With the rapid growth of renewables, comparing costs of different forms of power generation has become important for policymakers, investors and analysts. In these comparisons, the metric of LCOE (levelized cost of energy) is often used, but the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) warns that this metric does not cover all the complexities involved. The EIA has written a short primer on comparing power generation costs.
Cost is one of the key factors influencing the choice of fuels and technologies used to generate electricity. Capital, maintenance, operating, and financing costs often vary significantly across technologies and fuels. In addition, regional differences in construction, fuel, transmission, and resource costs mean that location also matters.
While simple metrics are sometimes used for cost comparisons, it is important to understand their limitations.
Levelized cost of energy (LCOE), one common metric for cost comparisons across projects and technologies, considers a plant’s expected lifetime and operation cycle and amortizes those costs over an assumed financial lifetime. Because LCOEs do not include contractual terms on price, duration, or price inflators, they should not be directly compared with other prices such as power purchase agreements. Power purchase agreements may involve project- or corporate-specific finance terms, reflect differing contract terms with the power purchaser, or reflect the value rather than the cost of the energy.
In addition, federal, state, or local tax incentives or mandates may affect some costs associated with building certain power plants. EIA’s published LCOE estimates are presented with and without relevant federal tax incentives, but they do not capture the effects of state or local programs, such as payments for compliance with state renewable portfolio standards.
LCOE comparisons have some notable limitations. For example, when comparing new capacity to existing capacity, some types of existing plants that may have been expensive to build but have relatively low operating costs can continue to operate competitively, even though the LCOE for new plants of these types may be higher than the LCOE for other technologies.
Different generation technologies also operate in different ways: some are dispatchable, or can be scheduled, while others are dependent on energy sources, such as wind and solar, that are available intermittently. Some plants operate around the clock, while others are likely to operate only during times of high demand. Because electricity prices differ throughout the day, the timing of a plant’s output affects its cost recovery. Also, dispatchable generating technologies (such as coal-fired steam or nuclear steam plants, combined-cycle plants, and simple-cycle combustion turbines or internal combustion engines) provide both energy and capacity services to meet daily and seasonal fluctuations in demand.
Another cost concept, the levelized avoided cost of energy (LACE), attempts to measure the value to the electric system that certain technologies provide. LACE reflects the cost that would be incurred to provide the same supply to the system if new capacity using a specific technology were not added and used.
For example, if a hypothetical new natural gas plant were not constructed, other technologies may need to be added or the utilization rate (and fuel use) of existing plants may need to be increased to meet the energy and capacity services that the hypothetical new plant would have provided. A technology is generally considered to be economically competitive when its LACE exceeds its LCOE.
The EIA models that develop the electricity projections in the Annual Energy Outlook identify the least-cost capacity addition and dispatch strategies to meet energy and capacity requirements in each of 22 electricity market regions given the technology costs, fuels costs, and the daily and seasonal load patterns for each area.
Although EIA does not directly apply the LCOE and LACE in its modeling, EIA calculates both LCOE and LACE for several technologies for all regions to provide insight into factors driving capacity addition and dispatch decisions. These calculations are available in the Levelized Cost and Levelized Avoided Cost of New Generation Resources in the Annual Energy Outlook 2017 report.
Editor’s Note
Principal contributor to this article: Cara Marcy. Original Post. Republished with permission.
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Hans says
Strange that the external costs are kept out of the discussion.
Bob Wallace says
Shhhh….
The thermal plant industries do not want that talked about publicly.
Bas Gresnigt says
Then we should also calculate the huge external (socialized) costs of nuclear.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bas Gresnigt – Then we should also calculate the huge external (socialised) costs of coal and oil. Far greater than that of Nuclear.
Bas Gresnigt says
While wind+solar+storage is already 2 – 5 times cheaper than nuclear, externalities will make those 4 – 10 times cheaper!
With externalities for all included in the costs, wind + solar + storage will also compete fossil from the market.
Furthermore it may facilitate great expansion for geothermal.
So it will increase the transition to 100% renewable greatly.
