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Nuclear Open Thread

Open Thread 21

The previous Open Thread has gone past is off the BNC front page, so it’s time for a fresh palette.

The Open Thread is a general discussion forum, where you can talk about whatever you like — there is nothing ‘off topic’ here — within reason. So get up on your soap box! The standard commenting rules of courtesy apply, and at the very least your chat should relate to the general content of this blog.

The sort of things that belong on this thread include general enquiries, soapbox philosophy, meandering trains of argument that move dynamically from one point of contention to another, and so on — as long as the comments adhere to the broad BNC themes of sustainable energy, climate change mitigation and policy, energy security, climate impacts, etc.

You can also find this thread by clicking on the Open Thread category on the cascading menu under the “Home” tab.

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There are two very important articles now posted on The Guardian website. The first, by Duncan Clark, is titled New generation of nuclear reactors could consume radioactive waste as fuel: The new ‘fast’ plants could provide enough low-carbon electricity to power the UK for more than 500 years.

It talks about Britain’s options for plutonium (Pu) disposal, and the GEH proposal to build a pair of S-PRISM reactors (311 MWe each) to rapidly ‘spike’ the weapons-grade Pu inventory, and thereafter consume it and spent fuel for energy. The alternative option, a new MOX plant, is far less desirable.

Tom Blees wrote a detailed explanation of this plan on BNC here: Disposal of UK plutonium stocks with a climate change focus

To accompany this piece there is an excellent new essay by George Monbiot: We cannot wish Britain’s nuclear waste away: Opponents of nuclear power who shout down suggestions of how to use spent waste as fuel will not make the problem disappear.

As usual, George writes persuasively and gets to the heart of the matter. In this case, he poses a simple question for the critics:

So which of these options do you support? [IFR recycling, MOX fuel, or immediate deep geological disposal]. None of the above is not an answer. Something has to be done with the waste, and unless you have invented a novel solution, one of these three options will need to be deployed. But it is a choice that opponents of nuclear power are refusing to make – and that is not good enough.

The essay provides more details, and some examples of people who wish to shut their mind to reality. Which option would you choose?

By Barry Brook

Barry Brook is an ARC Laureate Fellow and Chair of Environmental Sustainability at the University of Tasmania. He researches global change, ecology and energy.

544 replies on “Open Thread 21”

John Newlands, on 11 February 2012 at 6:10 AM said:

I see new coal loaders approved for the US Pacific northwest coast

There are issues with rail line capacity in the US Pacific Northwest.

Washington State rail capacity study – Page 29

Click to access RailFinalReport.pdf

The Wenatchee to Port of Everett line is currently operating at 100% of practical capacity. It passes thru a 7 mile long tunnel.

The Pasco to Port of Tacoma line is operating at 60% capacity but is unsuitable for ‘heavy loads’ due to greater then 2% grades and also has a 10,000 foot tunnel.

The Pasco to Port of Vancouver line is currently operating at 70% of capacity.

Undoubtedly there will be some expansion of coal export facilities in the US Pacific Northwest. The expense of expanding rail capacity thru Mountainous terrain will be a limiting factor.

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It never ceases to amaze me how we maintain the disconnect between emissions reduction and coal industry growth. Every day we are supposed to brush our teeth, be kind to animals and use less carbon. On the other hand we are supposed to gasp in approval when big new coal mines are announced http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-11/coal-mines-given-significant-project-status/3824662

I find this more than slightly weird, perhaps even insane. A world of mayhem has been described as ‘helter skelter’ what we have in Australia is ‘carbo schizo’. Others agree http://junkscience.com/2011/12/18/highlighting-australias-carbon-schizophrenia/

I have a strong suspicion that carbon tax will be watered down between July and the 2013 Federal election with some major giveaways, for example to smooth the higher burden on brown coal vs black coal vs gas fired States. Longer run, say 5 years, I think gas rich parts of Australia will be forced to share with the gas poor regions. In my view both policies are likely to happen before nuclear is considered.

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´´windpower costs from ~$100 to $1000 per tonne of CO2 avoided.

However as gas depletes towards mid century that could seem like a bargain. ´´

Wind locks us into natural gas, so how do you figure wind to be a bargain in a gas depletion scenario? If gas depletes then the entire wind power grid notion is out the window.

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@JL : Totally agree with your comment, Perhaps I could add to your words that our politicians suffer from cognitive dissonance in their attitude to fossil fuels , especially coal. I would argue that in an ethical sense they have totally lost it, what with saddling us with a totally ineffective carbon tax , while at the same time aiding and abetting the coal industry in shipping Megatonnes of the stuff to China.

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The Chinese are using up half the world coal production and are digging deep for it, according to postings above. No wonder that they are building a major part of the world’s nuclear power plants. I am sure that they will go for a closed cycle first as they are less well-endowed with uranium than Australia or Kazakhstan. IFR is, of course, fast reactors plus a closed cycle.
Regarding deep coal mines, I wonder if they are trying to cut life and energy costs by underground gasification. They should also use high temperature nuclear steam for gasification to avoid burning a part of coal to convert the rest into gas.
Oil and gas rich middle east is going for nuclear power with, or without OECD approval. Perhaps the coal and uranium rich Australia should go straight for enriched uranium fueled fast reactors, to be followed by pyroprocessing. (Inspired by IFR). Recycling of Transuranics can follow.

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Would someone from the BNC Gen IV department like to address this comment on The Conversation:

Joseph Bernard commented:

“Whoops, Fukushima, your soaking in it! no problems, should see the the size of the mushrooms growing near the core, almost big enough to be seen from space and it glows in the dark.. No need for lights anymore, bonus. Pity everyone has to move. So if the quake does not crack you up? Just watch the evil fast breeder of the west – Monju.. Just when you stop and take a breath, well then quicker than you can say.. Faster Breeder technology, another accident happens.. http://www.theage.com.au/environment/fastbreeder-reactor-faces-closure-20120201-1qtg2.html Seems like everytime there is an accident, the stakes go up. ”

https://theconversation.edu.au/the-solutions-to-alcoas-problems-may-lie-in-its-backyard-5289#comments

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Sorry to have left you to it, EN, but I concluded some time ago that the peculiar combination of ad hominems and postmodernist claptrap (all that tripe about ‘value systems’ etc) that is Paul Richards wasn’t worth any further effort. That type is, quite literally, impervious to rational argument.

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Harry, just to be really clear about what I am thinking. I think that the Sanmen 1 reactor is 6 to 12 months behind schedule. I also think that the Nov 2013 “go live” date will not be reached.

I am not very concerned that the first-of-a-kind plant is late. The rest of the Chinese plants might even be completed on the 50 month schedule once the pump and other first-of-a-kind problems are solved. I am concerned that the Vogtle plant is on schedule to prove US competence. The Chinese could do the world a favor by picking and completing a shorter build schedule for the second round of AP1000 builds (maybe 42 months instead of 50).

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As expected the aluminium industry is proving to be a litmus test for carbon pricing. Smelter employees have visited the PM to plead their case http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-news/gillard-government-meets-with-workers-from-geelongs-alcoa-plant/story-fn7x8me2-1226269550873
Some smelters say they are unprofitable now and carbon tax will be the killer blow. That’s for bought in coal fired electricity but the smelters themselves emit fluorocarbon gases. Maybe we should pay more for aluminium, including refundable deposits on soft drink cans. Free riders like China should be slapped with a carbon tariff on aluminium imported here.

