer to such a claim?
There are also claims about risks of nuclear wastes and mining. They say that a leak in ‘Onkalo’ could destroy the whole Gulf of Bothnia, thousands years into the future.
I’m interested in uranium mining and it’s effects to the environment and people nearby. I never visited a uranuim mine and have not a very clear picture about it in my mind. Maybe a post in BNC about uranium mining and enritchment some time in the future?
LikeLike
Eclipse – when I first heard Peter talk about the need to lower safety factors it caused an initial shock followed by some quite reflection followed by in principle agreement.
I would agree with you that in a political debate designed for the unfocused masses such a remark about safety could be unhelpful but that is not the type of debate that happens in blogs such as this.
LikeLike
I think a lot of people believe in a magic thing called luck that trumps probability. If you win the lotto against the odds it is due to luck. If a nuclear reactor is built next door then bad luck can trump the odds and cause it to melt down. People may not say they believe in this magic thing but their behaviour (eg in buying lotto tickets) suggests that they do.
The other thing I notice about people is that the risk of collective simultaneous death is weighed much higher than the risk of distributed individual deaths. For instance if in any given year there is a 1 in 100 chance that a road accident will kill any one of us and a 1 in 100 chance that a cosmic event will kill every one of us then even though the consequence of the two risks is the same (ie 1% of population is expected to die each year) people will be willing to expend a lot more to avoid the second risk, or at least they say they would be. I believe this is a genetic adaptation where in our evolution death of the tribe had a greater selective effect than death of one individual. From the vantage point of our near immortal genes the death of the entire population is the only real threat and death and destruction on a smaller scale is merely noise.
LikeLike
Back in 2007 Environment Minister Peter Garrett thought Chernobyl had killed 30,000 people. By 2009 he was approving new uranium mines. @ Kaj that was underground chemical leaching out in the desert (Four Mile) but hard rock drilling for uranium next to Adelaide’s water supply (Myponga Dam) was not allowed.
LikeLike
Katherine Wells pointed out that aiming for 2 degrees of global warming is poor risk management. Current strategies of a 50% risk of 2 degrees by reducing carbon emissions by 80% are not good enough. We need a much faster deployment of nuclear power to avoid unacceptable risk. See: https://bravenewclimate.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/recent_climate_change_science_kw.pdf
LikeLike
I think most people are happy to leave the risk calculus to the engineers etc and will drive across any give bridge on faith that the engineers did their job right. However when something like Chernobyl happens people question whether the engineers are doing their job. Without the means to directly calculate the risks most of us operate on faith.
LikeLike
One historical event worth mentioning when talking about industrial risk is the Bhopal accident. It’s amazing how many people has forgot it or don’t know about it. Everyone do remember Tsernobyl. Why? I have no idea. Witch one killed more people? It’s somehow emotional.
LikeLike
It is an interesting discussion, but as I said on the other thread, most people aren’t aren’t actuaries or engineers and are not always risk trading in a purely rational way. Part of risk tradsing, even amonggst highly rational and informed people is about perception.
The more apparently catastrophic the risk becomes and the more it involves people you care about, the less attention people pay to secular risk. That is why coal and gas and hydro get such a good run. For most people, it doesn’t matter if they are in practice a lot less safe than nuclear over time. The risk is largely borne by people that the users of these sources don’t care about because they are at geopraphic, social and temporal distance and because the damage is summative.
One sees the same with what is called rather horribly the road toll. People accept it because they think the damage probably won’t affect anyone they care about and it is a slow drop on a regualr basis.
Nuclear power accidents however, are, in the minds of many, existential and as Chernobyl showed, can utterly change the nature of states for generations. It doesn’t matter if people believe this is a tiny possibility, any more than aslmu seekers coming by bvoat are a tiny risk. A petrol taker that kills four times as many people in the DRC as Chernobyl is not an existential threat. Nuclear power? There it is — an existential threat.
That perception is what one must deal with politically.
LikeLike
So, following on from what I wrote above, how does one change the “brand” of nuclear so as to emphasise its advantages over other forms of generation?
One way might be to have a website with a rolling clock of the various heads of morbidity (and the totals) associated with coal, gas and oil and then nuclear. You could even adjust it so it would be power output related — say in BTUs …
Oil would be difficult because including the morbidity associated with war would be controversial, so you’d probably have to leave that to one side. Since we aren’t sure exactly how much morbidity will be associated with the 20th- and 21st-Century GHG-forced climate anomaly we’d probably have to leave that out too while noting it in passing. Yet even if we did, there would be rapidly rolling clocks for coal, oil and gas and one that was almost completely still for nuclear.
We could call it “the Energy-Toll”. We could even include costs for wind via gas usage where that applied.
Somewhere there should also be a cost in human health bill for coal and gas — related to other aspects of fossil fuel epidemiology — like poisoning from mercury from coal emissions or asthma from aerosols from gas plants.
It’s probably much too complex to do of course, but even if we managed no more than quarterly updates I think this would begin to make real in people’s minds things that are not all that real for them. People would be reminded that coal and gas and oil are not really all that cheap if one attaches a value to human life.
This is the thinking that drives me to think that a nuclear version of the IPCC should be set up in this country to report on issues related to nuclear power and to bring certainty to discussion where there is ignorance and hysteria.
LikeLike
I think the nuclear brand is improving and I think it is due to the constant set of reasonable arguments that get put to the public. The way to improve it more is in my mind to continue along much the same path. At some point we will hit critical mass. Excuse the pun.
LikeLike
Thanks for the comments so far.
Isn’t it interesting how much people want to get into discussing risk in relation to nuclear power but have no interest in having a similar discussion about risks for coal, carbon capture and storage, solar, or the chemical plants dotted throughout our cities?
Much research has been done on how people assess risks. TerejP and others are correct with the comments about people’s perceptions. However, the important point is that the majority of people do make rational decisions once they have the information. The Finns have just demonstrated this by voting 120 to 70 in favour of two new nuclear power plants in preference to renewable energy. The Finns have a better understanding than Australians do. So we need to inform our public so they reach the same level of understanding as the Finns. We will not achieve that by hiding the facts, as some on ‘Open Thread 4’ were arguing to do.
Safety of the nuclear generating system is more than adequate and better than any other alternative. Since the safety of nuclear is more than adequate, what we should be concerned with is how we can get clean, safe, secure energy at the lowest possible cost. The cost is where our emphasis should be. On other threads we’ve discussed why it is important to get clean energy at the least possible cost.
My message is:
We should focus on cost not safety. Safety of nuclear power is more than sufficient.
LikeLike
Stephan @ https://bravenewclimate.com/2010/07/04/what-is-risk/#comment-78845
Figure 2 above is a comparison of ALL the health effects that result from electrity generation by the technology listed.
Yes, it does include the projected, long tern (latent) deaths due to Chernobyl – and similarly for all other types of electrcity generation. The figures in Figure 2 are comparable for all technologies. The figures include the short and long term health effects from the mining, processing, manufacturing, construction, operation, decommissioning and disposal of all the materials for all technologies.
Have a loook at the linked reference to get a better understanding of how this is done.
LikeLike
Just want to say thanks for an excellent and informative post on the safety advantages of nuclear power generation!
LikeLike
Stafan, (sorry for spelling mistake in my previous post)
You might like to look at figure 6 here: http://manhaz.cyf.gov.pl/manhaz/strona_konferencja_EAE-2001/15%20-%20Polenp~1.pdf
It shows that, on the basis of accute deaths across the whole world, hydro is about 100 times more dangerous than nuclear.
LikeLike
Peter said:
On the contrary, I don’t see cost as the key issue. Within reason, people don’t care about cost if they have reliability and perceived safety.
Right now we must rebrand nuclear power as the safe, clean, environmentally-friendly, sustainable alternative to fossil fuels. Most on the right already think it is economically viable.