Albert Rogers says
The fossil fuel industry in Europe has a manifest interest in crippling the only industry that can oust it. That is why Germany’s people have been fed for decades with terrifying lies about the dangers of nuclear. There have been in the whole world, a whole three instances of nuclear reactor breakdown, and only the one with the unstable RBMK design killed anybody.
The Energiewende, in case you hadn’t noticed the plans to build more coal burners, is a total environmental failure — or a success for the people who are threatened by the need to cease fossil carbon combustion.
Bob Wallace says
Germany is not building more coal plants. Germany has coal plants that are waiting for government permission to close.
Several years ago Germany decided to build some supercritical coal plants and close less efficient, more polluting plants. Those plants have been built.
Less were built than was originally planned. And one completed plant probably will never be fired up.
Helmut Frik says
It was the utility part of the fossil fuel industry which for some time promoted nuclear, after being persuaded from politics to add nuclear in the mix. (Originally they wanted to expand lignite, due to costs – lignite in germany has LOWER fuel costs than nuclear. This does not remove the emission problems, but makes some historic developments understandable. (The utilitys are also owner of the mines, so no additional fossil fuel lobby available in this area).
Today the utilities require a acceleration of insalling wind and solar power, especially offshore, they have abandoned fossil fuels in their plannings. If the’d have their way, the’d like to istall e.g. 7GW of Offshore wind per year, producing additional 30TWh of electricity per year, This alone would rise renewable electricity production to around 600 TWh per year in 13 years, so till 2030.
Times are chaniging fast, and old players change sides.
Albert Rogers says
You cannot stack TWh of electricity the way you do cords of wood or a cellar full of coal, nor even the gravitational energy of water behind a hydro plan’s dam. It is time to look critically at how completely Energiewende has FAILED to reduce emissions and even the demand for new fossil carbon burning in Germany.
Bas Gresnigt says
Energiewende reduced emissions, even while realizing it’s prime target;
“All nuclear out asap as that is by far the most dangerous.”:
year nuclear CO2
2002 165TWh 651g/Kwh
2016; 85TWh 535g/KWh
After 2022 emission reduction speed will increase a lot as then all nuclear is out.
Bas Gresnigt says
Albert,
Germany was lucky that none of these nuclear disasters concerned a German or nearby NPP.
When one maps the Chernobyl exclusion zone on Germany, you realize it would cripple the whole nation for a century or so!*)
Why accept those risks while other cheaper methods are available which also emit less CO2/KWh?
Methods also much faster and cheaper to construct (per TWh), needing far less specific education to run.
Bob Wallace says
I have a similar concern about several US reactors. If the wrong one cooks and the wind is blowing the wrong direction the cost could run into the trillions of dollars.
Hans says
To reformulate my previous comment:
If you are looking to avoided costs you should also look to avoided health and environmental costs.
Tilleul says
And what about the variable costs of fossil fuel ? Or are we supposed to believe the EIA is able to predict accurately the cost of fossil fuels for the next 50 years ?
And what about basic economics like supply and demand ? Every scientific studies and practical experience show that Willingness To Pay will vary greatly depending on the source of energy and the way projects are managed…
And what about all the CCGT that were shutdown during the polar vortex because natural gas boilers have priority over gas powerplants ? Or CCGT that were shutdown in South Australia because of greediness (I won’t even mention Enron…) ?
Bob Wallace says
The EIA seems to do really well with gathering and reporting historical data.
The EIA has demonstrated a large degree of incompetence when it comes to predicting future energy prices and usages.
https://cleantechnica.com/2014/01/10/horrible-eia-forecasts-letter-cleantechnica-readers/
Albert Rogers says
Bob Wallace, I declined an invitation to move from FERC to EIA for exactly the reason you cite.
Bob Wallace says
You might find this letter that three of us wrote to the EIA mildly interesting.
http://cleantechnica.com/2014/01/10/horrible-eia-forecasts-letter-cleantechnica-readers/
I sent it to the Secretary and, apparently, the mail triage person kicked it down to the head of the EIA prediction office (whatever that is called). That person just blew us off.
