Electricity costs exhibits

Arthur and some others, perhaps, appears to be tightly bound up with the notion that cost is everything. Firstly, the relationship between cost and price is sometimes neither rational nor linear. If it cosots me $100 to raise a cow, is the selling price determined by my costs or the marketplace?

Nobody has written of the likely scarcity of desirable technological options if/when the rush to nuclear begins and the oceans are going Canfield, or whatever. When scarcity comes into it, other factors come into play. What are the TERMS of sale? Cash up front, power by the hour, or whatever? Non-preferred and first-time customers will be at the back of the queue.

Similarly, the desire to establish both massive R&D programs and nuclear engineering schools as prerequisites to actual action is well-meaning but mistaken. There is little or no linkage between these factors and an NPP program based on current technologies. The engineers and operators can be retrained perfectly adequately as the plant is constructed. In fact, some may see this as ideal, because it avoids the need to un-train bad habits from the staff and then re-train to suit the world as it is. Example: Many Qld and Hunter Valley coal mines prefer cleanskin plant operators who know jacksh_t to putting on “old hands”. Their first day’s lesson starts: “This is a 300t truck… The front end is over there… I will teach you how to drive it…”.

There is a wide range of commercially available NPP’s available from sources around the world. The R&D for this particular technology is available off the shelf. The only rational reason for insisting that R&D is currently a constraint, even trivially, to the adoption of NPP’s is personal bias; perhaps driven from self interest or a blinkered and academic point of view.

The true constraints to decarbonisation through NPP’s of society, both developed and less developed, are ignorance, misinformation, poor laws and overregulation. Note: I do not include cost or price, because these are driven by the above four factors.

PS. Don’t know what a Canfield ocean is? I strongly recommend that you find out soon. This knowledge could be very very important to understanding the worst that might happen in the next one or two hundred years.

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Why is there no discussion of the issue that nuclear is far too expensive because we are demanding that it be 20 to 200 times* safer that coal; otherwise we don’t want it?

Once we can get our heads around this issue, perhaps we could start to address it.

* (Gen II are 10 to 100 times safer than nuclear, Gen III are claimed to be twice as safe as Gen 11, and even that is not sufficient for the Environmental NGO’s Greens and Labor).

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Peter Lang – I personally think that the whole issue of what is safer and by what multiple is more PR than it is anything else. To start off with, how is safety quantified in these estimates such that these assertions can be made.

Safety itself is a multidimensional parameter, and is ill defined in these arguments. For example, most industrial plants measure safety in terms of the number of man-days of labor due to accidents or injury, while in transportation it is often measured by deaths per passenger mile.

If the measure being used to judge ‘safety’ in comparing electrical generation technology is MTBF (mean time before failure) nuclear is inherently going to be better than combustion technologies.

This is because the need for higher reliability on those components that will be expensive and difficult to replace due to to the fact that many parts, and the areas they are installed in become radioactive. As a consequence, it is often more cost effective to over build certain parts of a reactor, than accept a shorter lifespan and replace them.

So until we have some idea what sort of safety is being measured, and how it is being measured, and what the ramifications of a failure are, it is not reasonable to, a) assign a numerical value and b) suggest there is room to effectively cut back.

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Woops. Sorry, wrong link in previous comment.

Please refer to “What is Risk; a simple explanation” here:

What is risk? A simple explanation

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This link may have been posted already. “UK Electricity Generation Costs Update”, June 2010, prepared by Mott Macdonald, a highly regarded engineering consulting organisation:

Click to access 71-uk-electricity-generation-costs-update-.pdf

Table B.1 gives the following figures in UKP/MWh (Case 1: 10% discount rate, 2009 project start at today’s EPC prices, with mixed FOAK/NOAK)

Technology; Total levelised cost
Gas CCGT; 80.3
Gas CCGT with CCS-FOAK; 112.5
ASC coal; 104.5
ASC coal with CCS-FOAK; 142.1
Coal IGCC- FOAK; 134.6
Coal IGCC with CCS-FOAK; 147.6
Onshore wind; 93.9
Offshore wind-FOAK; 160.9
Offshore wind R3-FOAK; 190.5
Nuclear PWR-FOAK; 99

Also notice figures 6.1 (FOAK) and 6.2 (NOAK). It is interesting to note that the Overnight Cost for nuclear is expected to drop 40% between the 1st unit and the nth unit. If we applied the same percentage reduction to the $3,800/kW capital cost of the first NPP in UAE, the 4 x 1350MW APR1400, then the nth unit (the settled down cost) would cost $2,280. That’s about the same as new coal in Australia. If our government would send the right signal to investors (i.e. the people want ‘least cost nuclear’ not ‘high cost, ridiculously regulated nuclear’) then the 26% investor risk premium that presently applies to nuclear would be shifted, overt time, to coal. With roughly the same capital cost, lower operating costs and 26% investor risk premium removed from nuclear and added to coal, the cost of nuclear generated electricity would be 50% of electricity from coal.

No carbon price is required to achieve the transition to lower-cost, low-emission electricity. We just need to clean up the mess of government imposed impediments to nuclear and send the right signals to investors through appropriate legislation. We need to make the investors investment in NPP secure against future changes of mind by the government and the people.

Also, notice in Figure 7.7 how the competitive position of nuclear gains on all other technologies so that by 2017 nuclear provides the lowest cost electricity of all technologies.

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To get cheaper-than-coal, low-emission electricity generation in Australia we need to do just three things:

1. Remove the impediments

2. Clearly state that the most important requirement is for least cost electricity – this means a lean regulatory regime is required.

3. Change the investor risk premium from nuclear to coal, and to a lesser extent gas. To do this we must send a clear, unambigouus message to investors that nuclear is wanted, and your investment is safe against changes of mind of future governments. You will be fully compensated for any such changes.

No Carbon Tax on electricity generation is necessary. Nor is it advisable if the real aim is to assist the world to cut emissions.

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the italian kitegen could be ramped up faster and would not suffer safety regulatiions already in place for decades. it would be cheaper also to built, decomission and repower. it could be built in any industrilised country. please do a tcase on the kitegen.

greetings from milan,
luigi

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Greg Meyerson,

I don’t trust the Wind cost figures because transmission, grid enhancements, and the additional costs transferred to the back-up generators are not included in the figure. The additional costs transferred to the back up generators include (this is not all):

1. The capital cost and fixed operating costs have to be covered by less electricity sold;

2. More starts and stops are required and more time spent in spinning reserve, part loaded and responding to fluctuatring power demand. This means more fuel used, shorter plant life, more plants are needed because each plant is only allowed about 3 start-stop cycles per 24 hours, higher maintenance cost, higher capital cost for plants designed for the operating environment imposed by fluctuating wind power). Without wind in the gris we’d have more CCGT and less OCGT. Without wind in the grid, I expect we’d need less gas capacity altogether (this is not waht the wind industry says, but I am not convinced by the “Capactiy Credit” arguments when applied to high wind capacity penetration.) These costs muyst be passed on to the customer as higher prices for electricity.