We must show that on all the criteria that matter to those favouring renewables, nuclear does better or no worse. The TCASE series here has built an impressive body of evidence here to sustain that claim and we should not walk away from that by loose talk about lowering the bar on safety.
LikeLike
Kaj, @ 5 July 2010 at 6.02 Said
I agree with you about the perception of risk.
However, I do not believe we should get dragged into discussing all the various components of the risk – such as the mining component. I’d advocate we simply point out, continually, that nuclear is far safer than what we accept now. So by adopting nuclear we will be better off from a safety point of view as well as from many other points of view (as long as nuclear generated electrcity is no more costly than what we have now).
Then we need to point out that demanding excessive safety, as OECD countries have done to date, means nuclear is too expensive. So we stay with dirty old fossil fuels. We will continue to delay until we get rational. We need to realise that it is cost that will control the decision to embark on nuclear in Australia, not safety. We need to demand a level playing field for safety requirements – that is the regulations are the same for all types of generators.
Yes. But people are starting to see through the ridiculous scare campaigns run by Greenpeace and other like minded groups. Your wonderful country has just demonstrated, by their 120 to 70 vote in favour of nuclear instead of Renewable Energy, the majority can make rational decisions once they are properly informed.
I would not advocate that approach. I do not think we should single out one component of the entire electricity generation life cycle. It is misleading to do so. If we were to look at mining, why just pick on uranium mining? Why not compare coal extraction and transport, oil extraction and transport, gas extraction and transport and the extraction and transport and processing of all the materials involved in the life cycle of a solar PV cell or a wind farm? We should not single out one component of the complete life cycle.
LikeLike
Fran,
I realise you represent a group who doesn’t understand finances and believes it is irrelevant (they think money comes out of an ATM). I do hear what you say. But IMO, it is this group, that you represent, that have been preventing progress since the time of Bob Hawke and before. So I’d advocate we bypass this group and educate the majority that will make the decisions – just as the majority did in Finland once the facts were placed before them. The group that you represent will stick with Greenpeace type beliefs for ever. There is no changing them.
LikeLike
While I certainly don’t accept your slur on left-of-centre (and some non-political) people as not “understanding finances” the fact remains that you cannot “bypass” them.
While they object, no progress will be made, because the right has bigger fish to fry than getting nuclear power up and running. Neither major party grouping will move on the issue.
LikeLike
Fran – cost is what killed the ETS. To suggest that people don’t care about cost is horribly naive. The reason Tony Abbott keeps saying “great big new tax” and “Labors debt” is because he knows, and rightly so, that people do care very much about costs. If they didn’t then his mantra would be totally pointless and Rudd would still be PM.
LikeLike
My experience of left of centre people is that opposition to nuclear power is pretty weak. If a left of centre leader (eg Gillard) was to say we should have nuclear power then they would fall in behind. The difficulty for the ALP is that the Greens will then pick up the far left.
In terms of the right I think there is less ideological opposition to nuclear power but there isn’t wholesale advocacy either. Many right of centre people have the same fears and concerns as left of centre people. And they are less troubled by the existing energy infrastructure.
LikeLike
No it isn’t. What killed the ETS was the indebtedness on the right to mining and on the left a fear that this was some sort of greenwashed equivalent to the hanky panky that caused the GFC with payment to big polluters thrown in plus Stve Fielding — a representative of 2% of Victorians thrown in.
The question is — who that is opposed to nuclear power doies so on the basis of it being too expensive?
Answer: almost nobody.
If we can present nuclear power as being opposed by corporate shills who want to trash the planet, and who know the price of everything and the value of nothing, then the left will split and the ALP can look to wedge the Liberals with its own left flank protected. Most of these won’t dare vote Liberal, even if the Libs were to oppose it — and they obviously couldn’t anyway, so defecting would be pointless.
We’re a long way from there right now, but that is where we must go if we want to get this done. Make nuclear power look like low risk and high reward for the ALP and they will get on board. That is how to unpick the Gordian knot.
LikeLike
Fran,
I am not sure that would be a good image to have on a pro-nuclear web site, but it has given me an idea.
I’d like to see a chart that shows the cost of electricity versus safety. The safety scale could be of total health effects – in units of equivalent deaths per TWh. The safety axis would range from what nuclear is at now to what the worst electricity generation technology is at now. The cost scale would be in $billion/TWh.
Reading from Figure 2 above we can see that the total health effects of generating electricity from coal is 25 deaths/TWh and from nuclear is about 0.5 deaths/TWh.
We can now work out the cost of safety.
Very roughly Electricity costs from existing Australian coal fired power stations might be say $25billion/TWh and from existing European and US nuclear plants (Gen II) say the cost is the same, i.e. $25billion/TWh.
Now we can work out the cost of the extra safety of the nuclear plants.
It is huge and totally irrational. I am not going to print it here (because of the emotional reaction it will inevitably cause). You can work it out for yourself.
Now, just before you all jump out of your trees and slaughter me, I do recognise that we cannot redesign the NPP’s that we would buy. We’ll have to buy off-the-shelf designs and comply with IAEA regulations. However, my point is that safety of NPPs is excessive, we are paying a great deal for it, and we can afford to look for the least cost plant available with little change to the safety – because all plants are exceedingly safe compared with the safety of our existing generation plants. We do not need to pay a lot more for a little extra safety. Most importantly, as we discussed on Open Tread 4, the cost of the regulatory imposts that Australia requires is what we must find a way to minimise. We must also find ways to minimise the investor risk premium (such as for sovereign risk), and also overcome the ‘First of a Kind’ costs.
I repeat my message:
We should focus on cost not safety. The safety of existing nuclear power is more than sufficient and it is improving all the time.
LikeLike
Nor do I, Peter, advocate spending a lot of extra money for a little extra safety. OTOH, the optics of cutting safety to save a little bit of cost play very badly before those you have to win over.
Where the rubber hits the road this is entirely theoretical though because each new design will be by definition, at least as safe as the last design. So why present yourself as wanting to cut safety when you can’t? It makes no sense.
LikeLike
Fran,
This discussion is pointless because you have little understanding of the financial side nor any interest in it. You do not understand that it is the finances that make nuclear a go or no-go. We are not talking about a little cost, we are talking about huge cost differences. No matter what imposts are imposed to try to keep your folk happy nuclear will never be OK. It will not matter how much we spend, your folk will never be happy. So I say forget this group. They are irrational. Leave them aside and deal with those people who can act rationally once they have the facts.
I feel it is totally futile you and I trying to discuss this. You are ideologically bound and that drives everything you argue.
LikeLike
Fran,
Can I ask you to try to change your thinking for just a little while. Could you try this:
1. What do we need to do to bring nuclear power to Australia at a cost that will be competitive with coal?
2. What do we need to do to bring nuclear power to Australia at a cost that will be substantially less than coal?
The reason for the second question is because cheap electricity will much more quickly displace fossil fuels, not just for electcity generation but also for heat and transport.
Humour me for a while Fran. Give this a go.
LikeLike
Peter – can you offer some insight into to the size of the savings that you think are achievable if safety is cut to more reasonable levels.
LikeLike
Or even better Terje — what safety features does Peter think don’t stack up in cost-benefit terms?
1. Nuclear power is already cost-competitive with coal if the costs of coal are internalised. Indeed, it is already cheaper if you take account of the epidemiology of coal and gas, the imposition on the transport system of shipping coal, GHGs etc
2. Why would we need to price nuclear power at a lower nominal price than coal?
You win the internet irony award for today by claiming my ideology gets in the way of analysis.
LikeLike
Fran,
I presume you are going to avoid my suggestion to try to tackle this from a different direction. https://bravenewclimate.com/2010/07/04/what-is-risk/#comment-79010
Is my presumption correct?