Later we used another channel and got the letter to the Obama White House where it made its way to the DOE Secretary. Since then the EIA has included some fine print that basically says “Don’t take our numbers seriously”.
Bob Wallace says
EIA LCOE for
Onshore wind placed in service in 2022…
LCOE + transmission = $55.8/MWh. Teasing out the $2.9/MWh transmission cost leaves US onshore wind at $52.9/MW. $0.053/kWh.
Wind PPAs are now clustered around $0.02/kWh. Teasing out the federal subsidy takes the unsubsidized price to under $0.035/kWh. Over the next five years it is expected that larger turbines, higher hub heights, and other improvements will bring the price of wind even lower. It appears the EIA is off by 100%.
PV solar placed in service in 2022…
LCOE + transmission = $73.7/MWh. Teasing out the $3.8/MWh transmission cost leaves US PV solar at $69.9/MW. $0.07/kWh.
In 2015 four out of five US regions where utility scale solar is being install report PPA prices $60/MWh. Somewhere between $0.04 and $0.06/kWh. Take out the federal subsidy and the current price would be $0.055 to $0.07.
Utility solar prices fell 20.3% during 2016 and are expected to continue to fall over the coming years. PV solar is already cheaper than the EIA’s projected price for five years from now.
In 2012 the EIA predicted that coal would provide 32% of US coal in 2040 when the upcoming closure of coal plants was clear to everyone else. Coal was down to 30% in 2016 and heading a lot lower.
Lawrence Coomber says
1.Of course Bob Wallace is much closer to reality with his analysis of facts than the EIA in this report.
2. Almost no meaningful analysis offered on the other new energy technology coming on stream – new age nuclear. Why would this be the case? Anybody got any inside knowledge on the possible reasons for this apparent oversight in the EIA report?
Lawrence Coomber
Bob Wallace says
Lawrence, the nuclear industry has promised that the next reactor they build will solve the cost problem. For more than 50 years. The nuclear industry has promised affordable and delivered unaffordable.
My guess is that there is a huge amount of skepticism about the future cost of nuclear energy. (Outside the small group of nuclear advocates.)
I’ve asked people online to explain how the price of nuclear electricity could be reduced. The answers I’ve received are
1) Use thorium. But the cost of uranium is well under a penny per kWh. Even if thorium was free it wouldn’t bring the price down to where nuclear could compete.
2) Molten salt reactors. Perhaps the price could drop some but the salt is simply how heat is moved from reactor to steam plant. You still have to build the reactor and build the steam plant.
3) Small modular reactors. Nuclear reactors have grown larger over time because bigger is better, lowers costs.
Some argue that SMRs could be built in factories and enjoy economy of scale. That might be true if the factory was running and cranking out hundreds of SMRs a year. But how does one reach economy of scale (EoS)?
Nissan has stated that EVs need to be manufactured at the rate of 500,000 units per year to reach EoS. Building up from no units per year to whatever the EoS level is requires building a lot of units which would have to be sold for a lot more money. Where’s the market for hundreds/thousands of very expensive SMRs?
Look at the cost of our early solar panels. Around $100/watt. Reaching EoS has brought that price below $0.50/watt but it took manufacturing millions of panels.
4) Decreasing regulations. This one is very frequently given, yet I’ve never been able to get even a short list of the specific regulations which could be eliminated and keep safety levels where they now are. And no one has worked out, as far as I can tell, an estimate for how much prices would fall.
Remember, the cost of new nuclear (outside areas which have extraordinarily cheap labor) runs well over $0.10/kWh. By the time a new reactor could be brought online wind and solar should be around $0.02/kWh. That is a huge, huge, huge difference. More than 5x.
Taking the cost of anything down by 80% over a short period of time just seems extremely unlikely.
The EIA does project a cost for “advanced nuclear” brought online in 2020. $96.2/MWh including $1.0/MWh for transmission.