While a commercial secret it is rumoured that aluminium smelters pay 3-4c per kwh, electricity prices we’ll never see again. If smelters close then generators can get higher average prices. The discount on normal industrial power prices is said to be worth $133,000 per employee in the case of one smelter. As an emissions intensive trade exposed industry (think EITEIs are sweeties) they were going to get a partial carbon tax holiday anyway.

If carbon tax is further watered down to help the smelters everybody will have their hand out. Coupled with the coal export boom people will wonder what is the point. In my opinion big emitters have to get used to the new conditions with the main help in the form of import restrictions. As a small country maybe we should never have acquired so many (6) aluminium smelters.

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George Orwell predicted we’d be talking in doublespeak by now. It seems that what will be dug up in the Galilee Basin is ‘minerals’ or ‘resources’
http://www.news.com.au/business/miner-mapping-out-new-outback-town/story-e6frfm1i-1226270256096
If we can’t say ‘coal’ any more I’d like to call it ‘pre-sequestered carbon’ that is carbon drawn from primordial atmospheric CO2 millions of years ago and about to be re-released.

Note the link says the preference is for an imported workforce. A year from now when carbon tax inflates the cost of everything (as it should) we’ll wonder why we’re giving foreign interests cheap carbon while making it hard for ourselves. Answer; because it’s ‘resources’.

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@ J. M. Korhonen, Bill Hannahan, Cyril R:

Recommended reading – “A new scientific solution for preventing the misuse of reactor-grade plutonium as nuclear explosive”, Kessler et. al.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nucengdes.2008.07.021

You can’t even begin to try and make a “simple” (Trinity or Fat Man style) nuclear weapon out of reactor grade plutonium – the decay heat from the WGPu pit immediately melts or ignites the HE lens assembly.

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@Barry Brook yes, but what are those units on the y-axis, in the denominator? Being of American origin, I’m guessing it’s not SI.

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If you are the boss of a multinational aluminium producer,then it would make sense to shift production to a truly low cost / low emissions environment such as Canada (hydro/nuclear) or Russia (nuclear). Would be interesting to know what the actual price is that Rio Tinto or Rusal pay for their electricity in the aluminium sector. JL , I love “pre sequestered carbon” . Also Barry, the above chart says it all really, who knows some of our opponents might even wake up. (Jeremiah 5:21)

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A few questions from your visiting lay-person:

1. The Breeder Reactor wiki has a final section called “Future Breeder Reactors”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor#Future_plants

How many of these are in effect protoype IFR’s? Do they breed from specially prepared new uranium, or can they breed from varieties of waste?

(This is useful for a ‘debate’ I was having with a dreamer over on The Conversation: lay-person to lay-person.).

2. What are the new nukes being built in America? Would they be classified as Gen3? Will they have the latest in passive safety?

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The way Queenslanders euphemistically refer to coal as ‘resources’ reminds me of the old Monty Python skit about woody words and tinny words. Take away Mt Isa and Weipa from the map in this link
http://www.queenslandeconomy.com.au/resources-operations-qld
and it’s just about all fossil fuel.

The header says
This map shows most of the resources projects in production in Queensland…
Let’s make it
This map shows most of the pre-sequestered carbon projects in production in Queensland…

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Elipse Now,

2. What are the new nukes being built in America? Would they be classified as Gen3? Will they have the latest in passive safety?

We have 4 Westinghouse AP1000 at some stage of construction in the US. Vogtle Units #3 and #4 and VC Summer Units #2 and #3.

We also have two older designs that were ‘moth balled’ prior to completion in the 1990’s that appear likely to be finally completed.

The Westinghouse AP1000 is classed as a Generation III+ reactor according to US DOE and they do have ‘passive cooling’ built in.

A graphic from US DOE as to which designs belong to which ‘generation’.

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Apologies if you are already across this:
http://www.desmogblog.com/heartland-insider-exposes-institute-s-budget-and-strategy

Essentially this is just suspicions confirmed; the Heartland Institute is funding voices to intentionally muddy the science of climate change.

This leak contains budget documents and internal communications discussing strategy and participants, including everyone’s favourite WUWT. Not particularly revolutionary, but this makes it even harder to deny the conspiracy to cloud climate science in public debate.

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Wow indeed! Near universal condemnation of Green’s tasteless opportunism. Whether or not broader attitudes to nuclear are changing, I think it says the old style of antinuclear shenanigans is not going to get mainstream traction again.

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@ Luke Weston – thanks, very interesting document. However, unless I missed something, I think its thermal analysis has a serious oversight: first Pu bombs (Fat Man, Mark 3, Mark 4) were not stored or transported with Pu pits. The arming process required the manual insertion of the pit and the initiator.

Cooling the pit while separated is definitely a solvable problem.

But this may be a minor quibble. After reading Mueller’s “Atomic Obsession” last week (http://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Obsession-Alarmism-Hiroshima-Al-Qaeda/dp/019538136X), I tend to agree with his assessment of the difficulty a non-state actor would have if trying to assemble even a uranium bomb, much less a plutonium one.

Therefore, reactor-grade Pu – while theoretically usable – would be ridiculously difficult for a non-state actor, while I see no reason why a state actor would bother, as creating weapon-grade Pu might be one of the easiest steps in the project.

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I think it says the old style of antinuclear shenanigans is not going to get mainstream traction again.

I really do hope so. I’m appalled the ABC published an article like that. Utterly irresponsible, and I hope people actually are seeing through it (and reading the comments!).

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The ABC have been pushing that sort of stuff, and equally irresponsible stuff about promoting renewable energy for over 20 years.

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There’s a letter in today’s Japan Times online from Steven Starr from Physicians for Social Responsibility that makes various grim predictions for areas contaminated by Cesium 137, such as:

Because cesium-137 has a 30-year half-life, the land seriously contaminated by the Fukushima disaster will remain dangerously radioactive for up to 300 years….Once radioactive cesium makes its way into the soils, it will bioconcentrate and biomagnify in foodstuffs, particularly mushrooms, berries and wild game.

And

The Belrad Institute, after nine years of research and hundreds of autopsies, found that cesium-137 concentrates in the vital organs, particularly the heart and endocrine system. Professor Yuri Bandazhevsky discovered that children contaminated with cesium-137 that produced 50 atomic disintegrations per second (becquerels) per kilogram of body weight caused irreversible heart damage in a child.

Anyone got any good background material on this? Doesn’t seem to mesh with official reports on Chernobyl, and the first quote has the rather vague “the land seriously contaminated by…” which could mean anything.

Reference: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/rc20120216a1.html

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discovered that children contaminated with cesium-137 that produced 50 atomic disintegrations per second (becquerels) per kilogram of body weight caused irreversible heart damage in a child.

Here is today’s radiation readings from the sub drains at Fukushima

Click to access subsurface_120216-e.pdf

The highest cesium reading is 6.4 Bq * 10-1/cm3 in the sub drains under unit #2.

So 0.64 Bq/cm3 = 694 Bq/kilogram if I got my math correct.

So someone is citing a single study that if a child were to somehow consume enough cesium to raise the concentration of cesium in their body to around 10% of the concentration in the sub drains at the nuclear power plant it would be a health problem.