TerjeP,
Not an easy question. I’ve mentioned in previous posts on other threads comments like:
We need to get nuclear at about A$3,000/kW to be competitive with new coal.
The contract for four APR1400s awarded by UAE to Korea will cost about A$4,100/kW. But this carries a cost premium because it is a First-of-a-Kind for UAE. There are also higher costs associated with building in UAE than Australia. On the otherhand there are what I see as huge impediments to trying to build anything like NPPs in Australia due to the public’s ability to make ridiculous demands and to disrupt the process, seemingly forever. Most of such disruption would be claimed to be on the basis of ‘safety concerns’. NPPs are being shut down in the USA on the basis of trumped up safety concerns.
My gut feeling is that, even if we removed the ban on nuclear, the government made lots of nice noises about encouraging the development of nuclear, gave subsidies to get over FOAK, and gave loan guarantees, we’d still pay a penalty of around 100% at the moment.
Just to lay it all out, I also believe that if the anti-nuclear brigade had not caused the nuclear designers to have to over design NPPs over the past 40 years, we would now have about twice as much nuclear power as we do, a lot less coal power, nuclear would be replacing coal around the world, more of the world would be electrified, their would be less poverty.
Importantly, I believe nuclear gnerated electricity would be about 50% of the current cost of electricity. Electricity would be much more widely used for heating (instead of gas) and for transport instead of oil.
That is what I think the Green groups and their followers have done to us – and are still doing (although they cannot see it).
LikeLike
TerjeP,
I think this is a correct sunmmary of the position.
LikeLike
Peter Lang:
You are, at last, beginning to clarify in more specific terms the ways in which you would like to see nuclear power become cheaper.
These include subsidy for FOAK, a fair wind from government in streamlining planning consents and the provision of loan guarantees. Given subsidies for renewables, these appear to be reasonable requests/demands. You could add the requirement for an efficient regulatory system to prevent delays – one not supervised by any with closet anti-nuclear sentiments. Standardisation of designs would also help. However, none of these suggestions should have any adverse impacts on safety and you claim that, even were they to be effected, your gut feeling is that nuclear power would still be double the price of coal-produced electricity.
Given that you would like nuclear power to be cheaper, you regret that the anti-nuclear brigade has forced nuclear designers into costly over-design. However, that’s history and all approved designs are, therefore, by your definition, overdesigned. What do you want to do about it?
In a previous communication, you were apparently wanting Korean reactors of the type being constructed in Saudi Arabia. You described them as cheap to build and operate. When I asked why they should be any less safe, you failed to answer and contented yourself with an ad hominem attack – a response typical of you when any have the temerity to challenge your omniscience. It seems, now, however, that you have concluded that said reactors will still be too expensive unless you start stripping layers of redundant safety features from their design. Do you live in the real world or a parallel universe in which past errors can be instantly rectified with the wave of a wand?
If you want nuclear power to be deployed rapidly, you will have to go with existing designs, accept those designs and not tinker with them. One could argue that 4th Generation designs with the potential of more inherent safety features (and hence less need for redundancy in designing safety), modular construction and factory build might prove significantly cheaper. Would you prefer to sit back and await their availability rather than deploying existing safe designs now? If so, how wouild you find the start charges necessary for their rapid deployment?
If you trouble to respond at all, I’d be grateful if you’d answer the questions. Another explosion of bile in the form of misrepresentation of my views will only serve to increase my distrust of your judgement, even on matters such as renewables which I used to believe were evidence based and reliable.
LikeLike
Stefan, on 5 July 2010 at 5.48 : “Has there ever been any fatality from a failing wind turbine?”
Yes, of course!! just a quick look reveals for example :
http://www.windaction.org/news/18626
A broadside accident occurred Wednesday in St. Cloud between an oversized-load truck carrying wind turbine parts and a minivan, resulting in one death of an 85 year old lady (not a wind farm worker).
&
http://www.windaction.org/news/23138
Maintenance worker dies on Caithness wind farm
&
http://www.windaction.org/news/19331
Fines for deadly Worth County windfarm accident
&
http://www.windaction.org/news/16306
Oregon, Siemens settle case in wind turbine death.
hmmm, thats 4 deaths just from a quick look. They are all interesting reading…
Also see the Caithness Wind Farm accident statistics :
http://www.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk/page4.htm
Of course non-human fatalities are larger e.g. birds, bats. See here relating to eagles for examples :
http://www.iberica2000.org/Es/Articulo.asp?Id=4382
LikeLike
this one is the latest :
http://www.windaction.org/news/27419
News is coming in of an accident at the Port of Harwich in the UK, where a crane has dropped a wind turbine blade this moning. We understand from people at the scene that a 45 tonne blade root was being lifted in an H-type lifting frame by the jack up vessel Sea Jack, when the frame gave way and dropped the load onto the banksman employed by Siemens.
Hmmm, another Siemens accident.
Have a look at some here :
http://www.windaction.org/news/c49/
the original report on the Siemens collapse in Oregon :
http://www.windaction.org/news/11539
A wind turbine tower crashed to the ground at a wind farm east of The Dalles, killing one worker and injuring another, Sherman County authorities said. Sheriff’s Deputy Geremy Shull said the collapse occurred Saturday afternoon. He declined to release the names of the workers, but said the man who died was from Goldendale, Wash. The injured worker was in serious condition at a hospital in The Dalles, Shull said.
LikeLike
Douglas Wise,
I got to this bit:
which indicates you are still continuing with the same bating nonsense.
Go back and answer the questions I asked you and you still haven’t answered. Until then please keep your personal opinions of me to yourself.
As far as I am concerned you continually derailed all attempt to discuss what needs to be done to get nuclear to Australia at a competitive cost, and you continue to do so. I wonder if you are one of the types trying to disrupt the threads that DV82XL and Finrod have warned us about. The pattern certainly looks like like it.
LikeLike
Peter Lang:
I really don’t know whether continued dialogue with you is likely to serve any purpose.
You invit eme to go back and answer the questions you asked me. On this topic, I can only find one question – a collective one addressed to Fran Barlow, EclipseNow and myself. You stated that it was your position that we opposed a level playing field for electricity generation (stated in a variety of ways) and asked if you had misunderstood our position. Fran has already given her answer in an explicit way and, from my last response, my own views should have been implicit to a reader using cognitive rather than emotional faculties. However, to avoid doubt, yes, you have misrepresented my position as you have on other occasions (eg in relation to globalisation).
If you took the trouble to read carefully what has been written, rather than going into an instant state of emotional self justification at any hint of criticism, you would appreciate that our views are not that far apart on the issue of nuclear safety. It was not your views, but your clod-hopping way of expressing them, that I took issue with. (Have you ever heard the expression “with friends like you, who needs enemies?”?)
I will ask if I am misrepresenting you by suggesting the following: You advocate the import to Australia of Korean NPPs, the design of which you then wish to modify on economic grounds in order to strip out layers of redundant safety.
As far as I can tell from a logical analysis of your posts, this is what you are saying. However, I credit you with more intelligence than to believe that this is what you really mean. By the way, have you read Charles Barton’s recent posts on safety at his site? I would also commend you to read what DV82XL has written on the subject in past threads here.
LikeLike
Just for the record Peter, I’m in favour of doing anything to make nuclear power cheaper that does not compromise the level of safety we have now attained. I absolutely support the idea of picking the best few configurations for mass production and rolling them out. That ought to cut the cost quite a bit. It might even contribute to safety in practice.
That said I find it odd that someone who enjoins us so often not to get down into the weeds keeps doing so himself. I accept that you and I share a jurisdiction but sometimes it is hard to believe you have been paying attention to the last 30 years or so.
If you and I can persuade the bulk of those who currently oppose nuclear power that it won’t wipe out large swathes of the country for agriculture Chernobyl-style, insidiously cause mutant babies or cancer or leave them with irradiated food by waste leaking into water tables, they won’t care whether it costs $4000 per kW or $400per kW. Fail to convince them of that and it won’t matter if it costs $40 per kW. It won’t even be discussed. It’s as simple as that.