$95.2/MWh. $0.10/kWh. Not competitive.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bob Wallace – Where are Nuclear Plants built with cheap labour.? […] In a MSR Reactor the coolant, or even the fuel itself, is a molten salt mixture. Notably, steam is not created in the core (as is present in BWRs), and no large, expensive steel pressure vessel (as required for PWRs). Since it can operate at high temperatures, the conversion of the heat to electricity can use an efficient, lightweight Brayton cycle gas turbine. Researchers have actually had working models of the MSRs since the ’60s, but they’ve never been used for commercial purposes as the research capital comes from the military. By 2030, I can see that 600 MWe MSR’s will hit the market at an initial cost of about US$1.7 billion, being a fraction of the cost of the Westinghouse Generation III AP1000, and can be shipped from a factory in modules to order.
China is leading the world in carrying R&D and the manufacturing of SMR’s. This year they will go critical with their 210 MWe Demonstration SMR HTR-PM Reactor. To be followed next year with the construction of two commercial 630 MWe versions of the same design for grid connection in 2021. The new reactor would be small enough to be built in a central factory and then shipped to its destination, rather than requiring that the plant’s eventual location be made into an expensive, multi-year construction site. The 630 MWe SMR HTR-PM Reactors are specifically designed to hit the export market by 2023. The Chinese have on this design accumulated some 17 years of operational experience. Furthermore, China’s HTR-PM project is squarely aimed at being a cost-effective solution that will virtually eliminate air pollution and CO2 production from selected units of China’s large installed base of modern 600 MWe super-critical coal plants.
FYI – People employed in the Nuclear Industry are not a small minority of advocates. They are respected scientists and engineers working for a future that can function.
Bas Gresnigt says
Hendrikus,
” Researchers have actually had working models of the MSRs since the ’60s”?
I only know the experimental one at ORNL in the ‘ 60s.
Seems that even the 2MWth Chinese MSR experiment didn’t take off. No construction start (yet), while it was planned to be operational now.
But may be you can show links which show other working models after the ‘ 60s?
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bas Gresnigt – The question was not where a MSR is operational, the question related to the function of the salt. You know very well that at the moment a tremendous amount of work is going on in the research on MSR (even at the Delft TU). As a result to the R&D I stated; By 2030, I can see that 600 MWe MSR’s will hit the market at an initial cost of about US$1.7 billion,
Helmut Frik says
And who should buy these overpriced systems?
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Helmut Frik – who will buy them, you will find out in time. Especially when they start looking at – https://www.energy-charts.de/energy.htm
Never-mind, there are even some rumours that China may end up selling electricity to Germany at half the price, using it’s long-distance ultra-high-voltage direct-current (UHVDC) systems.
Helmut Frik says
MAybe, but as it looks like it will be wind and solar power from china. There is no lull all the way from germany to china, and also nearly no night. Never forget this. Once there is a connection from china to germany to exchange power, there is no such thing as variable generation from wind and solar, it’s constant outpiut. Then the pure LCOE-costs of wind, solar and nuclear count. Which is a fight nuclear has not the slightest chance to win. Too hich costs, too complex systems, too much risks, real and financial.
Nigel West says
Helmut that is fantasy talk. 8000km of UHVDC lines via Russia supplying Germany from China! You can’t be serious. Over that distance even with UHVDC the losses would be huge, maybe half lost in transit, as would the costs.
Helmut Frik says
Complain at Hendrikus in this case.
But there are alredy UHVDC-Powerlines under construction in china extending more than 3200km. Roughly the same built in the other direction can connect to the european grid in Turky, or many other places in the far east of europe.
Losses only depend on the dimension of cable you hang on the mast. The material cost of the cable is not so high that it becomes unafordable to double or quadruple etc. cable crosssection, or to use 8, 12 or 16 cables in the bundle instead of four. Why do you think the chinese state grid operator considers such interconnectors?
Bob Wallace says
What would the loss be?
I found a statement that over a 3,000 km distance a 800 kV UHVDC line would lose 7% of the electricity carried.
http://www.powerengineeringint.com/articles/print/volume-17/issue-3/features/uhvdc-unlocks-the-potential-of-hydropower.html
Nigel West says
Bob, it doesn’t actually say that. My reading of the article is the technology is suitable for up to 3000km. So half the distance to western Europe. In theory distance shouldn’t matter for DC. But there might be an issue with line switching current and transients at distances > 3000km.