3. The gas transmission system has to be sized to carry the peak demand but less gas is used so the cost per unit is higher. There are major issues with the management of line pack too (the management of the quantity of gas stored in the pipes between maximum and minimum pressure). With irregular, unscheduled use as is the case with wind power in the system, it means the gas system must have more storage.

Other comments:

I also don’t trust the CCS figures. These figures are pure conjecture. About as (un)reliable as estimates of the cost of solar thermal and geothermal.

The LCOE of coal generation would be higher in UK than it would be in Australia. I expect gas would also be considerably higher than in Australia.

I expect the figure for nuclear is probably in the right ball park for UK, given it is one of the high cost environments. This is the point I keep on making. I expect many people do not want nuclear in Australia if it is going to be high cost like UK, USA, EU and Canada. I don’t want to embark on nuclear in Australia until we can get over what I consider ridiculous impediments to low cost nuclear. As long as the majority of nuclear advocates blogging on BNC are insisting they want high cost nuclear, I am opposed to it. (and please don’t you or the others that keep telling me to shut my trap about excessive safety requirrements, deny that you are demanding a high cost environment like USA, Canada, UK and Europe).

I want a solution that reducecs the cost of electricity not raises it. It is clearly possible because the countries actually building nuclear are doing it.

We have massive increases in demand for electricity ahead (eg desalination, electric vehicles, more industrialisation, improving standard of living meaning more demand on electricity, and move from gas to electricity for heating once the cost of heating with electricity is less than with gas).

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thanks a lot peter. I appreciate your answer.

so technically these costs are “telling the truth,” in terms of cents/kwh. they are just not giving us cents/reliable kwh.

are you satisfied with the caveat where they say that dispatchable and renewable are not comparable? or is this still misleading? seems misleading to me to treat renewable costs the way they do in this figure.

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peter: when you say you are not persuaded by the capacity credit arguments, does this mean you think the wind industry exaggerates firm power numbers?

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DV82XL,

Up thread you said:

I frankly don’t see that there is a lot of fat to cut on the engineering side of the equation, and I have written at length that the expense of the regulatory burden could be significantly reduced without raising risk by bringing it into line with procedures used in aviation.

I have a question to you. But first a preamble

There are three components where costs may be reduced:

#1. Design and construction

#2. regulatory environment, siting requirements, etc

#3. Investor risk premium, Sovereign Risk” security for investors, secure long term future for the industry (as distinct to what is now happening with the renewable energy industry)

You argue that little can be done regarding #1. I don’t think I believe this for future generations of fission power plants. However, I’ll leave this aside for now.

We can do a lot about #2 as you point out. But it cannot be done quickly because enormous bureaucracies with enormous numbers of stakeholders and enormous inertia are involved – IAEA, NRC, etc. What we can do is establish a lean regulatory regime in Australia, that is still consistent with the IAEA regulations (but at a minimum level not a maximum level). Many other small economies have done this before us, so we should take the best of what thye have done and focus on achieving an appropriate (light) regulatory regime for Australia. If we can’t get the media and politicans to focus on this, we’ll end up with a monster based on US NRC, or Canada or UK or EU. That will embed high cost nuclear in Australia forever. People here need to understand this and take it seriously.

The really big opportunity to allow us to get low-cost nuclear generation in Australia, quickly, is #3. As I said in a previous comment, we can, by passing new legislation and by removing the impediments to nuclear (of which there are huge numbers throughout federal and state systems), move the investor risk premium off nuclear and onto coal and gas. If this is fully achieved it would mean a reduction of cost of nuclear of 26% (based on MIT, 2009, for USA) and an increase of (I guess for the sake of argument) 26% to coal. This would make nuclear significantly cheaper than coal in Australia. I recognise my figures may be over the top, but it is the message that is important at this stage.

I am desperate to get the message across to others as to just how important it is that we change the message from what we’ve been sending.

We must offer the Australian public
cheaper electricity, that will also be low emission and safer than what we have nowl There will be transition costs until the industry is established. These transition costs will be carried by the government. The government must ecplain: Nuclear is necessary for the following reasons:

1. energy security in a carbon constrained world (no matter what the justification for the constraint may be)

2. Safer and cleaner environment than continuing with fossil fuel

3. The least cost way to reduce emissions from electricity generation

4. Only technology that can provide the amount of power we will need to meet the growing demand for: desalination, electric vehicles, airconditioning, replacement of gas for heating, increasing industrialisation, ever increasing demand for services and increasing standard of living.

Now for my question to you:

the expense of the regulatory burden could be significantly reduced without raising risk by bringing it into line with procedures used in aviation.

How would you propose that the world proceed to do this? (by the way, I strongly support the aim and believe it will happen, over time)? How could it be accelerated (realistically)? What are the steps? How long would it take (realistically)? My feeling is it will take decades in reality.

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Peter – The problem is your premise, that there is room to relax safety standards and thus reduce cost, is flawed, at least in terms of design.

I explained a bit up thread that higher performance in transportation technology simply requires higher reliability in components, which yields a greater safety margin as a bonus. The reason they are linked is because as speed, and payload increase, parts have to become more robust if they are to preform at all at the greater loads expected of them. As an example, we cannot go back to narrow, single-ply tires on our cars, they would not support the weight of the machine sitting still.

The point here is that GenIV will run at much higher temperatures, with higher neutron fluxes, and with exotic (read corrosive) coolants. Because of these factors, they must be built with stronger materials, and constructed to higher tolerances, which will increase the overall safety of the plant as a consequence.

If you are looking for a reactor suitable for the Third World, we do not need to go back to the drawing board as the PHWR offered by India’s NPCIL is available now. This reactor, a small CANDU knock-off is about as simple a design as one can get, does not require a large pressure vessel, uses very little in the way of exotic material, and runs on unenriched uranium. You can’t make them less expensively, and at 220MWe, they are the right size too for that market.

Frankly claiming without proof that nuclear is over engineered, is not going to garner much support in the industry. It is just not a credible position to take. And no one will take it seriously at all if you can’t point to where the over building, and over engineering is occurring. Simply saying ‘I believe’ to a group of engineers won’t get you far.