LikeLike
Douglas Wise,
I feel the same way. When you actually contribute something instead of trying to twist everything I say and place it out of context, I may take some interest in what you are saying. At the moment I see you as trying to disrupt. This impression stems back to when you continually wanted to raise red-herrings about ‘stranded wind turbines’ and ‘tidal pond storage’ as a distraction from contributing to the discussion about what we really need to do to get nuclear power at a cost competitive with coal. I note that you have never been prepared to contribute, positively, to that discussion. But you do want to put your ideological beliefs burried in cleverly disguised questions with long introductions. So I can’t be bothered playing your distracting games any more. So please spare me any more psychological analysis.
LikeLike
Fran,
You write so much utter rubish, with ongoing burried attacks, that I can’t be bothered with it. You haven’t answered the question here: https://bravenewclimate.com/2010/07/04/what-is-risk/#comment-79010. When you have a real go at doing so, I’ll take an interest in your prattle.
You are infatuated with wanting nuclear at 10 to 100 times the safety of coal and think that would be a level playing field – I suspect you are simply trying to push your ideological agenda.
You must have been absent for 30 years if you don’t realise the nonsense you are preaching is the same nonsense preached for the last 30 years by the groups who’s ideological beliefs you support. You may not have noticed that during the 30 years you and these groups have been pushing these beliefs, we’ve made no progress on nuclear. I suspect in this case correlation is a fair indication of cause.
LikeLike
bryen, its good to see you posting again here.
Thank you in particular for your link to the article on bird strikes. I have seen many commenters remark that bird strikes are not an issue, that cats kill many times more birds than wind farms and so on. Rubbish. Show me a cat that came off better in a tussle with a Tasmanian Wedge Tailed Eagle. To read that TWTs are being killed at Woolnorth in Tasmania, and that hundreds of eagles will be killed at a new windfarm in Victoria, leaves me furious.
The article mentions kills of orange bellied parrots. A few weeks ago I travelled to Melbourne, to French Island in Western Port Philip Bay, with hopes of seeing an orange bellied parrot. No luck. I found a ranger on the ferry back, who told me they hadn’t been seen in years and now very few in number. My 13 year old son, a keen birdwatcher, was crushed by the news. I fear his birdwatching from here on out will be marked by many such disappointments.
Maybe the best hope of seeing an orange bellied parrot is to look for carcasses under wind turbines. Bastards.
LikeLike
TerjeP said:
“I think the nuclear brand is improving and I think it is due to the constant set of reasonable arguments that get put to the public. ”
This optimistic message resonates with me. The work of BNC is contributing to the progress that is being made. At the same time, disasters in coal mines and the oil leak in the gulf of Mexico are reminding the public that the winning of fossil fuels kills people.
Looking to the future, nuclear fission has many ways of becoming even more safe than it is today:
1. Molten Salt Reactors can be designed to be inherently safe even if all pumps and electronics fail.
2. MSRs can operate at atmospheric pressure, thereby reducing the probability of an explosion.
3. Thorium fueled reactors imply a factor of 4,000 reduction in ore volume, thereby reducing the probability of mining accidents.
4. MSRs can consume the nuclear waste from earlier generation NPPs, thereby addressing one of the issues that has been used to scare the public.
I could go on but DV8 will probably do much better.
LikeLike
gallopingcamel,
You hit the nail on the head, add its negative temperature coefficient of reactivity, and the fact that MSR coolant won’t catch on fire, and the fact the core plug will melt and drain the core if it overheats, and the ability to clean noble gases and volatile fission products as well as any other fission product you care to remove from the fuel salt, and you have the ultimately and absolutely safe reactor.
LikeLike
Yes, Charles. We’ll get there …. if we can ever get started!!!
Well said Galloping Camel.
Good point about “Eagle Mincers” John Morgan, although I tend to leave this type of argument to the emotive types. For me, all environmental costs should be properly compared in the Life Cycle Analysis of external costs – such as done in the ExternE Project and many studies before and since. I don’t like to pull out one item like bird kills because then others point out: “but more birds are killed by cars and windows (on houses and buildings)”.
Some argue that the anti-nuclear brigades use emotion so the pro-nuclear groups need to too.
LikeLike
Nuclear power advocacy and the emphasis on nuclear safety versus cost.
An irrational person says: “I don’t care what it costs, I want nuclear to be at least 10 times safer than coal, or I’d rather stick with coal”
A rational person works out where our liminted funds are better spent. What is the least cost way to save a life? Is it better to spend our limited funds on making the electricity supply industry safer or to spend it in the Health industry (for example). Which gives us the greater return for our funds?
Let’s consider an example. The cost to save a life by replacing coal with nuclear in Australia (at ten times safer than coal) would be about $1 million per life (from the figures above). That same amount, if spent in the Health industry, would save about 5,000 lives.
The rational person would say “spend the funds on Health”. The irrational person just does not get it. They want to spend the funds wherever their emotions lead them.
We are offered the choice: save 1 life for a cost of $1 million or save 5,000 lives for a cost of $1 million. The emotional/irrational person says: “I don’t care about the cost, I want nuclear to be 10 to 100 times safer than coal; otherwise I’d rather stick with the devil I know (coal)”.
The nuclear debate in Australia has been dominated by the emotive, irrational people for the past 30 odd years. I suggest it is time to try a different route. Let’s get to where Finland got to in its recent vote: 120 for nuclear, 70 against nuclear. That means we need to work to provide information to the rational majority and leave the emotive, irrational people to carry on discussing their fears with the groups such as Greenpeace, ACF, WWF, Green Party Australia, and the controlling influences in the Labor Party, etc.
LikeLike
Peter Lang wrote : For me, all environmental costs should be properly compared in the Life Cycle Analysis of external costs..
I have zero time at the moment to reply, but I agree here wholeheartedly! The LCA should be properly addressed for wind, to date it hasn’t been by the time it gets to the planning and development stage. (which would mean it would be addressed rationally, not emotionally).
LikeLike
It seems clear to me Peter that you are incapable of or unwilling to understand simple logic. Your path can lead nowhere.
Your strawman on “cost per life saved” is simply a vacuous, evidence and model-free and futile attempt to cover what is essentially the single-minded pro-business position you take on every issue.
LikeLike
Be interesting to check the $4000/MWe against the cost of a new CCGT. I m of the opinion that is about the same, but hope that someone knows more than I.
LikeLike
What is wrong with being pro business? A world without business would be pretty awful.
LikeLike
Cohen makes a general statement about where he gets “most” of his information, on risk assessment and everything else he writes about in the book you take your quote from him from, i.e. “The Nuclear Energy Option”.
Cohen’s discussion starts on page 4 of Chapter 1. http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter1.html
Pro nuclear advocates who think climate science is a hoax or is somehow or in some way unsound, which is a lot of the U.S. pro nuclear advocates, would do well to read this chapter.
I suspect it wouldn’t matter.
Pro nuclear advocates, I’m finding out, cite whatever source that agrees with their beliefs, and ignore whoever and whatever they have a problem with even if its the same source.
I wonder how many would agree with what Cohen says in his chapter 1, even as they quote what he says in his chapter 7.
LikeLike
What Cohen says in Chapter 1 as given by your link seems at first glance to all be reasonable enough. Perhaps you can quote the contraversial portion because I couldn’t spot it.
LikeLike
Peter Lang said
“…We’ll get there …. if we can ever get started!!!” But so long as the pro/anti nuke debate is polarised along left/right political lines you never will. Even in opposition, an anti-nuke left wing party retains an effective veto on construction because they constitute an unacceptable degree of sovereign risk for anyone contemplating investing. The implied threat that when they get back in they will change the rules so as to ensure losses for plant constructors is too great a risk when there are plenty of other places in the world – mostly in Asia – to invest without taking such risks. You have to win the political argument, and shouting insults at the opposition is a poor strategy.