Everything else being equal, a comparison of losses at 800kV v 500kV says 10% v 7%. The distance though is not stated – may be an average for links across China. Elsewhere suggests losses are about 3.5% per 1000km. If links from China to Europe prove feasible the distance as the crow flies of c. 8000km – suggests around 30% losses.
You probably appreciate the losses will be directly proportional to distance. Larger conductors can be used to reduce resistance up to acceptable mechanical loading limits on towers. Or more lines built in parallel.
If the Chinese want to sell wind power to Europe my view is it would be cheaper to buy into the north Sea than contemplate building lines of that length which would run into a host political and security issues.
Helmut Frik says
And what would that losses mean on the economic side? 3x3000km with 7% loss each accumulate to 20% loss over the whole distance. So if power can be bought at e.g 3ct/kWh at one end and is needed at urgend backup at the other end, price woud rise due to losses to 3,6ct/kWh. WOW. What a big rise……
Nuclear hopes to get 9-10ct/kWh with the next nuclear project after hinkley point – as baseload, nut as emergency backup/ peaker plant.
If the poer line is not run at its thermal limits, the losses will decrease further. So price differnces of a fraction of a cent might be enough to get many GW moving from china to europe, freom europe to china. And even Australia is not really out of reach.
Nigel West says
“double or quadruple etc. cable crosssection, or to use 8, 12 or 16 cables in the bundle instead of four. ”
There are practical design limits on the size and number of conductors in a bundle. Depends on conductor weight, tower mechanical strength, wind/ice loading, span lengths, ground clearance, max. tower height etc. Note that 800kV UHDC circuit capacity is up to about 8GW.
Bob Wallace says
“And what would that losses mean on the economic side? 3x3000km with 7% loss each accumulate to 20% loss over the whole distance.”
It’s more like 6,000 km from China’s sunny desert to the middle of Germany.
China has some very good wind resources close to its western border. Even closer.
2 * 7% = 14% which is not very different from storage losses. PuHS can run up to 85% efficient (15% loss) and batteries to 90% efficient (10% loss). That puts importing solar in the ballpark.
The question then becomes whether it is cheaper to build transmission or storage.
Bob Wallace says
Nigel, there’s a length problem with HVAC due to cable capacitance. DC doesn’t have a similar problem.
I wonder if that sentence in the PEI article is poorly written. The longest UHVDC line built to date is 3,000 km. Perhaps that’s where the 3k came from.
I find nothing online that talks about a distance limit for HVDC/UHVDC.
I found one HVDC statement – “No limit to underground cable length”.
“Elsewhere suggests losses are about 3.5% per 1000km. ”
It’s most likely an issue of balancing cable size and loss. In the long term would it make more sense to run larger cables in order to cut losses or accept larger losses.
Those of us who mess around with solar are constantly balancing peak electricity loss vs. cost of larger cables.
Google maps says “Total distance: 3,253.21 mi (5,235.53 km)” from western China where there very good wind resources to the middle of Germany. As the raven flaps.
Now, I don’t know how the discussion got to importing electricity from China. If the idea is to smooth out wind variation it would seem that there are places closer that could do that job.
What’s needed is a simple study comparing wind speeds (140 meter hub height, modern tech) at select places across western Europe and other places within 500 and 1,000 km of the boarders.
I’m looking at where the wind is blowing right now (and, yes, a single data point is not adequate but it can be illustrative).
The wind is blowing stink off the UK. There are strong offshore winds between Greece and Turkey. Strong winds offshore Spain and Morocco.
More wind in the North Sea and western Med. Winds are slamming into the north side of Iceland. Good winds in North Africa.
The question is how much are those wind fields correlated? Do they all rise up and die down together?
Looking at the flow directions they are not coming from the same weather system.
Someone needs to do a wind analysis and see what mix of areas would give the smoothest input.
It looks like, to me, that there is way more than enough in terms of diverse sites less than 2k km from the middle of Germany.