You should not use the Hanford reactors as any example. All of them needed such a massive amount of continual maintenance right from the beginning that had they been commercial power units, they would have been considered an abject failure.

However I agree that removing all regulatory impediments, is long over due, and all one has to do is look at the bloody nonsense going on in Canada as I write with the two overhauls of existing units in progress at the moment. The overzealous idiots providing inspection oversight refuse to apply basic failure analysis, and have consistently overreacted to the least deviation or finding with extreme and ridiculous demands that have driven these projects over cost and late.

I don’t see that it is impossible to reduce the regulatory burden on nuclear energy. Several years ago the Canadian government fired the chair of the Canadian regulator when she became obstreperous over reopening an isotope reactor that many countries depended on to supply medical material.

Because these commissions are independent, this could not be done by order-in-council, (whim of the PM) but had to go to Parliament as a whole. Even though there was a minority government in power, and even though this was a ‘nuclear safety’ issue that was bound to draw flack, the chair was dismissed. Why? Because public opinion wouldn’t stand for sick people being left holding the bag because of some defiant mandarin.

The reactor was restarted in a mater of days, and kept running until backup was arranged so that it could get a full overhaul. The lesson here is that with public opinion behind you, regulation can be tamed.

Frankly the issue of investor risk is also tied up with the regulatory environment simply because that is the source of the endless delays that plague nuclear projects in the US, UK and Canada. Once the distortions caused by these are removed, nuclear can take care of itself in the capital marketplace.

Thus the major thrust of the pronuclear movement needs to be outreach and education, because example after example shows that when enough people are mobilized, governments will listen. And getting regulation under control is just the sort of thing that public opinion can accomplish.

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@DV82XL:

Fine contribution, thanks. I see no value in presenting a public face which even hints that the success of nuclear pp’s, either in Oz or anywhere else, depends on reducing safety provisions.

The common ground on this thread appears to be the needs to:
1. Level the safety playing field, so that all energy technologies are expected to achieve, measure and report consistently, so that comparisons are chrystal clear (ie regulatory harmonisation);
2. Further level the safety playing field by using safety data to ensure equivalent outcomes (legal harmonisation);
3. Environmental comparisons between technologies be assessed against the same yardsticks (More regulatory harmonisation); and
4. Mobilising populations to demand that public and worker safety not be placed at unnecessary demonstrable risk (Public education and political policy formulation); and
5. Removal of redundant (ie duplicated or overlapping) regulation within the power industry.

It is this last where I perceive the greatest real gains can be made. It is also probably the hardest nut to crack, because of public misconceptions, lingering Helen Caldicott nonsense and outright spin coming from deep within established energy sectors against rational argument of anything nuclear, wind, solar or in any way “renewable”, whatever that term may mean in an era of throw-away solar and wind farms.

Note: I do not rate highly ad hominen attacks on contributors to discussions on this site; to hectoring of contributors; or blatant party political stances by leading contributors. All these are negative and are best avoided as we find ways to work together towards public acceptance of rational consideration of safe, clean, available, NPP’s, which while possibly not the absolutely cheapest option on Australia’s table, are certainly cheaper than many unreliable and/or unproven alternatives which are currently finding both public and private support and funding.

It is not about costs and funding. It is about building public and private support via development of an appropriate image, which culture wars and internal sh_tfights do nothing to achieve.

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In Table 2 the term ‘advanced coal’ could mean both supercritical water ( T>374C,P>230 bar) or gasified coal (IGCC) with conventional boilers. As far as I can tell no-one has set up a supercritical coal plant with carbon capture. An IGCC plant with CCS exists in North Dakota US but with atypical economics; it is fully depreciated, the CO2 is sold for oil recovery and no doubt the govt helps with subsidies.

It is interesting to note that both supercritical coal with CCS (as yet undemonstrated) and combined cycle gas apparently without CCS have been considered for the water cooled 2 GWe Bayswater 2 baseload plant in the Hunter Valley, NSW. The operators say that gas is too expensive but carbon tax will swing the decision to gas anyway. I wouldn’t be surprised if the decision still went to coal if they promised to be ‘carbon capture ready’. They’ll need to promise to pump captured CO2 to remote depleted gas wells, say a decade after starting. During that time I’d guess they would be exempt from carbon tax. Problem solved.

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@ Peter Lang:

Yes, I did say that, and some more. It’s time certain contributors took a long hard private look at the way they present their arguments, with a view to accenting the positive and avoiding the negative and thus perhaps to win hearts and minds.

I do NOT accept that by saying this that I am being in any way hypocritical. This is yet another dose of slander, but to what end? I’ve been accused of being socialist, left-wing, hypocritical, ignorant of commercial reality… on and on it goes – but for what reason? And to gain what in the end? Going out of one’s way to make enemies does not appear to me to be a smart tactic, yet many have copped this approach in these columns and I find now that I am accused of being hypocritical for objecting.

So frequently, on BNC, the negativity comes directly from one repeat offender who, instead of responding to argument, dives straight into the gutter of invective and displays his conviction in his own omniscience.

Peter is quite entitled to be proud of his original work which has led many of the threads on BNC – it is frequently concise, very readable, well supported by references and able to withstand critism well, emerging often unscathed.

It is the rude , personal stuff, mixed with doses of political prejudice, that devalues the good work. Decorum goes down the toilet and I am sure that it is not only me who feels this way, as an examination of the 100+ contributions to this thread would verify.

BNC would be a far better place to visit if a contributors’ code of conduct was respected by all, but this must start at the top or we will all progressively drift away to less unpleasant sites.

Barry has previously offered to delete the interpersonal stuff as well he may choose to do with this message, but this will not address the core issue.

Isn’t it time that standards were set and that polite respect was placed at the top of the list?

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DV82XL,

If you are correct that there is no realistic way to reduce the LCOE from nuclear plants, I guess we are stuck with coal, gas and some CCS for Australia for a while. Either that or we will introduce a high carbon tax or some other measure. However, I personally doubt that will get approved by the majority of voters, and even if it does get majority support it will not contribute to reducing world emissions. It just disadvantages Australia for no gain. Another dumb symbolic gesture.

I am becoming persuaded that Australia will have to live with coal and gas generation because of the deep resistance to nuclear in the community and the fact that even the main participants on this web site seem to be opposed to even discussing how to get nuclear implemented in Australia at a LCOE less than coal. Since BNCers have that opinion what chance is there for less knowledgeable groups? What chance of convincing the media or politicians that nuclear is a realistic solution that will reduce rather than increase the cost of electricity?

I haven’t suddenly arrived at this opinion. It’s been developing over quite a while I’ve been trying to get BNC contributors to discuss this issue for 18 months but it is clear that the contributors are turned off by this subject. They clearly prefer to discuss anything but.