People like Fran – and Gwyneth Cravens and Stewart Brand and a growing list of converts, famous and otherwise – are extremely valuable because they know the arguments that convinced THEM, and are far more likely to be able to make the case to their former fellows. Anyone who can be convinced to support nuclear power by the kind of rationalist arguments you are presenting is already convinced. You are preaching to the converted, and we need missionaries to the heathen – and as a missionary, I fear Peter would have made a good stew.
On a lighter note, this old joke illustrates a rational solution that is likely to be politically difficult
LikeLike
I will make one further observation Peter and then leave you to play in your own rather murky pond.
Someone wishing to discredit nucear power could cite your estimate that it costs 5000 times as much to save a life using nuclear power as by resort to health system spending to utterly discredit state support for nuclear power. On these figures, saving a life by resort to nuclear power would become competitive with resort to the health system when nuclear power cost $0.80kW to install. I doubt you can roll out 4kW of even the most unsafe NPP imaginable for less than the cost of a gourmet icecream.
You spend so much time abusing of others for being driven by ideology, yet it is very clear that you hope to press this campaign and this place into the service of a broader right-wing cause, and with this in mind you will not shrink from making even the most absurd of claims. That is unfortunate indeed.
Teje said:
What is wrong with preferring business advantage to human wellbeing you ask? Fairly obviously, a policy of preferring the interests of a handful of alreaqdy privileged people to the interests of the many who are not would be a nightmare.
Again, this shows where your political paradigm takes you Terje.
Doing right by the majority does not entail having a world without business. That is simply a silly strawman of your devising. The challenge for policy is the more complex task of reconciling legitimate business activity with the interests of the populace as a whole.
LikeLike
Luke,
I understand what you are saying. I’ve been listening to the same argument for the past 30 odd years. There is nothing different about repeating it again now. There will always be a group that will hold their beliefs no matter what. I disagree with you that explaining the facts to the rational people is “preaching to the converted”. This is not correct. The vast majority of the public have only heard the scare campaigns run by the Green groups for the past 30 years. They have never been exposed to the facts in Australia (unlike in Finland where people are better informed than here).
So I say let’s get the facts out to the public. When we get to 120 for, 70 against nuclear we’ll be in good shape. That will not happen while nuclear is a more expensive option. As long as nuclear is safer than coal, and has a path to become safer still not less safe, that is plenty good enough. Demanding that nuclear must be 10 to 100 times safer than coal will not be supported if it means electricity will be more costly than from coal.
LikeLike
Quite right Luke. I cut my political teeth, inter alia fighting uranium mining in the 1970s. I worked hard with ALP activists in 1977 to put as many obstacles in the way of development of mines at the ALP conference that year. During the 1980s I was with a left-wing party that had no view at all on nuclear power and was indifferent to uranium mining, but personally I didn’t like the position and quietly assisted those of like mind. After I left in the 1990s I went back to assisting renewables and opposing nuclear power with whatever resources I could muster. I got to know pretty much all the players and knew which arguments against would work for which people.
It’s also a mistake to assume that all people opposed to nuclear power are on the left. The nimby factor is huge here. Very few people, even of those who accept nuclear power being reasonable, like the idea of nuclear power plants within range of their homes or holiday houses. On the day after someone said — let’s bring nuclear power to Australia, the anti-nuclear nimbies would make the anti-wind nimbies look like rank amateurs. 2 dozen coalition MPs and almost all ALP MPs would swear on a stack of bibles that they’d not countenance nuclear power in their electorates. We had a presentiment of that when Howard made some off the cuff remarks prior to being defeated at the last election.
The major parties know that and so, until the safety issue is neutralised, there can be no progress. Nobody who lives in this country can be unaware of this reality.
Let me be clear: I don’t think Peter Lang is trolling — I think he really believes what he is saying makes sense. The trouble is that it would be about the worst thing you could say to anyone who is not utterly enamoured of nuclear power. Casting nuclear power as the most pro-business solution if only we could abandon all those messy safety regulations is exactly what a divisive troll would assert. People doing the job I was doing up until about 2003 would cite this loudly and often to harden up the opposition.
LikeLike
That isn’t what I asked. I asked what is wrong with being pro business which is what you criticises Peter for.
LikeLike
Fran – if you said you were pro nuclear and I infered that this meant you prefered nuclear power to human wellbeing don’t you think that would be something of a deliberate distortion? Likewise if somebody said they were pro environment or pro liberty or pro privatisation.
LikeLike
I’ve refined my rough scenario analysis of the cost of requiring ridiculous level of safety.
I calculate a cost per life saved if we implement nuclear instead of coal. I consider four options based on different total health effects of nuclear relative to coal. The four options have the ‘total health effects’ of nuclear as 100 times, 10 times, 2 times and 1.25 times safer than coal. (1.25 times is 25% better)
I assumed the following cost of electricity for the scenarios;
New coal = $50/MWh
100 times safer = $100/MWh
10 times safer = $80/MWh
2 times safer = $60/MWh
1.25 times safer = $40/MWh
I assumed Australia generates 200 TWh per year.
I calculate the cost per life saved as follows:
100 times safer = $2 million
10 times safer = $1.3 million
2 times safer = $0.8 million
1.25 times safer = -$2 million
The last figure is negative $2million per year.
No matter what assumptions we enter, it is clear that we are far better off to get nuclear at least cost – as long as it will give us better total health effects than we have now., which clearly replacement of fossil fuels with nuclear will do.
LikeLike
Terje’s last post posed the question as follows:
Which, avoiding his strawman, I congruently rewrote as follows:
Terje then continued:
It is what you should have asked, had you not been keen on inviting me to accept your own paradigm as a condition of responding. For Peter, it is clear that being pro-business is favouring, in his words, lowering the bar on safety to the low standard of coal in order to create a level playing field at the worst possible level for human well-being. This is a mere instantiation of what it means to be pro-business or to have “business friendly” policies more generally. Everyone on both sides knows what this means. Your faux naivety fools nobody.
LikeLike
Peter Lang, on 6 July 2010 at 10.01 — There are standards, widely acepted, for cost per life saved. I don’t know the current figures (which would hae to account for inflation), but the figure used to be around one milion dollars.
LikeLike
Nor have the other advers effects, on the environment, been figures into the price of using coal. These ar currently absorbed by the enivornment, in the form of degradation, and not internalizeed by the coal burners.
LikeLike
Somebody forgot to tell me.
I think you are expecting us to accept your paradigm. Which is that business is bad for human well being. I’m not inclined to go there.
LikeLike
Fran hasn’t answered my question above yet. I wonder why she avoids it. Here it is again. I invite every one to contribute to answering these two questions:
1. What do we need to do to bring nuclear power to Australia at a cost that will be competitive with coal?
2. What do we need to do to bring nuclear power to Australia at a cost that will be substantially less than coal?
The reason for the second question is because cheap electricity will much more quickly displace fossil fuels, not just for electicity generation but also for heat and transport.
Please, everyone, have a go.
LikeLike
Peter – your costings justifying cheap nuclear are compelling but you need to do some work articulating the basis for these costings. Assuming they are correct the cheap nuclear is indeed compelling and I think this is a very useful way to frame the argument.
LikeLike
David B Benson,
I agree that there are widely accepted figures for the average value of a life. The ExternE project has detailed studies of the cost of total health effects. The value of a life depends on the country. You are probably correct that it is around $1 million in USA. Last time I knew the figure for Australia it was around $500,000.