The whole problem is further complicated by the fact that cesium has a relatively short biological half life of 110 days.

Click to access Cesium.pdf

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@Eamon:
The human body contains about 100Bq/kg of radioactivity at any given time, about 2/3 of it from K-40.

K is chemically similar to Cs, and K-40 has a bit higher decay energy than Cs-137. Add the short biological halflife of Cs, and I’m going to go so far as to say that 50 Bq/kg Cs-137 is totally harmless.

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But the public has been brainwashed to believe that even a small amount of radiation from other than background sources has dire consequences.

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Question for Peter. I perhaps could have posted this on open thread but I wanted to make sure Peter saw it. PL: I have always been confused by claims of high wind EROEI. Usually on the order of 30 to 1 or higher. Along same lines, wind EROEI is often calculated as higher than current LWRs. Never understood this either since material requirements for wind are comparable to nuclear (material requirements per GW of actual electricity are 10-40 times higher, with the difference evened out when we factor U mining into picture). Is it that wind EROEI is calculated on the basis of a single turbine in isolation (from reliability requirements etc. so that in effect EROEI ignores what we might call wind’s “externalities)? I have by the way read Barry’s piece on nuclear’s EROEI and find it persuasive. But I still don’t get the wind claims. They sound fishy to me.
MODERATOR
Thank you for moving the comments. I have deleted the originals.

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From Martin Nicholson:

A comprehensive study titled THE ENERGY BALANCE OF MODERN WIND TURBINES was published by the Danish wind industry in 1997.

Hardly an unbiased source but the material is very detailed if rather dated.http://apere.org/manager/docnum/doc/doc1249_971216_wind.fiche37.pdf

The result was that for onshore wind turbines the energy payback period was 3-4 months including scrapping the turbine at the end of its life. It seems unlikely that modern turbines would be less efficient than those of 1997. Assuming wind turbines last say 20 years and the paper is not serious flawed this would be an EROEI of 60:1.

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What do you think, Martin, of this number? I don’t understand how it can be higher than nuclear (and it isn’t if we follow barry’s numbers but is when you look at some studies other than Stern/Smith). and I still wonder if this metric refers to wind turbines in isolation.
something is not computing for me. all the costs that peter details for integrating large amounts in percentage terms of wind would need to be figured into EROEI. In article below, when wind utterly fails to do the job in winter, shouldn’t the energy required to do the job wind could not be chalked up to wind’s EROEI?

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/kevin-myers/kevin-myers-energy-policy-based-on-renewables-will-win-hearts-but-wont-protect-their-owners-from-frostbite-and-death-due-to-exposure-3012098.html
MODERATOR
Thank you for moving your comment to the appropriate thread.

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Gregory Meyerson,

Thank you for moving these comments from the “100% renewable electricity for Australia – the cost” thread.

I have not taken much interest in EROEI discussions. To me, they are just academic discussions. I do not see them as important or relevant to the issues we really need to address. We have ample fossil fuel energy and virtually unlimited nuclear energy, so what is the issue? (And, yes, I am familiar with the “Maths” post or whatever it is called about falling off an energy cliff. But I don’t see it as a priority issue.)

What is important to me is to try to get people to realise that the economics is what governs decisions. If we want to change from fossil fuels to a low CO2 emissions technology, then we have to focus on the costs of the alternatives to fossil fuels – alternatives that are fit for purpose. We have to get the costs down to lower than fossil fuels. Raising the cost of fossil fuels in developed countries will have the wrong effect. It will not reduce global emissions. It may actually increase them. It forces us to displace manufacturing from the developed countries which are imposing the carbon prices to countries that have low costs for fossil fuels. That does not reduce global emissions.

We have all of Africa and much of Asia to lift out of poverty. These countries will use the least cost electricity generation available. If we raise the cost of fossil fuels in the developed countries, they will not follow our example. So it is the wrong policy.

The correct policy, IMO, is to remove the impediments we have imposed that prevent us having low cost, low emission nuclear generation. We can remove the impediments, make it more economic and have huge benefits in a safer and cleaner environment.

BNCers know all this. But what they do not seem to be able to take is the next step. That is to seriously look into what is causing the costs to be too high.

Based on energy density, nuclear should be far cheaper than coal. But it isn’t. It is already 10 to 100 times safer than coal, so why can’t we allow it to be cheaper?

Until people like BNCers are prepared to seriously face up to the economic issues, progress will be very slow.

The government’s recent Energy White Paper has delayed consideration of nuclear for at least another four years. That aligns with what I’ve been saying for four years – i.e. nuclear has been delayed for at least another three elections.

I hope that is a satisfactory answer to your question about ERoEI.

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Reposting on the simple life. Ender says:

“If you accept that wealth and economic growth are just a function of energy then increasing energy allows more economic growth and wealth.”

Wealth and economic growth are not JUST a function of energy. But if this is a core assumption of the Limits to Growth people, I’m glad you informed me of this. Thanks. Increasing energy does ALLOW MORE ECONOMIC GROWTH but does not dictate it. Nor does increasing energy dictate what we choose to grow and what we choose to reproduce.

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Peter, I’m not exactly satisfied with your response. I suspect though you are right about this EROI stuff with renewables being an academic argument.

But the people making them don’t think so.

It seems to me that hi capacity factor solar thermal is a fake number derived from moving the fundamental inefficiencies and unreliabilities around.

I think high EROEI for wind is also a fake number, dependent upon not counting “externalities.” If wind is more expensive (cost as proxy for energy under certain assumptions) per real gigawatt (due to low capacity factor and other perhaps more important unreliabilities) than nuclear and potentially a lot more expensive–were nuclear’s high costs not significantly political– and wind turbines last one third as long, how can its EROEI measure anything significant?

If wind’s CO2 avoidance costs can be a proxy for its real EROEI (I’m slightly modifying Barry’s shorthand for calculating EROEI based on LCA), then the stated EROEI of up to 60 to 1 would be fraudulent.

(assuming inputs and externalities are powered by fossil fuels)

Am I missing something? (always possible: my day job consists in teaching students how to critique post modernist readings of James Joyce’s The Dead).

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The unstated assumption in the high EROEI cited for wind power is that power supplied equates with power demanded. If the EROEI is adjusted for carbon or storage backup and/or substantial overbuilding and transmission it won’t look so good. Thus the modified formula would be
(lifetime energy used)/(energy in)
Curtailment or unavailability decreases the numerator, overbuilding increases the denominator.

Even the advertising industry seems careful these days not to overstate the case for a product. TV ads for breakfast cereal include the proviso ‘as part of a balanced diet’. The TV ad for wind power should read ‘as a part of an energy mix that can always meet demand’.

If high EROEI is all it takes then I suggest the wind industry renounces targets and per-Mwh subsidies since they already have the low carbon advantage. Here in Tasmania new wind build seems to be regarded as a bailout for the construction industry.

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Thanks John:

This seems right:

“Curtailment or unavailability decreases the numerator, overbuilding increases the denominator.”

So high EROEI is based on input/output ratios for turbines in isolation.

Peter: seems to me, whatever we call it, you’re doing proxy EROEI studies. High costs of CO2 avoidance is, among other things, another way of talking about ERetc.