I expect the reality is that Australia will continue with mostly coal, perhaps build some ‘CCS ready’ coal plants (what ever that means) for a while, build lots of gas plants, and play around with wind, solar, geothermal, wave and CCS to keep the population distracted.

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Apologies to all re crook grammer in para 1 above. You get the drift, I’m sure.

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John Bennetts said:

Yes, I did say that, and some more. It’s time certain contributors took a long hard private look at the way they present their arguments, with a view to accenting the positive and avoiding the negative and thus perhaps to win hearts and minds.

I do NOT accept that by saying this that I am being in any way hypocritical.

And, upthread he said:

Either Arthur doesn’t know what he is talking about or he is mischieviously passing on rumours.

Electricity costs exhibits

Arthur needs remedial reading classes.
…

Please, Arthur, do try to read and understand what is before you. As it is, some are probably doubting your intellectual capacity… why post nonsense and remove all doubt?

Electricity costs exhibits

Arthur is trying my patience again.
…

Arthur should try harder to keep up.

https://bravenewclimate.com/2010/11/07/electricity-costs-exhibits/#comment-106344

Thankfully and unlike some, I have no idea who Arthur is. Please don’t enlighten me.

Electricity costs exhibits

@Arthur,
Leaving the interpersonal shenanigans aside just this once…

Electricity costs exhibits

How generous!

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Ok, this is my “wrap-up” post, before disappearing again as promised in previous thread. See also the two external links from that comment for a “mainstream” version of my general position.

1. I’m glad Barry started this thread because of agreement with Peter Lang, DV82XL and me that costs are a “critical issue”. Differences over “how critical” in comparison to other issues that have been the focus here and differences over specific costs issues are less important than recognizing that.

2. I hope “Costs” ends up becoming a major tabbed section like “Renewable Limits” (the one I found most useful), “Sceptics” and “Sustainable Nuclear” (which may be of more interest to “regulars”).

3. In my view it would be really useful to graduallly develop a “primer” explaining how costs are modelled and helping people gain an intuitive understanding of relevant issues like capacity factors (as opposed to availability), dispatchability (as opposed to “baseload” versus “peak”) and “gambler’s ruin” (markov models of random walks for sunshine and wind and long transmission line and HVDC conversion forced outage rates for remote renewable resources in UnServed Energy estimation). There’s more than enough detailed information available from documents that have been linked here (and others readily available on the web) from AEMO, AER, EPRI, Mott & McDonald, ACIL, CIGRE, ABARE etc etc. A well expressed high level overview of the relevant factors would be far more useful than quoting snippets and random facts about particular projects and developments. It could actually influence policy makers who are clearly ignorant of these matters and incapable of understanding the more detailed material.

4. I am in full agreement that any minimal understanding of the issues would result in recognizing that solar and wind are a diversion from dealing with climate change issues and that nuclear is the least cost clean energy technology available now.

5. In my view a fuller understanding of the costs issues would result in agreement that 1) it doesn’t matter much what Australia does to accelerate locally switching to nuclear – the climate outcomes don’t depend on us but on what gets used in the countries now industrializing with coal and reaching NOAK deployment costs of nuclear here will have no significant effect in further reducing its costs worldwide compared with what’s happening anyway eg in China 2) Australia is likely to remain one of the laggards in switching to clean energy because of exceptionally cheap coal regardless of any changes in public opinion about nuclear 3) Australia could contribute far more to promotion of massive global R&D by example and it would be a more realistic strategy to counter the greenie promotion of “selling indulgences” for our high per capita emissions by nailing some theses to the door denouncing indulgences and demanding we cough up a major contribution to R&D and eliminate any subsidies to actual deployment of wind and solar and add those savings to our R&D contribution.

6. I agree with Peter Lang in the last comment I saw before starting this:

…Australia will have to live with coal and gas generation because of the deep resistance to nuclear in the community and the fact that even the main participants on this web site seem to be opposed to even discussing how to get nuclear implemented in Australia at a LCOE less than coal.

However I think the fundamental reason is that coal is so cheap in Australia and that would remain true if everyone here agreed with Peter and as a result were more successful in swinging public opinion.

The “deep resistance” would be rapidly eroded by a well financed education campaign if there was a realistic prospect of competing with coal and gas in Australia on LCOE. This “deep resistance” has not significantly inhibited uranium mining where there is money to be made, nor is there the slightest chance coal idustry export revenue would be sacrificed to “the greatest moral issue of our time”. I can even imagine the Victorian government simultaneously starting to shutdown brown coal stations to appease greenies while also promoting exports of brown coal if that became feasible. So I think there will be no problem overcoming the “deep resistance” once nuclear is ACTUALLY cheaper rather than merely potentially or allegedly cheaper.

7. Capitalist interests tend to only fund public education campaigns when there is money at stake and only perform R&D when they have hopes of capturing the benefits instead of letting benefits “leak” to the rest of the world. However they did fund the manhattan project during world war II and lots of Cold War R&D and there’s more hope of winning a fight for R&D funds than for any other alternative to their current tactic of spending whatever it takes to pander to and buy off greenies while fundamentally continuing with “business as usual”.

8. Even with everyone having exactly the same understanding of the relevant factors for projected costs with current R&D levels, opinions are certain to differ as to what priority should be given to different types of increased RD&D for basic research, strategic research, applied research, experimental development and demonstration into nuclear fission, fusion, renewables, geoengineering, known unknowns and unknown unknowns. That matters a lot less. Allocation decisions are unlikely to be influenced greatly by public debate anyway whereas switching expenditure from wind/gas and solar subsidies to R&D could be influenced by what we do.

9. Now as it is rude to invite comments without engaging in follow up, I’ll sign off by responding to comments I had not seen before my last comment in this thread, that appear to be responses to or related to things I said earlier (plus some others because I can’t resist, but with this advance notice that I’m not likely to be able to engage further).

In chronological order from timestamp below:

@David B Benson, 11 November, 10:08 AM

10. My speculation would be that Vietnam is buying more reactors instead of Australian coal for similar reasons to other countries like Japan, Korea and China doing so. Coal costs vary enormously with transport costs and are cheapest when low cost mines are local. The dramatic boom in Australian coal revenue results from export to these countries at boom prices which would encourage greater hedging of alternatives.

Also perhaps a strategic hedge to enable more rapid nuclear weapons development with sufficient skills base if needed in light of Chinese naval expansion and competition with Vietnam for ownership of various islands that may have fossil fuels in their surrounding economic zone.