However, that is not what I am talking about. What I am trying to convey is that the very best thing we can do is to get nuclear implemented as soon as possible. The cheaper the better in many ways. So we should not hold up the process any more by demanding excessive levels of safety. Any thing better than coal is good enough, as long as the path ahead is for improved safety compared with other cost competitive alternatives.
Cost is what counts.
By the way, we do have a reasonable idea of the cost of externailities. We’vee been studying and reporting on this for 30 odd years. The ExternE project is one of the most authoritative studies on the cost of externailites for electricity generation.
LikeLike
TerejP,
Thank you for the question about the basis of the costings. I can’t post the spreadsheet here and it is not worth publishing it as an article. But perhaps Barry might have access to someone more qualified than me who could do this analysis and write an article.
If you are simply asking me about the basis of my assumptions of the cost of electricity for the different scenarios, I’ll explain how I came up with my rough figures which range from $100/MWh for 100 times safer than coal to $40/MWh for 1.25 times safer than coal. According to Figure 2 in the lead article for this thread, nuclear is about 100 times safer than coal in the EU. According to the ACIL-Tasman report, the Levelised Cost of Electricity (LCOE) sent out would be (roughly):
new coal = $50/MWh
nuclear = $100/MWh
I have argued on other posts why I believe nuclear could and should cost less than coal. So I’ve assumed $40/MWh for the case where nuclear is 1.25 times safer than coal.
It matters little what figures we apply, the principle is the same. That is: we need least cost electricity as long as it is no less safe than what we have now and will get safer over time.
LikeLike
David Lewis,
Thanks for that link: http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter1.html
Like TerjeP, I went ahead and read all the way to chapter 7. In my opinion an excellent account that has stood the test of time quite well.
My disagreements with Cohen are mostly quibbles. For example his calculations of long term mortalities arising from the Chernobyl disaster are based on a linear model that has been shown to be pessimistic by more recent studies.
LikeLike
I likewise see nothing to argue about with Cohen’s chapter 1. So, this is the opinion of people who are seriously concerned with anthropogenic climate change (me), neutral (TerjeP) and unconcerned (gallopingcamel). So David Lewis, what are you saying?
gallopingcamel, in later parts of his book he looks at evidence for and against the LNT model, and finds none of the former and plenty of the latter. In Ch1, he was using it as a ‘null’, prior to his detailed exposition on why it is likely to be invalid.
LikeLike
Estimates on generating costs are dependent on the capital investment required to build the plants in the first place. My (admittedly rather dim) understanding is that coal fired plants are cheaper to build than NPPs.
No doubt this is well documented elsewhere on this site if I was patient enough to look for it. Assuming a 1,000 MWe plant size:
Coal plant capital cost ~ $1.50/We USA, “Clean Coal”
Nuclear plant capital cost ~ $6.00/We, USA, Price-Anderson Act
Oak Ridge National Laboratories is promoting the construction of Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors. These reactors would be so safe that the spat between Fran Barlow and Peter Lang (et. al.) over safety would be moot, yet ORNL predicts lower capital costs than for coal plants:
http://energyfromthorium.com/2009/04/12/lftr-cost-may-run-as-low-as-1-billion-per-gwe-of-generating-capacity/
DV8 (where are you?) would point out that we don’t have reliable materials for containing the molten reactor salts yet. Maybe he can tell us how big a problem this is likely to be. Is it like the confinement problem in fusion reactors or can we expect a solution in my lifetime?
LikeLike
Terje said:
Whereas I think you are trying to do an end run around my explicit claim above that reconciling legitimate business activity with human well-being is what good public policy entails.
This is not at all the same thing as claiming that business is bad for human well being. So again, you are the one playing fast and loose here.
Plainly, that’s exactly where you want to go, because you feel you’d like to take a picture of me dancing with this strawman.
LikeLike
Fran – if you don’t want to be framed on the basis of the words you use then use different words.
LikeLike
John Morgan and Bryen,
You might be interested in this: http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk
Off topic but I posted it in relation to yesterday’s comments.
LikeLike
Terje tried:
Either that or I should find more honest (or perhaps perspicaceous) interlocutors. You could choose to enage with what was being said.
Again you underscore the point I made about Peter. Your own paradigm obstructs you either understanding simple English or accepting it as the basis for discussion.
LikeLike
Fran,
The things you keep saying about me apply to yourself. You are avoiding answering the question I put to you above. It is quite clear you are avoiding it and I expect the reason for this actually reflects on your motives and your integrity.
I think this applies:
LikeLike
You’re right Fran
When I go out to sell opponents on the idea of nuclear power, I put the added safety right up front. That is the key selling point over coal and gas — that is is way safer.
Not a bit safer, but 100 times safer. I was down at the pub a while back chatting with one of my doubting colleagues while watching the cricket and I said to him — whom would you want batting for Australia? Jim Higgs? Bruce Reid? Donald Bradman?
He was incredulous that there was that much difference. We got into a whole discussion about radioactivity and mercury from coal plants and silicosis and I pointed out the real human costs of that.
In the event that someone repeats Peter’s comments back to me — and I have sent a couple of acquaintances here, I am going to simply point out that every good movement attracts the occasional oddball and not to judge us all by the standards of our most eccentric brethren.
It is clear Fran that Peter and Terje are simply unwilling to deal honestly with anything that doesn’t fit with their agenda and to simply try and hector others into silence for the sake of not making a fuss. You’ve been very patient Fran, but I’ve had my own run-ins with Peter in the past and in my experience, when he gets to this point (really — childish paraphrasing! I know I am but what are you?), he is simply out of the reach of reason. It might be best to just let him have the last word.
LikeLike
Hmmm. All very interesting, if in places, a little tiresome. I think it would be in everyone’s interest to take a break from arguing about cost issues to actually get out there and point out that something like 53 countries have now decided to include nuclear power in their future energy mix. They would have presumably debated all of the cost,safety etc issues before deciding that nuclear was a big part of a clean, safe energy future for themselves and the planet. I mean China is currently building 24 reactors, Vietnam has 14 planned and Finland has another couple on the go. I’ve just written to Julia Gillard, Martin Ferguson, Bob Hawke, Don Argus and a couple of SA MHA’s urging them to get the outdated, illogical, hypocritical anti-nuclear policy of the ALP changed. Why don’t some of you join me in getting stuck into our leaders. I’ve been doing it for 12 years now and we are making progress. More and more are coming to accept nuclear now and so all of we pro-nukes should be shouting its benefits from the rooftops.
LikeLike
Ewen,
Why don’t you argue nuclear must be 1000 times safer than coal before you’d consider it?
If you cant give a rational answer to this question it should alert you to how irrational you and Fran are being on this issue.
I simply cannot understand why you and Fran think that cost is not the key discriminator. But this argument sure is a reminder of how the irrational, emotive people think. Luckily, they are not the majority.
LikeLike
Terry, I agree and I have been writing to our federal MPs and Senators. I’ve posted some of my recent letters to them on Open Tread 4. It was Fran’s response to one of my letters and the ensuing discussion that prompted me to write the article at the top of this thread.
I accept your point the argument is tiresome. However, I feel it is important to refute the nonsense being sprouted by Fran, Ewen and occassionally others.
LikeLike
Because it isn’t. Few know what it costs, and fewer still care. It’s power. Like water or petrol, you pay what you are charged. End of story.
What an embarrassing admission to make, but it’s scarcely surprising. I grant you though, the argument you put is tiresome, especially since, as eclipse points out, it’s not actually something you can do anything about. All you can do is derail the part you can do something about — getting nuclear power accepted by those who don’t accept it by having a totally pointless rant about something on the other side of a not yet achieved reality.
I could almost understand that if a commitment had been made we might want to have a discussion about what was worth doing and what was not, but that’s so far off, I can’t but wonder what you are attempting to pull here.
LikeLike
I’ll try to make my point another different way.