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Gregory Meyerson: seems to me, whatever you call it, discussions of ERoEI are a diversion from what is important; i.e. the economics. It’s a distraction. For some reason it is near impossible to get BNCers to focus on the economics.

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Gregory,

That’s gone over my head. What is the point you tried to make in that last comment?

If we can’t focus on what is important, aren’t we just wasting time? There are continual diversions to irrelevant side issue, that people then follow and discuss for ages for no useful purpose, other than to have a chat. That is not a valuable use of bright peoples’ time. Especially, if you think this catastrophe stuff is so important.

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Hi Peter,
I disagree. Barry’s Youtube video plainly explains that nuclear power is the cheapest way to generate clean baseload power. BNC often discusses the economics of nuclear power compared to renewables.

So I guess you are complaining that BNC doesn’t obsessively focus on (economics) BNC’s approach is compatible with almost any political economy.

From my impressions as an occasional visitor here, BNC authors and comments are more concerned with the fact that culturally, and therefore politically, nuclear power is not on the agenda. Apart from a few moments under John Howard, our parties are just too scared to go there. BNC is trying to change that. That’s our main focus, not your obsession with market forces. What good are market forces if nuclear power remains illegal in this country?

We want to put it back on the agenda by any means possible under any party possible. That includes under a Carbon Tax regime if that should come to pass. As China demonstrates, nuclear power does not have to be installed by an ultra-right market mechanism because it is suddenly perceived to be the cheapest form of power possible. While I might prefer that were the reason, as it would certainly be a very powerful motivator, it is not the dominant reason people object to nuclear power. The perceptions of danger is, especially after Fukishima.

I think, by and large, everyone else here just wants to inform the ‘average Aussie’ about the benefits of nuclear power, change the cultural bias against it, and get the job done — under whatever political party or political economy that happens to involve at the time.

You have me pigeonholed as a Socialist just because I’m prepared to think of nuclear power under a Centre-wing government, but the sad irony is that I’m closer to your politics than you know. I’m just not obsessed with it. There’s a job to be done, and I’m prepared to see that happen under a variety of political scenarios. Climate change is too important to wait for the ‘perfect’ nuclear scenario when a ‘good enough’ one might arise.
MODERATOR
Inflammatory comments have been edited out.

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Before nuclear power can be put back on the agendum, a sufficiently high percentage of the public will have to be convinced that it is safe and economical and that renewable sources of power are impractical as a major source of power for large prosperous countries. To do that may require TWO changes:

1) Preparing a better nuclear technology for implementation, i.e., one that creates less nuclear waste, is more economical, and is safer, and

2) Making it clear to the public that only nuclear power is capable of safely providing adequately abundant, environmentally friendly, and economical power.

Probably 2) is the most challenging. The mass media are not geared towards educating the public, especially when the subject is complex and requires considerable time and effort to understand adequately. PBS is the most likely candidate to provide the necessary education, but at present, they seem to be opposed to nuclear power. They receive substantial donations from companies in fossil-fuel related businesses for which shifting to nuclear power would be likely to reduce profits.

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Greg,

No worries. Sorry, I just didn’t get it. I knew there was no venom, because none of your comments to anyone ever contain venom. You are a nice person – even if you are from the wrong side of the tracks. :)

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Peter,

I can see that our thoughts on the matter are very similar.

You’re in Oz; the problems of educating the public in the U.S. and in Oz may be somewhat different. Commercial TV in Oz doesn’t seem to be greatly different in Oz (I’ve been there a number of times), but if you have more educational channels with a large audience, it would be easier to educate the public there. I really don’t know how to educate the public here, but surely a major portion of the effort should be devoted to that. I educated myself when, through observation, I noticed that at many wind farms, the blades were stationary. It took many hours of effort, buying books, searching the Internet, etc. The public cannot be expected to be that committed to gathering information; it has to be made readily and conveniently available somehow.

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(Comment deleted)

MODERATOR
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Assume for argument’s sake that the EROEI cliff argument has some validity. After all it’s what distinguishes us from the Neolithic. Then if the value 8 is the shoulder of the ‘cliff’ as claimed then we can immediately throw out several pretenders to stationary energy generation.

According to this table http://oco-carbon.com/2010/05/19/eroei-of-electricity-generation/ coal with CCS comes in at 1.5, therefore not worth the bother. PV scrapes in at 8.3 but as I’ve said that figure should be adjusted to energy on demand, not only when available. The table also gives internal rate of return and plant life.

Nuclear isn’t all that great at 10.9 but I presume that includes decommissioning effort which I hope they did for wind and solar. I think it should include the effort needed to build its replacement facility so subtract 1.0 for each value. Then see if it’s still >8. Still I can’t see windmills at 25.0 unadjusted eventually powering cement and aluminium factories to make their replacements when there are no fossil fuels left.

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John N,

Do you have any figures that compare PV with solar thermal electric? What I have in mind is the power tower system although there are other types, including ones that use parabolic mirrors and Stirling engines. All are supposed to be significantly more efficient than PV. The power tower type, by storing heat in tanks of molten salt, can be used to produce power for limited periods when the sun is not shining.

Of course a higher efficiency in converting sunlight into usable energy is only one factor to consider; return on investment is generally more important.

A google search brings up information on these systems, but I don’t know how reliable the sources are.

It would also be interesting to determine the internal rate of return for solar systems used to heat buildings. Also, using solar heat to drive absorption air conditioning systems might be a reasonable thing to do.

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Moderator,

I haven’t a clue what that attack is about. It seems like more paranoia on your behalf (yor words commonly directed to me). I don’t recall having posted anything that doesn’t fit your policy.
MODERATOR
Your comment was removed for several violations of the Comments Policy :
Endless repetition of political biases. Ad hominem attacks on scientists.
Speculation about motives or what ‘sort of person’ someone is.

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I would like to recommend a resource that has not been mentioned on BNC. This is Stanford University nuclear physicist and Nobel laureate Burton Richter’s 2010 book: Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Climate Change and Energy in the 21st Century. The book is my current favorite introduction to both climate change and energy policy. It is very accessible to the non-technical reader, and balanced in the presentation of energy policy options. Dr. Richter calls energy-policy winners and losers as he sees them, and has a real talent for making the complex understandable. E.g., for a sample of Richter’s no-nonsense style, he was interviewed by Mark Golden for Power Engineering. Excerpt:

If you got one wish on international policy on climate change, what would it be?

That we would abandon the stupid notion of legally binding agreements on emissions. What are the fines for not meeting your agreements? Who levies the fine? Where does the money go? There are no sanctions, so what does “legally binding” mean?

Also, 15 countries are responsible for more than 80 percent of the world’s emissions. Why are we trying to get a deal with 196 countries, most of which are spending all their time trying to figure out how to get the richer countries to pay them money? What we really need is to get these 15 countries, which includes some developed countries and some rapidly developing countries, to agree on a deal.

(…)

Your book takes a middle ground between the deniers of climate change and what you call “ultra-greens,” who insist on drastic action immediately but reject nuclear power and some other low-carbon solutions. Can you talk about that middle ground?

What I tried to say is: Here is what we know, and here is how we know it. Here’s what the uncertainties are. Here’s what I think we ought to be doing. But the reader should think about what we ought to be doing, too.