Both suggestions are only unverified speculaton on my part. I’m not interested in looking up info on such snippets as they distract from the more important well established data on actual technology cost trends in much the same way that similar factoids from renewables advocates distract attention. See also less speculative response on similar factoids re China below.

Barry,

11. I have read the renaissance thread and fully agree that the nuclear fission industry was just having a nap rather than nailed to its perch. But its too early to call it a “renaissance” rather than simply “signs of life”.

China increasing its nuclear generation from 2% to 5% instead of 4% could be due to many things. One of them is certainly the very rapid expansion of coal generation leading to a swing from net exporter to net importer at boom prices from Australia.

There’s an article in the Sunday Age today from Guy Pearse complaining about “no hint of foreboding” and complete lack of interest in CCS at the World Coal Conference.

It quotes triumphalist opening session speech that since “great debate” on climate change began, coal consumption has gone from 3.6 billion tonnes p.a. to nearly 7 billion tonnes and is expected to reach 11-12 billion by 2030. Chinese coal is expected to rise from 3 to 5.5 billion tonnes by 2020.

If you call the reversal of decline in nuclear a “renaissance” what superlative would you use for the growth of coal and corresponding emissions?

Most of the extraordinarily rapid growth of Chinese coal has been in north China while much of the electricity load is in the south. Its interesting that most of the planned new nuclear plants are more in the south than the existing ones. This map shows only twice as many new blue and green dots (4) in the north as red dots (2) for existing plant, but 12 new or 6 times as many compared with the two existing that are not as far north.

As well as an increased hedge against coal costs rising, this looks like an essential step to avoid transport bottlenecks while expanding transport capacity to cope with the increased movement of coal. Upgrading a route also disrupts it, which you don’t want to do while it is already congested or you will have major traffic jams. Nuclear construction times under Chinese regulatory regime could be faster than upgrading rail and road links already near capacity limits.

It looks like they severely underestimated the amount of accelerated nuclear they would need in the south while expanding transport capacity.

Checkout the tens of thousands of coal trucks stuck in the world’s largest traffic jam, which looks like being recurrent for the next few years.

BTW the previous Chinese nuclear target of 70 GWe is about the same as the capacity shortfall they had a couple of years ago due to planning errors. Coal stocks fell below 7 days and they had to shut down some coal plants. The nuclear target total is comparable to Chinese planning errors. Rather a small hedge compared with the total.

DV82XL,

12.

…the fact is that a NNP, especially CANDU, or the Indian knock-off, can be built for about the same cost as a modern high performance coal burner.

There are more than 50 google hits for the words CANDU, cost and DV82XL together on pages at this site, so I’m not willing to check through them looking for a link or explanation.

I don’t know anything about CANDU or much about nuclear plant technology in general.

I do know that nuclear fuel and other opex costs are lower than coal so if there was was some available reactor type with lower capex than coal then nuclear would already show lower LCOE than coal. This would be a game changer and your link would conclusively end all argument.

I assume there is no such link and that this is some novel usage of the words “can be built for about the same cost” or of the words “modern high performance coal burner” that I am unfamiliar with.

Peter Lang,

13.

Why is there no discussion of the issue that nuclear is far too expensive because we are demanding that it be 20 to 200 times* safer that coal; otherwise we don’t want it?

FWIW as an observer with no claim to expertize on nuclear costs, the responses by DV82XL seem very convincing.

I gather you do both agree that unnecessary regulatory burden (as opposed to actual safety levels) significantly increases costs, especially by increasing the lead time for planning and construction before revenue starts offsetting the capex.

Please note that in developing countries the only regulatory burden is likely to be the cost of corruption. eg Most Chinese and Indian coal plants don’t have the pollution controls mandatory in developed countries to avoid acid rain etc and the safety record of the Chinese coal mining industry is quite deadly.

Indian and Chinese power engineers will certainly agree:

We don’t want safest. We want cheap electricity. The cheapest we can get!!

So nuclear ought to already appear competitive in such countries if EU and US style regulation is the only obstacle. Nevertheless the figures still show higher LCOE for nuclear than for coal, even in China where corruption is quite extreme and planning and construction times are suspiciously short.

I would worry more about some Chernobyl style setback occurring in a developing country as a result of relaxed regulatory environment. Even Japan has built nuclear plants in earthquake zones without sufficient protection to prevent extended closure with small radiation leaks following a quake and has also had shutdowns from discovery of falsified inspection records. This means they aren’t even adequately protecting the economic interest in safety that DV82XL explained.

14. Thanks for UK costs link from M&M. It includes very useful background on the model for generation costs. (With the major limitation of comparing all technologies as though they had baseload capacity factors and not considering the system costs that ought to be added to direct costs of variable wind).

No carbon price is required to achieve the transition to lower-cost, low-emission electricity. …

Also, notice in Figure 7.7 how the competitive position of nuclear gains on all other technologies so that by 2017 nuclear provides the lowest cost electricity of all technologies.

Nope! The data provided in table B.1 has a row which clearly shows how to separate out carbon prices from the totals you quoted. Subtract that row and you will see that ASC coal still clearly beats nuclear after taking into account the shift from nuclear FOAK to NOAK in 2017 (case 5) and 2023 (case 6) as well as for the FOAK case 1 for which you quoted totals with carbon price included.

What matters in dealing with the billions of tonnes of extra coal consumption expected from the developing world is the costs without carbon prices. What the UK charges itself for coal and gas is almost as irrelevant as what Australia does.

The projected costs are close enough for UK by 2023 so that R&D should look more attractive to you as being more likely to get nuclear LCOE below coal by that date then any other way of going about it. To see this you first have to say clearly to yourself “nuclear still really does cost more than coal, what can we do about that?” instead of being taken in by soothing impressions created by illusory carbon prices.

The usual answer to this well understood situation is “let’s impose a carbon price” (or propose one and talk as though it is inevitable and will happen worldwide). Since you agree that’s not the right answer, and you are unable to refute DV82XL on “gold plating” of safety, you ought to admit that R&D is the best option available. (Even if we disagree on how much to also broaden R&D beyond improved fission reactor designs in case lowering the cost of fission through massive publicly funded additional R&D still doesn’t work).

15.

… Without wind in the grid we’d have more CCGT and less OCGT. …

I agree with the surrounding explanation of wind adding to costs. It doesn’t matter much, but I don’t follow the connection claimed with CCGT and OCGT. My understanding is that CCGT has superior maneuverability (ramp rates) startup delays, efficiency, availability (forced outage rates) and every other technical paramater to OCGT so would be preferred to OCGT to compensate for the variable wind generation.