Suppose the government offered the Australian people the choice between:
1. Nuclear power, 100 times safer than what we have now, but the cost of electricity will increase by 100%, or
2. Nuclear power, 25% safer than what we have now and electricity cost will be reduced by 20%.
Which do you believe the Australian population would vote for?
LikeLike
Ewen – I’m not trying to silence anybody. I have merely disagreed on several points and on the whole I have tried to remain polite.
I agree that people need to be brought up to speed on the safety of nuclear power. I agree that this is key to winning people over so long as they are assuming that nuclear is unsafe. However I don’t think this is incompatible with the view that there is a trade off between cost and safety and that nuclear power is currently too safe. In fact claiming that nuclear power is too safe underlines the fact that it is safe even if in a somewhat confronting manner.
LikeLike
I should also say that as part of offering the public this choice, the government would advise that higher cost electricity means:
1. a reduction in Australia’s international competitiveness
2. Which means that the economy will perform worse
3. Which means higher costs for everything and less remuneration for workers (on average)
4. a reduction in services and higher costs for services
5. reduced funding on Health, Education, Infrastructure, environment, etc.
6. Slower replacent of coal fired power stations and slower reduction in CO2 emissions.
LikeLike
Actually “Nuclear power is too safe” would make a great title for a speech at the Festival of Dangereous Ideas.
LikeLike
Ewen
You, Fran and some others see the best way to get nuclear accepted in a very different way to me.
I understand your proposed approach is influenced by you believe are the people who need to be persuaded to get nuclear supported.
I am influenced by what I believe are the people who need to be persuaded.
I am convinced I am correct. You are convinced you are correct.
I am convinced you are wrong because I have seen what you are arguing argued by Bob Hawke’s government and pretty much the same ever since. This approach has failed.
I am convinced I am correct for many reasons. The fight over the RSPT (Resource Super Profits Tax) and the government’s partial back-down on it, is one recent example that convinces me I am correct. There are many others. These demonstrate the majority of the public has an innate understanding of when they are being conned. They realise that higher cost electricity means they will be worse off. Just as they realised that if the government applied the RSPT they be worse off.
The public wants to cut CO2 emissions, but not if it is going to significantly reduce their standard of living, reduce their income, increase their costs, etc. They do understand this, but in a gut feel sort of way, not in the way of a cost benefit analysis. They just know when they are being treated as mushrooms (fed BS and kept in the dark).
I am completely convinced that it is the cost that will be the clincher. I believe it will not matter how many of the Green activists you can convince, if we cannot offer nuclear at a cost competitive with coal, it will not get supported by the majority of electors.
That is why I am totally convinced that it is the cost that is the issue we need to focus on.
And I do believe we can get nuclear to Australia at a competitive cost. But we cannot do that if we are demanding nuclear be 10 to 100 times safer than coal. To me that argument is completely irrational. It is the sort of argument the majority of the electorate will see through and class an BS – or all spin and no substance.
LikeLike
TerjeP,
Yess. Too safe and, therefore, too expensive!
Unnecessarily safe.
Unnecessarily expensive !!
LikeLike
Stephan, any one who has studied the Banqiao disaster knows that there can be thousands of deaths that occur as an aftermath to hydro failure.
LikeLike
Lang, like many on BNC, will have been one of the lads in the front row in mathematics classes who were the teacher’s pet while sleeping through history and English lessons, especially the poetry ones.
Nothing new there, except that I would ask him as engineer to review his unshakeable “faith”, because that is what it is, in his notions of Emotion and Irrationality. An engineer ought not to use tools which are not fit for purpose.
By now there is a considerable science literature on the nature of these two natural phenomena and how they have been shaped by evolution.
As that literature is written in the natural science mode by eg graduates in physiology or medicine of the type who Lang, as Reason adherent, would gladly consult for health problems, and not “just” by Green Loony Left (sic) psychologists reviled by him and persons like him, I am sure he would find perusal of it edifying and credible
LikeLike
Charles.
As I understand all these fatalities have been accounted for.
LikeLike
The ultimate cost of electricity may not be a factor in influencing whether people such as Fran and her associates support nuclear power, however, there are far more people on low/moderate incomes, pensions etc who will regard their ability to pay to be THE deciding factor.
Fortunately everyone’s vote is equal in our democracy thus the majority will decide on the future of nuclear power in Australia.
I agree with Peter – a reasonable price will be the clincher.
LikeLike
This thread is being derailed – please let us all get off our hobby-horses and get back on track or seek another blog to pursue their ideologies.
LikeLike
Ms Perps
The majority (65%) think we shouldn’t have troops in Afghanistan but that doesn’t mean that the issue will so much as arise at a general election.
You must win over coherent election-winning cohorts to get policy changed in a country where a 5% swing on an existential issue gets you government.
LikeLike
Peter Lang:
You ask how nuclear can be brought to Australia at a cost equal to or less than that of coal.
I suggest that a society that has access to the most affordable energy is, all other things being equal, going to have a competitive advantage over other societies. Furthermore, access to cheap energy can provide huge lifestyle benefits. David MacKay, for example, has suggested that one human slave will only be able to provide 1kWh/day of useful work to his owner in the absence of fossil-fuel derived power. Thus, each of us is currently powered by the equivalent of hundred(s) of slaves, thanks to fossil fuels.
I would agree with Peter, therefore, that energy costs are of major importance. To this extent, I disagree with Fran and Ewen that it doesn’t matter too much what it will cost to obtain clean energy. I also agree with Peter that nuclear power has the potential, from a physical and engineering perspective, to provide power more cheaply than can coal and that costs are higher than they need be due, in part, to the activities of anti-nuclear campaigners and political and regulatory responses to them and, in part, due to the nature of existing approved NPP designs.
Back to Peter’s question: The only immediate and practical way of getting nuclear costs down relative to coal is to make coal more expensive by internalising its non CO2 emissions costs and, further, requiring that CO2 is captured and sequestered too (or taxing it). In the longer term, new nuclear designs offer the promise of providing power even more cheaply than dirty coal does now.
Peter rightly says that, if Australia makes its power more expensive, it will put itself at a (short term) competitive disadvantage to those societies that don’t transition to clean energy. However, he rejects a partial possible solution – the imposition of tariff barriers against non compliant states.
The best that Peter can hope for is that nuclear is introduced into Australia with full governmemnt backing and that safety is supervised by a professional regulatory agency with no inbuilt anti-nuclear baggage. Existing designs of NPPs will then provide power more cheaply than can renewables and not much more expensively than newly constructed coal plants with non CO2 emissions control. One could then look forward to (or hope for) falling power prices following licensing and introduction of new generation designs.
To give the impression, as Peter now does, that Australia must win over its electorate to the adoption of nuclear power while simultaneously (and uniquely in the world) making it more dangerous seems to me to be naive in the extreme. (Please accept that less safe will, by antis, be translated as more dangerous.)
At Peter’s request, I have omitted the temptation to ponder in public about his psychological state – a conciliatory gesture.
LikeLike
I don’t know that even this is the correct thread for this Douglas Wise. Check out the war on Open Thread 4! It had Fran and Peter attacking each other and psychoanalysing one another and then playing interesting word Cludo by the end of it.
The in-fighting at BNC is getting bad.
I begged Peter to explain what safety expenses he wanted to cut. I initially agreed with Fran’s concerns about the language providing ammunition to the anti’s. In the end he was talking about reducing anti-nuclear activism that stalls constructions and blows budgets, as we have seen occur in France, not reducing actual plant safety. If Peter could only explain that more clearly in less inflammatory language then I think it would be more accessible. I can agree with Peter’s concerns, but think it is way too premature because nuclear power is still illegal in Australia.
But what concerns me MORE than Peter’s word choice is that BNC is degenerating into a bunch of armchair generals throwing down their own political ultimatums, dictating the way Australia ‘has to go’. In the meantime we are busy questioning the motives and psychological disposition of ‘opponents’ on BNC!