The future is hard to predict, because it hasn’t happened yet. For some, this is an excuse for inaction. “We don’t know enough. Since we don’t know enough, we shouldn’t do anything.” Whereas there are a lot of things we can do now that don’t cost much at all and that can have a relatively large impact.

Richter continues the pragmatic policy theme by showing why Calfornia should cancel its USD 2. billion subsidy “Million Solar Roofs” program. Instead for less than 20% of that cost, twice the CO2 emissions could be eliminated by covering the Four Corners power station to natural gas. I don’t like the lock-in effects of new investment in gas plants – but I think he is correct. In the light of what is politically feasible today, this is good policy.

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For those of us who need energy policy teaching aids, there is a very useful new resource Nearzero.org. Organized by theCarnegie Institution’s Ken Caldeira, climate scientist and co-founder of FICER (Fund for Innovative Climate and Energy Research). As a communications effort Near Zero has invited five domain experts to each do five short video talks – most are under five minutes. I particularly recommend Stanford’s Burton Richter on energy policy and nuclear energy, and Stanford’s Sally Benson on CCS (Carbon Capture and Sequestration).

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Steve D,

I may purchase the Richter book. I see that it is available for Kindle and I am considering purchasing a Kindle.

Interfaith Power and Light is pushing solar PV installations for homes and churches. I would really like some method to persuade them that their resistance to nuclear power may delay our phasing out of fossil fuels. It could be helpful if Nearzero.org produces some good material. Although I’m impressed with the DVD “Thorium Remix 2011,” it’s really too long to expect a group of people to sit through it. It would be helpful to have something shorter to provide basic information and interest people in doing further study.

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Frank those are big questions and I’m not sure my googling would produce better answers than yours. However speaking of Google it is interesting that company withdrew from the air cooled solar tower development at Ivanpah http://www.rechargenews.com/energy/solar/article277433.ece
saying that PV not CSP was the way of the future.

However if you can find a plausible EROEI and IRR for solar thermal the ‘Do The Math’ website suggests an up-to-date levelised cost figure for battery backed PV. That came out at 30c per kwh for collection and storage. I guess no solar panels for aluminium smelters.

For IRR on rooftop solar water heaters I think online calculators may be available but I’d like to see how they incorporate say winter gas or electric boost. I understand solar absorption chillers for houses are the size of a bus. My old home town of Adelaide is proud that 2% of houses have a kw or so of PV but I’d say 80% of houses have a 2kw aircon powered by the fossil grid. I recommend cellars; mine was 18C when the surface was 37C recently but that was dug in a well drained spot with no pipes or cables.

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Steve Darden,

Richter continues the pragmatic policy theme by showing why Calfornia should cancel its USD 2. billion subsidy “Million Solar Roofs” program. Instead for less than 20% of that cost, twice the CO2 emissions could be eliminated by covering the Four Corners power station to natural gas

Unfortunately, the 4 corners power station is not within the boarders of the State of California.It is in New Mexico….to make matters more difficult it sits on Native American land. Native American lands are for the most part regulated by Native Americans.

Only 1% of the electricity generated with the borders of California comes from coal.
http://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/california/xls/sept05ca.xls

Here is today’s California demand forecast…a low of 19GW to a high of 26GW.
http://www.caiso.com/Pages/TodaysOutlook.aspx

Come next summer…the high will end up being 50- 60GW.

A substantial portion of California’s generating capacity will only be used during daylight hours in the summer.

Pretty much any generating capacity that is being used as a ‘seasonal peaker’ will end up being expensive. It costs the same to build and maintain whether it is being used 24 hours a day 465 days a year or 8 hours a day 90 days a year.

Solar PV has a good correlation with California’s demand curve. It works best during the day in the summer when their loads peak. As such as a ‘California’ policy of ‘a million rooftop solar panels’ is not an ‘insanely unreasonable’ policy.

From a national perspective I would agree with Richter that subsidizing Californian Solar Panels isn’t the most cost effective answer.

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CAISO excludes all the municipal, regional irrigation and Federal generation so usually one has to add 25% to the total you see on their outlook page.

19GWs is the lowest I’ve seen in 20 years. Usually it hovers slightly above 20GWs in winter.

The City of San Francisco has a minimum evening low of about 30MWs. During the day it’s close to 600MWs. This presents major challenges to the ISO and why minimum load capability/availability is so highly valued.

For the State itself, having a low of 20GWs approx at 4am and having the load at 40GWs plus at noon is also a major headache. This will be a major technological hurdle for those that advocate, as most of us do on this list, a nuclear economy where nuclear, like in France, can provide the overwhelming majority of all electrical generation.

Paying for load changing nukes is certainly on the agenda. We need to get away from the belief that nukes have to run flat out 100% of availability to make money. We need nukes that can drop down to at least half their maximum generation or less and not suffer financially for doing so.

This involves newer, better load changing capabilities, lower and stable min. load reactors, etc.

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David W.,

According to what I’ve read about the LFTR, it is very well suited for load following so if we were to develop the LFTR to be ready for production and installation, it could go a long way towards solving the load following problem. For PWRs, it is a more serious problem because using the control rods to modulate the power results in uneven “burning” of the fuel thereby reducing fuel usage efficiency which is already lousy for PWRs with our current fuel cycle.

But, the reactor is not not the only limitation for load following. Turbines, generators, and transformers also have to do load following, which they can do, but the resulting thermal cycling shortens their lives; that’s especially true for turbines. The problem is thermal stress. The problem is especially bad if they have to change power repeatedly and quickly; very gradual power changes are less of a problem. Presumably changes in design could, at least to some degree, reduce the damaging effects of load following.

Considering the above, the fact that running at partial load reduces the return on the investment is not the only problem caused by load following; reduced equipment life is also a problem, but I don’t know how serious it is. I’m not an engineer; my degree is in business administration, but I’ve had the good fortune to have a good background in physics.

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If this is not overly political I think it is interesting to speculate which Australian States might consider NP;

Queensland seems set to change government next month with combustible resource billionaire Clive Palmer rubbing his hands with glee. The premier-in-waiting is an engineer so might be troubled by climate change . After once-in-100-year floods most years perhaps public opinion could change but not for a decade.
New South Wales Premier O’Farrell has cut solar tariffs and has made wind farm siting more difficult. He is encouraging uranium exploration. Note NSW needs 2-4 GW of new baseload plant.
Victoria will be hard hit by carbon tax. The Feds will throw money at the two aluminum smelters but when they close eventually that will free up several hundred MW of brown coal power. The Vics might dine out on that emissions cut for a few years. The need for costly desal in dry years will hurt.
South Australia might go nuke if someone puts up most of the money. Uranium is their biggest potential new money spinner.
Northern Territory saved by the bell with Icthys gas. Seem OK with a low level radioactive waste dump. SA yellowcake will shipped out of Darwin harbour.
Western Australia Too much gas but they have killed a new coal mine.
Tasmania Seemingly a basket case but already low emissions unless metals industries want to expand. Nothing will happen.

Logic suggests SA should go first followed by Vic however NSW seems less hesitant. A change of Federal govt would see the carbon tax repealed but presumably would allow NPP to be built.