I’m pretty sure OCGT is preferred for peaking despite being technically inferior in every respect, purely because the lower OCGT capex outweighs higher OCGT opex and everything else when you need extra capacity only used for a small part of the day in the peak season. (Perhaps also preferred as local alternative to transmission investment for serving load from more distant cheaper plant due to quicker construction times as well as lower capex).

BTW I suspect two additional costs of wind are less generator inertia available making frequency control paramaters tighter and cut outs at high wind speed requiring more 6 second, 1 minute and 5 minute spinning reserve. The 2 GW wind bubbles in ZCA2020 would have highly correlated drop outs at high wind and presumably increase Minimum Reserve Level to 4 GW for N+1+1 recovery within 30 minutes.

16.

I want a solution that reduces the cost of electricity not raises it. It is clearly possible because the countries actually building nuclear are doing it.

We have massive increases in demand for electricity ahead (eg desalination, electric vehicles, more industrialisation, improving standard of living meaning more demand on electricity, and move from gas to electricity for heating once the cost of heating with electricity is less than with gas).

This is what I totally agree with. It is obviously even more important for developing countries than for Australia and developing countries are what matters both from the narrow perspective of carbon emissions and climate change and from the broader perspective of human progress.

(Also move from oil to electricity for transport.)

16.

There are three components where costs may be reduced:

…

#3. Investor risk premium, Sovereign Risk” security for investors, secure long term future for the industry (as distinct to what is now happening with the renewable energy industry)

…

The really big opportunity to allow us to get low-cost nuclear generation in Australia, quickly, is #3. As I said in a previous comment, we can, by passing new legislation and by removing the impediments to nuclear (of which there are huge numbers throughout federal and state systems), move the investor risk premium off nuclear and onto coal and gas. .

Legislation cannot remove sovereign risk because the executive government normally has a reliable legislative majority and can exercise the sovereign prerogative to change its legislation at the expense of investors.

To obtain loans from overseas bondholders a 1928 referendum added an interesting element of protection from sovereign risk by s.105A(5) making loan agreements binding (ie enforceable by bondholders in any court) regardless of any legislation.

Every such agreement and any such variation thereof shall be binding upon the Commonwealth and the States parties thereto notwithstanding anything contained in this Constitution or the Constitution of the several States or in any law of the Parliament of the Commonwealth or of any State.

The wording also appears to overide any provision of the constitution itself, including the sovereign power of the people to amend the constitution by referendum and the protection of the Commonwealth from sequestration of assets.

So there is away to eliminate the risk premium for nuclear (but you aren’t going to like it).

You can provide the best possible guarantee against sovereign risk by simply issuing nuclear bonds in international currencies and having the Australian Government assume all investment risk by adding it to the national debt.

Not sure how convinced investors would be though. A referendum in Iceland refused to repay an EU emergency loan extended when the country went bankrupt recently. Also Newfoundland was put under receivership during the last depression when it was a separate dominion. Ultimately the risks of investment always include the risk of bankruptcy and revolution.

Still sovereign debt really is the best you can do in practice to remove a risk premium.

(I did say you aren’t going to like it ;-)

Sorry I cannot participate further for a while.

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This site attracts its share of dreamers.

One them, Heavyweather, has just with straight face proposed a ring wall system of pumped storage and other bits and pieces.

Review of the linked site indicates that the proposal has never been trialled and in concept form requires 800 square kilometres of worked out brown coal mine, within which an 11km diameter ring wall is constructed. The idea is that, within this wall, pumped storage of at least 200 metres height will provide a cornucopian power supply. Don’t forget the 2000 wind turbines and many square kilometres of solar PV collectors which will provide the energy to pump the ringwall full.

Just the earthworks will be of the order of 3 billion cubic metres per installation. Let’s say $10 per cubic metre – $30B just for earthworks.

It is not within the reach of budgetary prudence to devote say $50B and a huge terrestrial footprint to achieve only 2 GW of power supply, which may or may not be reliable. On an existing brownfields site, $5B or $6B should be able to achieve the same result using 2 x 1000MW Type III nuclear and achieve far better reliability and availability. The energy sent out would have to be at least 3 or 4 times better than Ringwall.

Indeed, given the size of the footprint, this project is doomed due to environmental concerns well before economics and egineering are considered.

I consider this to be the most outrageously impractical power station proposal I have ever seen. Thanks for the laugh.

Oh, and before I go… where will the initial fill of a couple of hundred of cubic kilometres of water in the dam come from? Evaporation losses from 800 sq km of pond will require replenishment of at least 500mm per year… allow for another 40 – 100 billion litres annually, plus any thermal forcing and seepage.

I’m still laughing.

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Peter

You should discuss the ringwallstorage with Matthias Popp.
Maybe he can enlighten you about the cost and benefit of renewable power.
http://www.poppware.de/Start_Matthias-Popp/Index_mP_EN.htm
He wrote his dissertation about energy storage and renewable systems in Europe.
He has calculated the need for windbackup on historical data, one of the most qualified studies ever done in Germany.

Maybe you could invite him for an article on the idea or just to join the this thread.
You obviously have no idea what you are dealing with.

Its pumped hydro so the cost sinks with the size of the ring.
The bigger the better.
A 2GW ringwall compared to Germanys Goldisthal about 1/3 cheaper per kWh.

You won`t abolish “Greenies” or have any impact on German laws…so drop that argument for GenII and III…they are not the least cost way. They are a brilliant way to hide cost for the power companys and drain money from tax payers.

The positive market mechanism of renewables in Germany has been described in recent month.
It is simply wrong that solar is driving price and that nuclear is cheaper.

The price is made at the Strombörse. The customer does not gain from nuclear power…guess who does…RWE and others…
Solar is merely an excuse to charge the customer.

your link…manuel frondl…funny.
He has just been exposed for bad science and guess who was funding his “studies” about German solar…
I hope you understand German.

better not try to judge about foreign policies or developements when you have no clue about your sources of information.

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The artist’s impression for ringwall storage looks spiffy
http://www.dlr.de/blogs/en/DesktopDefault.aspx/tabid-6192/10184_read-271/
but as Barry pointed out with vertical farming the numbers aren’t sensible. Perhaps another example is the Leonardo da Vinci ‘helicopter’ with inadequate power for size among other issues.

I guess Desertec with solar in N. Africa and cables to Europe has now fallen out of favour.

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For those who would like to read an experts view on baseload power, I strongly recommend this article published in Electric Perspectives, written by a US utility CEO.

Click to access 2010-09-01-BASELOAD.pdf

It really gets renewable energy into perspective in a very balanced way and explains the relative positions of gas, nuclear and coal. It is a must read for all those baseload sceptics (Amory Lovins, Michael Goggin et al).