Some are stuck in the “Tears for fears” song, “Everybody wants to rule the world!”
What’s going on? Don’t we all want nuclear power adopted in Australia? Don’t we agree (for now) that the first problem is one of public education? Don’t we want to educate the public about the benefits of new reactor designs? Or do we want the whole nuclear movement to short circuit right here, right now, in the mother-of-all pissing contests on BNC?
The bottom line: getting BNC emails is starting to become a chore, especially when I realise it’s just another political rant. I wonder if we need a mission statement that we can all agree on, at the most basic level?
LikeLike
Well said Eclipse.
LikeLike
True, but a microcosm that is, in general, reflective of the sort of debates that go on in the real (non-cyber) world. Hence my decision to only ever use the debating methodology discussed here. Fran and Peter will never convince each other, so why not try something else?
LikeLike
Good point, Barry. I’ll try to develp this approach. It will be a valuable skill to learn, no matter whether it succeeds at first or not. I agree, what I’ve been trying isn’t working. However, my son is coming tonight to stay for day or two, so I’ll be off-air more than on. Hopefully others may try to resolve this in the meantime.
I’d welcome contributors thoughts on these questions I asked up thread:
and these:
LikeLike
Barry – I’m all for persuasion via respectful questions. However your article on the topic does not say what to do when basic questions are take as evidence of a faulty paradigm or are ignored entirely. Rarely do people willingly submit to a series of questions based on somebody elses logic chain. I agree we should keep our cool but you’re presenting an idealised version of how a debate is prosecuted. In practice conflict is a somewhat inevitable product of divergent worldviews colliding. I’d suggest that the best option is to fight the good fight as diligently and politely as possible and then move on and don’t take it personal. That debates sometimes get heated merely proves that people care and that is surely a nice thing and probably even a good thing.
LikeLike
EclipseNow,
I thought I answered this before. It is not a question I can answer in the way it is framed. For one thing I don’t know anywhere near enough about the details of the nuclear fuel cycle. More importantly, it suggests the exact opposite of what I am suggesting.
I’ll try to explain why it is not a question I can answer. The owner can either specify the detailed design and call bids to build that design. Or the owner can state the requirements that must be achieved – the performance criteria.
If the owner knows more than the bidders about the overall system than the owner might follow the first approach. That is how the Snowy Mountains Scheme was built and how the French built their fleet of NPPs.
If the bidders know more about the overall system than the owner, as would be the case with building NPPs in Australia, then I expect we would follow the second approach.
Following the second approach the owner would specify the requirements to be met. If we were to be unbiased about which technologies we would accept (ie a level playing field for all technologies) we might include requirements such as:
1. the generating system must be capable of providing baseload power with availability greater than 95%, and capable of an average annual capacity factor greater than 80%.
2. The generating system must emit less than 50 g CO2/kWh.
3. The generating system shall have total health effects, at least 10% better than the existing generating system. (The method for demonstrating this would be specified in the Request for Tender).
The bidders will then submit bids to achieve the requirements we specify. They will find the most innovative ways to achieve our requirements at the least cost. The lowest bid that is fully compliant with all our requirements will win the contract. This is similar to the tender process I expect would have happened for the UAE bid which a Korean consortium won.
This is the way we get the lowest cost bid that meets all our requirements. It also does not specify any technology. Wind and/or solar with pumped-hydro and gas backup could bid for this if such a generating system could meet all the requirements.
I hope this explains why I cannot answer the question the way you framed it.
The bidder will want to know how we will supervise the contract. They will be evaluating the risk of disruptions and delays. They will factor the risks into their bids. We (the owner) has to find innovative ways to reduce the cost by such things as:
1. offering loan guarantees. From the bidders perspective it is very important that we have a sizeable investment or sizeable share of the risk so it is in our interest to prevent occurences of the risks that are the owner’s to control (eg workforce disruption, union activism, public disruption, etc).
2. Subsidies to offset the First-of-a-Kind costs
3. Laws to prevent public disruption that delay construction or operation.
4. Laws to prevent public mischief and the effects of changing governments changing their minds and reneging on previously made deals. This is a big cost risk to the bidders and Australia is not looking very good in this area. We’ve recently reneged on Telstra, the Resource Super Profits Tax, Gunns Pulp Mill, and many people would like to see the government close down dirty coal fired power stations without compensating the investors – “because they should have seen it coming”
5. Technology transfer to Australia
6. There are others, but that’s enough to give the idea.
LikeLike
This thread was about risk and I must profess ignorance about how such things are handled in Australia. Here in the USA we have safety regulations that are enforced at both federal and state level.
While working in North Carolina, I was responsible for nuclear operating safety in accordance with the state’s “Yellow Book”. While this involves a great deal of work it was still only a minor factor in our overall operating costs. Like everyone else working in this field, I strongly support the state’s oversight, audits and system of inspections. My point is that nobody is advocating an easing of the regulations relating to nuclear safety as they apply to day to day operations.
When it comes to reactor design (above my pay grade so I defer to DV8 in such matters) the big impact on costs is felt in federal regulations which ban certain designs and mandate sturdy containment structures. These are the regulations that would reject the Russian RBMK for use in the USA. I have have not come across anybody who advocates cutting corners in this area either.
So here is a question for people who are debating the desirability of building NPPs in Australia. Would you consider following US nuclear regulations or are you looking for even higher levels of safety?
LikeLike
while we all at times share eclipse’s frustration, and I have made the same type of plea (simultaneously not thinking it would do any good, and simultaneously aware that I was as much a source of antagonism as anyone else), I basically agree with Terje’s point above about conflicting world views (even as we both think each other is wrong about most things).
Most of us want to see safe nuclear power spread quickly around the globe, but we have fundamental differences on how this ought to take place, differences bound up with conflicting “paradigms,” or “world views.”
Further, these differing world views are bound up with our fundamental political allegiances. calling for common sense or pragmatism won’t do any good on these differences because pragmatism isn’t separate from these competing world views but is interpreted differently depending on that world view (crude example: pro worker, pro union/pro market/pro investor, etc). My view of pragmatism is that it sweeps the worldview problem under the rug, pretending that it does not have one.
Some of us see “unleashing the market” in a rational (a view of rationality that assumes that markets will bring us good things if we take off the leash or adjust it properly) regulatory environment as the key to spreading nuclear fast; others see “unleashing the market” as opposed to the forces of human cooperation and democratic accountability that need to shape the spread of nuclear power; or view the “unleashing metaphor” as itself fundamentally problematic since markets already contain their own leashing mechanisms. On this “view,” markets are not just about ceaseless innovation but about ceaseless barriers to innovation as well–asset inertia, sunk capital as a barrier to technological change, barriers to entry and exit.
That said, with an understanding of these competing views, we can probably avoid calling each other irrational, though it can be satisfying to do this: it vents our frustrations, and makes us feel smarter than rivals.
but it does no good, that’s for sure. though avoiding namecalling probably won’t do much good either on convincing others that their fundamental vantage point is wrong.
Not that I’m a relativist on these “worldview” questions. but I do think rational paradigm change is relatively rare because where a paradigm is sophisticated enough, it has lots of resources for maintaining itself.
(I realize that some may call their “conversion” to nuclear a paradigm shift and maybe it is but this sort of shift is easier than shifts involving things like class allegiances or sector allegiance–investor/union; boss/worker, conservative/liberal/radical etc)
LikeLike
“What is wrong with preferring business advantage to human wellbeing you ask?” – Fran
That’s a red herring if I ever saw one.
Cheap energy IS human wellbeing. Health care, material comforts and everything else becomes much less affordable if you are forced reckon with expensive energy. If you try to push deaths in the power industry too low, deaths elsewhere increase by more than the amount they decrease in the power industry because you blew all your resources in the wrong place.
LikeLike