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Thanks Harry,
That SEDS | State Energy Data System that you linked is quite a resource – thanks for that.
I take your point about plants located inside CA state borders. CA politicians like to talk about that:-) I don’t think that Richter had in mind accounting for abatement cost with an artificial state boundary slice of the atmosphere. I thought his point was “tackle the big problems first (coal); second, even America doesn’t have infinite money to waste on feel-good”. So replacing coal with gas is a simple example of that which is easily understood by the average citizen (who will get instantly lost in discussions of true cost of unreliables).

Solar PV has a good correlation with California’s demand curve.

True, that increases the PV capacity credit. But PV still costs the taxpayers much more than alternatives, and is relatively dangerous in terms of injuries and fatalities. It is major construction activity compared to the high density power options. From what I read California taxpayers are in a world of hurt.

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David W.,

What is your pick for the most economical NPP design that can load follow from 50% to 100%?

Is there a layman-level source that shows the required response-rate profile? E.g., 5% of peak capacity can adjust power at a fast rate, 20% medium rate, 25% slow rate?

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Hi John N,
You said ” Note NSW needs 2-4 GW of new baseload plant. Victoria will be hard hit by carbon tax”. Can I just ask why we need it and how that need shows itself? Have we had rolling brownouts somewhere, or is it to meet expected population growth, etc?

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Hi Frank,
if I understand what you are saying about ‘load following’ LFTR’s it seems the benefits of load following might actually be massively reduced by shortened plant life?

I wonder how those costs might be reduced by Car-to-grid Electric Vehicle schemes, hydro-batteries, and other combinations of storage to then dump back into the grid during peak demand? I wonder whether the economics would work out in favour of load following the LFTR’s or ‘storage’ out on the Nullarbor plains hydro-dam-battery, for example?

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EN I think the plan is to replace both Bayswater and Mt Piper with lower emitting plants
http://www.singletonargus.com.au/news/local/news/general/bayswater-b-a-step-closer/1768532.aspx
with the nominated methods being either supercritical coal or combined cycle gas, the gas presumably being CSG. Maybe in the Big Australia they’ll operate new and old side by side.

I wonder however if the planners see increasingly tougher carbon pricing, local fuel depletion and public opinion as permanent obstacles. Few people seem convinced we’ll suddenly cut back on CO2 from July 1. I can’t read B O’F’s mind but he seems to be making pronuclear noises without saying so directly. A closet nukularist. Come out Barry.

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Eclipse Now,

I didn’t say that load following would MASSIVELY reduce plant life. I have read that it would reduce plant life, but I don’t know by how much. Changing the load very gradually helps. Changing the load rapidly is much more destructive. I think that a google search would bring up some information on that.

There has been publicity about electric car to grid schemes. Of course for that to work, we’d need a very large number of electric cars. I don’t doubt that if there were enough electric cars it could be made to work, but it would, at least to a certain degree, shorten the battery life. Deep cycling batteries is especially destructive. It would help to have the numbers, but unfortunately I don’t.

Hydro storage works fine for load leveling but unfortunately, it is highly dependent on geography. There have been all sorts of schemes suggested, including compressed air storage by compressing air into underground cavities or caves when there is excess power and using the compressed air to generate power when it is in short supply. Compressed air storage tends to be inefficient and whether such a scheme would ever be economically practical I don’t know.

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Harry,
I’ve located a bit more data on California’s dirty coal legacy. I knew there was something goofy about the 1.2% coal-fired electricity that we discussed up thread – because California has a reputation for exporting their pollution to neighboring states or to other countries. In brief, the actual coal proportion for 2004 was about 20%.

In 2004, coal plants located in the interior West supplied an estimated 20% of all electricity in California, which is twice the share that comes from renewables. Large quantities of air pollution are discharged from these coal plants.

I just wrote California’s dirty coal legacy to show the key graph showing how CA hides the pollution out of state. Or if you don’t mind downloading the whole 56-page PDF, go direct to the Environmental Defense Fund report.

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John Newlands @ 19 February 2012 at 9:30 AM – With regards to the Victorian situation (the only one I am really familiar with) the outcomes I predict will be:

– The Alcoa Point Henry aluminium smelter will shut down soon but the Portland one will not. This is a business rationalisation, as Pt. Henry is a bit older than the Portland facility. This will free up some capacity on the grid, but the smelters are baseload consumers so the result will be a peakier grid. That’s not good for coal but is good news for OCGT power station owners.

– The current plan is to replace Latrobe Valley brown coal with Latrobe Valley gas power plants. Hazelwood will probably get partially decommissioned in the very short term and fully replaced within 5 years, Yallourn W will need replacement at the start of the next decade. Loy Yang A & B will be around for quite some time, to around the 2030s-2040s.
TRUenergy is going to build a 1GW CCGT at Yallourn some time soon, it’s just waiting for the political situation to sort itself out first.

– Victoria has 20 years worth of gas reserves at current consumption rates. After that, we’ll need interstate imports. This means that in 20 years we’ll either be back to brown coal or have sky-rocketing power rates because of our imported gas consumption. 20 years is a decent period of time to ramp up a domestic nuclear power program.

The SECV did studies into nuclear power at various stages of its existence. All of them concluded that brown coal was much cheaper. The two studies I know of were a proposal for a 600 MWe one at French Island (politically untenable now) in the 1960s and a 2 GW AGR facility at Portland in the 1980s. Some people I’ve talked to about these studies (ex-SECV) informed me that the studies were commissioned to justify building more brown coal power stations using the SECV’s well developed engineering expertise in this area.

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Anyone know what Shirley Birney is raving about over on “The Conversation”?

http://theconversation.edu.au/oakeshotts-call-for-wood-powered-electricity-means-more-logging-5370#comments

****

“Eclipse Now, please rest assured that I do not support anyone who supports an industry that is deliberately and wilfully burning a hole in the ozone layer. Be assured that I do not support an industry that “already had some 150 significant radiation events at nuclear power stations throughout the world before the Chernobyl fire” (Mikhail Gorbechev). Be assured that I do not support an industry which has increased the natural background level of I-129, forty fold by dumping their radioactive junk into the Earth’s hydrosphere. (1-129 half-life,15.7m yrs) http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2009GC002910.shtml But hey, with your expertise in all things nuclear and for the “sake of your kids,” what can you tell us about rusty valves v. public safety? (See infographics below). http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_18313053 “

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Shirley Birney (pejorative deleted) EN, I wouldn’t descend to her level. I debunked the whole I-129 thing that she raised on an earlier Conversation thread (as even another nuclear skeptic on the thread acknowledged), but it’s obviously been water off a duck’s back to her. Classic climate denialist M.O. – ignore or selectively forget the rebuttal of your point, so you can raise it all over again in another forum a little while later.

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Dendrite my understanding is Hazelwood won’t be retired til 2031. The Mortlake hybrid brown coal gasifier-natural gas plant said it was looking at $7 per GJ for gas. That seems too expensive to start a 1 GW combined cycle plant elsewhere although the Feds may put up most of the money. That is fuel cost high, carbon tax medium, cost of capital very low.

Remember Otway Basin gas goes to Adelaide as backup for SA reserves. An underwater gas pipe (used by seals to navigate) goes from Longford to Tasmania then overland to Hobart. Basically all of south eastern Australia will experience the gas shortage at the same time well inside 20 years I think. I understand combined cycle plant can last 40 years.