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Martin,

As an engineer with several decades’ experience, mainly at baseload stations but also GT, I salute that article.

It brings many complex issues together in a straight-forward logical manner without resorting to technical jargon.

Perhaps the only comment I would make re US experience differing from Australian is that our NEM is generally a much more sophisticated animal than their dispatch systems, especially when it comes to system anciliaries such as black start capacity, frequency control and bidding.

Well done.

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John Newlands, on 15 November 2010 at 2:47 PM —
(1) There is a superabundance of ultramafic (maybe even just mafic) rock surfically exposed (sometimes on the seabed) where OC2 weathers the rock via an exothermic reaction; the stuff will stay there over geologically long times.
(2) Yes, it costs, for capture, tranportation and sequestration.
(3) We cannot afford not to remove the excess CO2; otherwise agriculture comes to an end; see my prior post.
(4) See (1) and the following links.

In situ peridotite weathering:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4292181.html
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/21629/?a=f
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/45/17295

In situ basalt weathering:
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/29/9920.full.pdf+html

Ex situ olivine weathering:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/03/air-capture/#comment-87160
ftp://ftp.geog.uu.nl/pub/posters/2008/Let_the_earth_help_us_to_save_the_earth-Schuiling_June2008.pdf

Click to access c03016.pdf

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John Bennetts – thanks for the comments on the article. I wonder if you would be good enough to send me an email. I want to ask a favour.

You can email me at: martin@energyinachangingclimate.info

Thanks John in anticipation.

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John Bennetts:

You make the valid point that cost and price are often unrelated, but I wonder, given your relevant experience, whether you could expand on your final paragraph.

You define a liberalised, competitive, energy market as a “living breathing thing based on trust, risk and opportunity” and go on to suggest that it is neither rational nor boringly constant. Should it be? Earlier, you suggest that engineers would typically feel happier working on a boringly constant cost plus10% basis.

Under normal circumstances, I would favour the free market approach, but I wonder whether the circumstances that the energy market finds itself in can, in any way, be described as normal. There is urgent need for both a massive increase in generating capacity and a simultaneous transition to clean energy. Democratic governments are interfering in the free market, distorting the playing field, yet failing to give investors any long term confidence going forward. Under current circumstances, therefore, I fail to see how a free market solution can be reached in a sufficiently timely fashion. If the energy market fails to deliver, the rest of the economy will go down the tubes.

As you can tell, I am in a muddled and undecided state, but am stumbling towards a realisation that governments will have to do more to lead and drive energy policy forward. Whether this would best be achieved by nationalisation, I don’t know. However, the French approach seems to have been reasonably successful so far.

I would be grateful for your thoughts on this matter.

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John:

Thanks for your reply. You make several interesting points short of advocating a preferred route. Perhaps you will allow me to comment and draw inferences – which you can correct if I am misinterpreting you?

1) Perhaps I should clarify at the outset that I am a UK resident and that some of your replies are, understandably, addressing an Australian context.

2) You acknowledge that the energy market, however apparently liberalised, will always be subject to state regulation or interference of some other sort.

3) You acknowledge that “the better way” (presumably describing an energy policy) must also feed “other mouths” (clean energy/climate change) as well as supplying adequate and reliable power. It should be based on believable technology and determined by politicians.

4) You imply that politicians will not lead, but only follow the wishes of their electorates. You thus require a well educated electorate before “the better way” can be employed. How long do you think this education process will take? Is it not likely, as you tacitly admit, that turmoil might be a necessary precondition. I am concerned that, by the time that electorates become really worried by the consequences of AGW and realise that renewables are ineffective, it could well be too late to take useful and constructive action. It may be wishful thinking on my part, but I would like politicians to be strong enough to lead their electorates in directions that the latter will only reluctantly take. For this reason, I would wish for a “war footing” approach, but most see the implied suspension of democracy as too drastic.

5) You suggest that, should it be determined that energy policy requires the rolling out of NPPs by the dozen, the most likely route will be a nationalised one and also suggest that the capital required to reinforce the energy industry may only be available to the government. I think that civilisation’s only hope does require NPPs by the dozen (or hundred).

6) You state that no politician should (or would) stake the future on unproven technology (I suppose that the Germans might argue that technosolar approaches are proven. The fact that they are not fit for purpose in relation to the scale of the problem, nor cost effective doesn’t, therefore, necessarily discredit your statement. Presently, not even NPPs can match the goal of providing power more cheaply than from fossil fuels, but they, nevertheless, come closest to meeting this objective. Given the fact that new generation NPPs offer the prospect of producing the Holy Grail of really cheap power in the relatively near future, would you agree with Arthur that governments should pour generous and rapidly available R&D funding into this area? In fact, should such plants become commercially available within 10-15 years, it may well be that Australia won’t have even got round to commissioning existing designs by then. (Please note that I am not advocating delaying the roll out of Gen 3s while awaiting research results – merely suggesting that the public education that you think necessary to arrive at a sensible energy policy might take a decade or more to have effect.)

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DV8

You could discribe it short words.
Anti renewable propaganda combined with nuclear science fiction miss information.

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DV82XL:

I want to believe you and then Heavyweather comes along and destroys all hope that the electorate will be convinced by anything so mundane as the truth.

Our audience must combine a rudimentary understanding of both the laws of physics (which I’ve had to struggle with) plus an understanding of the relationship between energy and wealth (or well being) – which economists struggle to understand. We then need to negate the irrational fear of the antinuclear camp over the consequences of bombs and radioactivity when the real dangers we face are the deaths of billions of our own species and of many others through AGW. It’s a big ask

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David Benson I’ve saved those links on peridotite weathering for future reference. I believe David Mackay also thinks it is cost effective to physically dig up and crush the rock as a CO2 absorbent. However in my opinion the reaction rate is far too slow based on observations of a quarry in 2500mm rainfall country near home.

The links suggest that since we dig up coal to create energy and CO2 then we should dig up peridotite to absorb supposedly less energy and CO2. I suggest digging up neither. We could regard coal as pre-sequestered carbon from eons ago that should be left in the ground. We already refrain from digging up mercury and asbestos.

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Arthur,

Your posts are excellent. I will go through in slow time and see what I want to respond to or ask questions about. In the meantime I did notice this point:

I would worry more about some Chernobyl style setback occurring in a developing country as a result of relaxed regulatory environment.