Helmut Frik says
@ nigel, for new towers there are no practical limits, you can dimension them like bridge towers and hang cables with squaremeters of crosssections on them.
Groud clearence is not relevant if the mixture of aluminum and steel remains constant..
Relative ice load is falling with thicker wires. (For bridge wires ice load is nearly irrelevant)
Span length in independent of number of wires and cross section of wires.
There are no practical design limits, there was just so far little market for UHVDC-lines above 12 GW. (be aware, 8GW at 800kV is alrady not state of the art any more, that’s 1100kV and 12 GW
According to ABB and Siemens engineers 12 GW is only the beginning.
Helmut Frik says
@ bob wallace – a power connection from germany to china would also connect all wind power from germany to china along this way. So the usual transport distance would be much much smaller than the whole distance, and the direction of power flow would change along this length several times during a day, espeically as far as wind power is concerned. A power line does not provide it’s services at both ends, but allso at all places where it passes (if somenone has the mind to build converter stations every 500 or 1000km or so)
Photovoltaic can produce power flows over the whole length of the cable in one direction, from the sunny to the dark side of the earth.
The thinking of the chinese grid engineers is very german in this point. Build some strong long power lines between the strong chinese and european grids, and eliminate the varability of wind and solar for whole eurasian continent once and for ever. (given somebody builds some links from china to india)
If someone develops cheap storage then it’s fine, if this does not happen it’s fine too.
If someone develops 100% safe nuclear cheaper than coal capacity to build it’s fine, if not it’s fine, too. Energy supply problems solved.
Nigel West says
Helmut, look at ABB’s literature on UHVDC tower design. It’s lattice tower design using proven tower designs and industry standard conductors. Engineers would not build a bespoke ‘Helmut’ design overhead line either using ridiculously impractical conductor sizes, and over engineered bridge like towers that you quote, over great distances. First think about the costs man…….
I can tell you with 800kV DC lines, or any for that matter, safe ground clearances are an issue as conductor sag varies with ambient temperature and line loading and that affects conductor tension which has to be within the tower mechanical load limit. Max span lengths are determined by the conductor load imposed and tower mech. strength. That is not unlimited – unlike a ‘Helmut’ design!
Bob, note, cables are buried, conductors hang in the air. Cable circuits cost more than overhead lines, can’t carry the same load as one overhead circuit, and take longer to install. Unfortunately overhead lines can’t cross seas so subsea cables have to be used which limits power ratings.
Nigel West says
@Helmut – “a power connection from germany to china would also connect all wind power from germany to china along this way.”
Such links would very likely need to pass through Russia/Iran. If Germany wants to take that risk fine by me. UK would not accept such a security risk for sure!
BTW every converter station adds losses on top of the overall line loss. Also, how much do you think such links would cost given the 1000km HVDC Suedlink across Germany is set to cost >£15bn? On economic grounds alone sounds a non starter.
Bob Wallace says
” a power connection from germany to china would also connect all wind power from germany to china along this way. ”
I understand all that. I’m just suggesting that we need some large scale studies that take a few years of generation and demand data and models the best mix of storage, transmission, and over-building capacity.
And I have a little concern about a grid relying on transmission that runs over what might be “hostile territory” at some time.
I think Desertec (the plan to make a unified Europe/North Africa grid) was dropped when NA started having lots of problems after failed Arab Spring.
Bob Wallace says
” Cable circuits cost more than overhead lines, can’t carry the same load as one overhead circuit, and take longer to install. ”
I understand that. What I was relaying was the “unlimited length” part of the statement.
Helmut Frik says
@ nigel, what you write about towers and conductors is simply nonsense.
Otherwise the rise of conductor size – using stonger lattice towers here in egrmany would not have happened (but it’s simply unlogical, ask someone involved in structural design in civil engineering.
Naturally somewhere, at giant corssections of many many squaremeters, there are technical limitations. but they are in areas which are completely irelevant for electrical power transportation. So the only question is: which size of cable fits economical to the problem.