What I think is a possibility if nuclear is forbidden if the Feds compel eastern Queensland to send coal seam gas via SA to Vic and Tas. If the Japanese are happily paying $10 per GJ for LNG that will be the new gas price. Brown coal at $6/t for 10 GJ is 60c per GJ. I doubt anything will change until it is well into crisis.

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Hi Mark D,
so is I129 not a big deal? Is it one of those things where it *is* toxic, but there’s so little produced at such low concentrations, it’s not a real issue? That’s like the uranium in seawater, yet we all still go on seaside holidays and swim at the beach?

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John @ 19 February 2012 at 4:44 PM – my understanding (from industry knowledge) is that the Federal Government’s high polluting coal decommissioning fund will be targeted towards two power stations with a total nameplate capacity of 2000 MW. Those stations are most likely going to be Thomas Playford B and Hazelwood. Yallourn W is safe for the moment because it was built slightly after Hazelwood and is a little more efficient. Northern is safe because SA needs that power still.

The Hazelwood retirement by 2031 plan is the absolute final date to decommission the plant – that’s when the coal in the current mine reservation runs out. The plant will be gone long before that.

As for the Mortlake “hybrid brown coal gasifier-natural gas plant”, I think you’re confusing Mortlake for Morwell. Morwell is in the Latrobe Valley and where the HRL IDCG (with CCS capability) plant was going to be built. I refer to it in the past tense because the lack of finance for it and threats of legal action by activist lawyers have effectively killed off the project.
Mortlake is in Western Victoria and is where a 500 MW OCGT (convertible to CCGT if needed) has just been built.

As for the gas, we already have a decent gas transmission network so we could begin importing Queensland (and perhaps NSW) coal seam gas right now if need be. The conflict over exporting gas or keeping it in the country for domestic use is going to be huge soon – WA is the first battle ground (it’s already begun), Queensland and the rest of the eastern seaboard is next.

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Dendrite yes I should have googled Mortlake vs Morwell. My understanding is that a decision on the fund for 2000 MW of gas power should be made before July i.e.within weeks. If I recall the proposal for Playford was to make it a solar steam boost for the newer Northern coal plant next door.

There will be drama if they build a large gas fired power station in the Latrobe Valley. This link suggests gas plant has an average lifespan of 32 years. From the get go critics will argue they had too much financial help compared to other projects. Then I suggest the local gas supply will look parlous within a decade as the plant itself will help deplete reserves by a couple of million tonnes (?) a year.

The route to get Qld gas to Vic would be Ballera-Moomba-Adelaide-Pt Campbell which might require some pipe duplication and new compressor stations. My impression is that Qld has plans for every ounce of CSG with the Gladstone Harbour developments. They won’t like being forced to share. I wonder if Timor Sea (Icthys) gas could get to Adelaide via Darwin-Alice Springs and a new section of pipe. Then there’s LNG boats which wastes a lot of energy compared to pipelines.

I think it’s remarkable that Rex Connor predicted this back in the 70s with his proposal for a NW-SE pipeline. Admittedly a big new gas plant for Victoria will cost less and build faster than NPP but will guarantee future resentment and conflict.

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Just had a heated discussion about carbon tax with the garbage collector who raises an interesting point.. what happens to all the Gillard instigated projects if there is a change of Federal government next year? Suppose plans are well advanced for a large, heavily subsidised gas fired power station in Victoria. The alternative government could say there is nothing wrong with brown coal (1.4kg CO2 per kwhe) and the gas plant is therefore unnecessary.

Possibly the same goes for climate change research. The new Federal government could decree that climate change is not human influenced. The Bureau of Meteorology might have to modify their climate change web page and CSIRO researchers find other jobs. Even department names would have to change with the CC in DCCEE being removed.
On the other hand an alternative Federal government might allow nuclear power.

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Steve Darden, on 19 February 2012 at 3:19 PM said:

I’ve located a bit more data on California’s dirty coal legacy. I knew there was something goofy about the 1.2% coal-fired electricity that we discussed up thread – because California has a reputation for exporting their pollution to neighboring states or to other countries.

California doesn’t just import coal power, they also import wind, hydro and nuclear power. Californian Utilities own a substantial share of the Palo Verde Nuclear Plant in Arizona. A significant portion of the Wind Turbines in the Pacific Northwest are contracted to Californian Utilities as well.

If I look at the Documents provided by the Western Electric Coordinating Council

Click to access 2011%20Power%20Supply%20Assessment.pdf

Southern California is projected to have 10GW winter capacity surplus in the year 2020.and more then a 6 GW Summer deficit after accounting for imports.(Chart on page 4)

Converting the Four Corners coal fired plant to gas isn’t going to address the problem that without additional summer generating capacity there will be rolling blackouts in Southern California beginning as early as 2016.

California needs to build 6 GW of summer peaking capacity no matter what. Wind doesn’t reliably blow during heat waves, nuclear power plants are too expensive to be used as ‘summer peakers’.

That pretty much narrows the choices down to more natural gas plants or rooftop solar panels.

The goal of the ‘California Solar Initiative’ is to add 2 GW of solar generating capacity by 2016.
http://www.gosolarcalifornia.ca.gov/about/csi.php

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A couple of interesting articles from RenewEconomy, which I have only just discovered.

Both from Germany; one an interview with a politician talking about his vision for an all renewable grid by 2030, and the form that might take
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/the-end-of-baseload-it-may-come-sooner-than-you-think-29425
I broadly agree with the predictions; the old dichotomy of ‘baseload’ and ‘peaking’ will fall by the wayside, replaced with ‘despatchable’ and ‘inflexible’. Something like that. Smart grids too.

The other, which you guys will *love* talks about how French nuclear plants had restricted supply, and glorious France was on electricity rationing, because the nukes couldn’t keep up during a cold-snap. German solar power to the rescue!
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/germanys-solar-schadenfreude-59674

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evcricket, I read the article about France importing electricity from Germany during a cold snap. Here is a quote from that article, “This meant that when demand reached a new all-time high last Wednesday, France was forced to import from Germany at full capacity in nearly all hourly blocks, according to grid operator data.

At the same time, Germany, which houses 37 per cent of the world’s solar plants, relied on its growing renewable energy output and resurrected idled coal-fired plants to cover a rise in electricity demand, says Reuters.”

I am wondering how much of the French imported electricity came from solar and how much came from idled coal-fired plants. Of course, I am thinking most came from coal which would disprove you original point.

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Must have had warm nights in France so they didn’t need the German solar panels so much. €130bn well spent by the Germans. I guess it wasn’t the cold snap some other reason they restarted the oil fired power plant in Austria
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,809439,00.html

The credible element to this story is that gas heating is best for cold snaps. Maybe every house should have an LPG or wood pellet stove on standby.

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@evcricket

Debating points aside, I seriously doubt that German PV kept the lights on in France during unusually high seasonal demand. Demand would almost certainly peak in the early evening in winter as is typical for Europe. Not much output from PV then. Your second link also mentions the start up of German coal fired plants to meet the demand peak, which actually may well have more to do with things.