I believe the real as opposed to perceived health and environmental consequences of industrial accidents in the nuclear industry, even of the scale of Chernobyl, are much smaller than in the chemical industry. Even smaller than in the aircraft industry. We have frequent plane crashes that kill hundreds of people and shrug it off. But each large airliner crash kills ten times as many people as Chernobyl (immediate fatalities). Regarding latent fatalities, routine operation of coal fired power plants in the OECD countries cause orders of magnitude more fatalities than nuclear power (per MWh) – I understand the figure is about 24,000 Americans per year due to pollution from coal fired electricity generation (but I don’t have the source for that figure).

I believe nuclear is a negligible risk even if they provided all the worlds electricity. And even with Chernobyl scale accidents occurring from time to time. It is a far smaller risk that flying or having a gas fired plant or a chemical factory near where I live.

Even Japan has built nuclear plants in earthquake zones without sufficient protection to prevent extended closure with small radiation leaks following a quake and has also had shutdowns from discovery of falsified inspection records. This means they aren’t even adequately protecting the economic interest in safety that DV82XL explained.

The talk of radiation leaks and falsified safety records is not being presented in a fair and properly comparable way with those from other industries. Such statements need to be put in context with the releases of toxic chemicals and reporting irregularities from our industries. The radiation leaks are of negligible consequence compared with toxic chemicals we release. No one is saying we must stop all releases of chemicals of any magnitude into Sydney Harbour? Have you any idea what is in the mud at the bottom of Sydney Harbour, and in the soil under the Sydney Olympic Games site at Homebush Bay? To me, all talk about radiation leaks is just media hype (unless it is put in proper perspective with other leaks and regular emissions of toxic chemicals).

I believe we will get over the fear as the roll out builds up (as has been demonstrated everywhere that nuclear plants are sited.

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This has to be stressed over and over: it is just not possible to have a Chernobyl scale accident with any currently available reactor design. The RBMK reactors, such as the reactors at Chernobyl, have a dangerously high positive void coefficient. This was necessary for the reactor to run on unenriched uranium and to require no heavy water.

Boiling water reactors have negative void coefficients, Pressurized water reactors operate with a large negative void coefficient and CANDU reactors have positive void coefficients that are small enough that passive safety systems can easily respond to boiling coolant before the reactor reaches dangerous temperatures. Magnox reactors, advanced gas-cooled reactors and pebble bed reactors are gas-cooled and so void coefficients are not an issue, as is also the case with Fast breeder reactors which do not use moderators at all.

Current RBMK reactors have been derated and are being phased out, no new units will be built. There will not be another event of this sort again with a power reactor.

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Eventually technologies do become failsafe, and nuclear reactors used as steam generators in nuclear power plants have reached this point. It is very similar to the situation in fossil fuel fired boilers. The last fixed boiler to explode killing people was the Grover Shoe Factory disaster, March 20, 1905, in Brockton, Massachusetts. And while there have been various events in transportation, it was almost always with antiquated/antique equipment.

There may be accidents in the plants themselves, just as there are in coal-fired stations, the difference being that deaths in latter venue will not make international news, while anyone stubbing their toe in a nuclear plant warrants international coverage, with sidebars on nuclear safety questions.

But the chances of a Chernobyl grade loss of containment is effectively nil with modern reactor designs.

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I wrote that eventually technologies become failsafe, not industries, and there is a difference. Fail-safe describes a feature which, in the event of failure, responds in a way that will cause no harm, or at least a minimum of harm, to other devices or danger to personnel.

It is not the same as fail-secure, or fail-proof although it is often confused for such in the public mind. It dose not mean there will be no failures, it does mean that the impact of a failure is minimized to acceptable levels. In aviation the term is applied to components and systems that are designed and built such that their failure will not precipitate a catastrophe.

There have been incidents with nuclear reactors other than Chernobyl, Three Mile Island being the best example. There containment did its job and despite the reactor failing and melting down, no lives were lost. That was because it was failsafe in design.

There will not be another Chernobyl unless RBMK reactors (or something worse) are built again, just like there will not be an exploding supercritical boiler at a coal station.

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@Peter Lang, on 16 November 2010 at 6:57 AM:

I may have not made myself clear enough. The former ECNSW and SECV, one of which was my employer for a while, were monsters of hidebound bureaucratic nonsense. On occasion, this included silliness from Ministers and outright bully-boy tactics from employees via union power. Thank goodness I was involved in construction, not operation, at the time. The operations side we used to refer to as “destruction division” by way of contrast with “construction division”.

A considerable amount of my effort was spent defending the right of contractors to make an income and to getting around, over or under the bans that they faced from the Delegates. Ah, yes! The Delegates! There was always the chance that a bunch of 3 or 4 refugees from their workplaces would arrive in a car and declare that this or that company, or contract, or job, had not been cleared industrially and that work must cease. What a charming bunch they were. One, only slightly before my time, is currently a Federal Labor Minister with a Home Country accent which can be turned on or off for TV purposes.

So, back to the question about public versus private ownership structures.

I simply do not see a need for public ownership of the power generation industry. Full stop. One caveat is in order.

If, because of lack of funding or due to political pressures regarding the real or imagined threats to society of particular forms of generation, private enterprises cannot construct needed capacity in a timely manner, then a government business unit may be able to help out. I do not necessarily mean full ownership or operation. Perhaps the government’s support needs to extend only to coordination of projects for commercial security of completion; or for guaranteeing of funds, so that bidders do not feel that they are unnecessarily exposed to risk of insolvency, etc; or for some other reason.

I see any such public ownership as being short term. This is, foremost, because once the market failure has been resolved, the market can take over again, with all of the benefits and efficiencies which markets bring and command economies cannot bring.

In short: Government intervention in the market may be needed to overcome a failing in the marketplace, but there is no need for this to be permanent and in fact it would be counterproductive in the mid to long run if the government did not exit the marketplace as soon as they can.

And finally, on the subject of public Vs private ownership:
I repeat that I am not overconcerned which business structure the politicians choose to adopt if/when blackouts begin. Politicians will decide what will happen if that stage is reached. They, in turn, will respond to their perception of what the electors want. Let’s work towards an educated and awake electorate.

And market regulation: Always was and always will be subject to political interference, lawyers working for their clients, economists with grandiose ideas of their own self importance and and so on. Hope for honest and intelligent politicians, because the current mob are not inspiring, State or Federal, on either side of the House.

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DB this is way off thread but I’ll tell you a sad story about the peridotite quarry. It was worked by a father-son partnership. Following the discovery of a 75 gram nugget of platinum group metals the son would walk close behind the bulldozer driven by the father while watching for the glint of precious metal. One day in 1967 something went wrong and the bulldozer flipped and killed the son. In any case help was hours away.

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I use the term “severe accident” in the way used defined in the NewExt data base of severe accidents.

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