More importantly, Europe’s electricity industry association – Eurelectric – has recently sounded some quite load warning notes about grid stability issues in Northern Europe caused by the increasing amount of intermittent renewables. According to the Guardian report in the last year serious incidents increased in number from 300 to 1000 in northern Europe. In November, German wind almost put the lights out in the Czech Republic. Eurelectric suggests that at best, grid inadequacies will slow the deployment of renewables and at worst cause blackouts with the accompanying backlash in public opinion.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/10/grid-blackout-threat-renewables

Of course, this does not mean such problems are ultimately insoluble. But the questions are if, when, how soon and what will it all cost. The climate problem has a pretty tight timeline and carefully examining all the all systems issues relating to electricity supply would seem prudent.

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Quote: “The credible element to this story is that gas heating is best for cold snaps. Maybe every house should have an LPG or wood pellet stove on standby.”

Does that mean that electric heat is common there? If so, why?

Electric heat is extremely inefficient. Of course electric heaters themselves are about 100% efficient, but power plants are not. So, from the overall efficiency standpoint, burning fuel for heat is more efficient. For that reason, it would seem puzzling to me if electric heat were common there.

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Yep Frank, the French use loads of electric heating:
“France, whose electricity demand has been reaching new record highs nearly every winter, relies heavily on electric heating developed by successive governments to meet supplies generated by the country’s 58 nuclear power reactors. According to Reuters, 30 percent of homes use electric heaters and as many as 65 percent of new homes are heated using electricity.”

From the second article I linked to. I would wager this is a far larger part of the problem than the type of supply.

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It depends how you look at it evcricket – the alternative to electricity for heating is gas, which is not such a great idea from various perspectives (general and European). It all comes down to the fundamental issue of how much one overbuilds a generation system (and what one does with the excess power in low-demand periods), and it is a more complex issue in a place like Europe with lots of scope for energy trading, compared to the NEM in Australia, which is isolated.

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Perhaps it would be more accurate to say ‘AN alternative to electricity for heating is gas’. There are others. Many in fact, as you are no doubt aware.

And I’m not sure I see the difference between the NEM and Europe. Much trading goes on in Australia, and each state functions much as a country in Europe would, limited by the capacity of the interconnects and proximity of supply.

Anyway, this story is really little more than an interesting quirk. The Germans have made their decision (to go renewable) and it will be an interesting test case. I will watch this with interest, and consider it somewhat damning if Germany were to achieve 100% renewables before Australia, which must be close to the best place in the world for renewables.

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Evercricket,

When nuclear power is able to provide all the electricity, then electric heating may make sense. But when using electricity for heat results in burning fossil fuel to generate it, then, at least from the environmental sense, it is not a good idea.

Regarding Deutschland, I strongly suspect that it will eventuall demonstrate that renewables are not practical as the major source of power for most large prosperous countries. Because of the large uninhabitable areas in Oz, renewables might actually work there, although probably at a very high price.

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There are 2 ways to use electricity for spaceheating. One , where you use standard barheaters (you know , glowing red) and as such , consuming electricity in large amounts. The other is using heatpumps, much more efficient. Would be interesting to know what is used in France predominantly. Anyone?

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Huh, good point UnclePete. Heat-pumps are super common in Tassie, which I would imagine is a reasonable comparison with France.

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Heat pumps use a fraction as much power as resistance heating, especially if they are ground source heat pumps. In fact, heat pumps, even considering the inefficiencies of electric power generation, can can use less fossil fuel than gas heat.

For my new house, I considered a geothermal heat pump, but because it would have been so expensive, it could not have been justified. As a crude measure, if the interest on the investment exceeds the savings, probably the investment should not be made.

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Speaking of heatpumps… my favourite use of heat-pumps and passive solar to negate energy use has got to be the marvellous, completely hippie and eccentric earthship.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship

The principles are sound, and becoming more mainstream, and less ‘hippie’, everyday. There was even a borough in England looking at building medium density council housing something like this.

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Ev, did you see my comments at those RenewEconomy sites? Regarding the first, a near-contemporaneous Reuters story (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/06/france-britain-imports-idUSL5E8D62B620120206) makes it clear that the only reason Germany was able to export to France at the height of the cold snap is that the former relies far more on (increasingly Russian) gas for direct heating, whereas in the latter, heating is electricity-dominated (as you correctly indicated @11:27am).

On the second, the suspicions of others above are also correct – the French demand peak occurred at 7 pm (http://www.connexionfrance.com/France-freeze-ice-Sochaux-hydro-wind-power-13438-view-article.html), so the contribution of German PV to meeting that was zero.

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Steve Darden

Thank you for recommending Burton Richter’s “Beyond Smoke and Mirrors.”

I read the Kindle version and have to say that it becomes irritating to use this format when the Figures and Tables are several pages away from the relevant text. Notwithstanding, I believe that the book is one I would recommend to newcomers to the subject, not least because it was written by an established authority who has been instrumental in advising US politicians on energy matters. I learned more from reading MacKay’s “Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air”, but this may, in part, have been caused by the fact that I read the latter at a far earlier stage of my education such that Richter’s views seemed less educational.

My one criticism is that most experts, Richter among them, appear to insist that global warming can only be addressed by multiple solutions, including non hydro renewables. Despite his praise for nuclear and criticism of renewables, it seems perverse that Richter refuses to admit that the former begins to look more and more like a silver bullet solution.

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Douglas,

I am considering buying a Kindle, but am concerned about the problem you experienced when reading a book containing figures and tables.

Unless it is possible to view charts and graphs with the associated text, the Kindle has very serious limitations for people who are interested in science, technology, economics, etc., since charts and graphs are important for those subjects.

Do you know of a work-around for that problem? Is it conveniently possible to transfer the charts and graphs to a computer to expedite viewing them together with the related text?

I hope that this post is not considered to be off-topic.

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Is there an agenda behind today’s announcement by two metals industries? OneSteel seems to be losing interest in making Australian steel and may change its name
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/profit-loss/onesteel-silent-on-whyalla-as-job-cut-program-widens/story-fn91vch7-1226276995323
Alcoa wants to take key staff from Point Henry and get them to start up a new gas powered aluminium smelter in Saudi Arabia
http://www.news.com.au/business/saudi-offer-for-alcoa-workers/story-e6frfm1i-1226276446389

I suggest the common thread is that big capital has decided that Australia is no longer the place to do carbon intensive business. However I suggest there should be a catch in that the goods now made overseas be carbon taxed on re-importation. According to Wiki a tonne of steel co-generates 1.7t of CO2 and a tonne of aluminium requires 15 Mwh of electricity. Other countries should not get a free ride on Australia’s carbon restraint. I think the carbon tax architects blundered with the notion of partial carbon tax exemption for export metals industries as it is demonstrably inadequate.

I don’t think we should go it alone on carbon tariffs but form an alliance with the EU, Scandinavia, California and some others. Some entities who have argued for carbon tariffs include France, Bluescope Steel, the US Energy Secretary and a Nobel economics laureate. This issue is certain to blow up within a year or two.

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To John Newlands: Unfortunately, those who can sign up for the alliance to ensure imports are taxed to make them carbon-neutral are not the biggest importers. You are right, with lots of carbon-emitting manufacturing processes shifting to the developing countries (what is now happening with Australian metal producers), it is going to be quite a challenge for the rest of the world in trying to make them reduce CO2 emission. It seems that this process of manufacturers in OECD countries starting to suffer from CO2 taxes and, as a consequence, moving operations to countries without the tax is going to escalate over time.

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