At the moment material costs for the wires are not the major part of building a power line. So rising the diameters to double or quadruple of todays standard cross sections is a economical easy task if the amout of power to be transported exists.
that’s why uingermany new power lines are built with a minimum capacity of 2500MVA per circuit at 400kV AC, up to 3400MVA with thermal monitoring. The price difference towards the old 1400 and 1700 MVA systems with thinner wires is not woth thinking. And often towers are used which are prepared for 4 of such systems, sometimes 6 systems
And that’s not the DC power transmission, that’s still plain old AC at not too high voltage.
So the important point is – there is no length limit, no capacity limit with power transmission, and there is even no fiixed number of losses per xkm of lengh, that’s also just a design parameter for the engineer designing the power line.
It’s a cost optimisation process.
Thats why grid development is a process which starts new very two years in europe and germany, each times for the next ten years with outlook in future years, to build what looks best with available technology and costs.
Same approach is the right one for all grid extensions I think. Power lines are fast to build, so after each one built new it can be reconsidered if the asumptions on which the economic decisions were made are still correct.
When I look at the chinese procect to buils 23 new UHVDC-Lines for 89 billion $ with lengthes up to 3200km and capacitys of 8-12 GW, it looks like some first investment to increase tranmission capacity in central asia between the power generation heavyweights in europe, chna and india does not include really high risks, much smaller than building a nuclear power station like Hinkley Point.
Especially since, as far as I remember, the several million uninhabited square kilometers of plains in Kasachstan and neighbouring coutries have excellent wind conditions.
So if everything else fails, such power lines can still be used to export low cost wind power to neighboring countries.
Nigel West says
Helmut, In the UK unless the line voltage is being uprated, towers are not replaced to allow for larger conductors – that would be expensive, too risky and time consuming as the whole line would need to be reconsented/permitted based on new towers.
Instead Grid use the same towers but with newer higher capacity conductors. Ratings of up to 3800MVA are possible. Other tweaks are made too.
That said, I really don’t understand what you are saying (maybe it’s a language issue) other than arguing over technical details no one else here is the least bit interested in.
But I can tell you I have planned grid transmission lines so I don’t need a pointless academic lecture on design. Thanks all the same though.
Bas Gresnigt says
So there was no working MSR model since the ORNL experiment in the sixties.
Pro-nuclear has many dreams, which don’t fit with reality but are communicated as reality. Dreams about e.g.:
– low costs.
In reality very high, and for important part socialized (govt, citizens).
– radiation harmless until high level (100mSv/a), so safety can be less.
In reality: Even the slightest increase create already increased genetic and health damage.
Hence damages also health of next generations.
– Nuclear power reactors are safe.
In reality more than 2% of the world’s reactors ended its life due to accidents.
Near 1% even ended in disaster taking the life of at least a million people.
– Life span of NPP’s with 60, even 80 years.
In reality the av age of reactors closed in past 5yrs is 40yrs. No NPP reached 50years and no one will soon. Indian Point, one of the oldest, will be closed in 2021 at age 48.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bas Gresnigt – You wouldn’t know it from reading most papers, but the last five years have accommodated noteworthy developments in the chronically underreported world of next generation nuclear research. It is unfortunate that nuclear tends only to get airtime when journalists deign to dispense dismissive, undergraduate analysis, obligatorily set in the ‘wake’ of Fukushima and aimed at a caricature of the industry. The impression one gets from the nuclear landscape is actually one of careful optimism, an optimism built upon the sight of many bright lights on the next-gen horizon. The Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (pronounced ‘lifter’ in acronymic form) is one of those bright lights, one that China is chasing, and one that Britain would do well to pay more attention to.
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/chinas-incipient-lftr
Bas Gresnigt says
The LFTR “bright light” haunts around at least 6 years; no progress visible. So only dreams.
LFTR may become interesting when uranium becomes expensive. However since nuclear is competed gradually off the market by cheaper renewable, the predicted uranium shortage didn’t and won’t show up.
Optimism
You find the optimism only with people who consider only nuclear…
In general those dreams scatter more the more the harsh reality comes in.
Btw.
When you analyze the nice stories & presentations, you find indicators that LFTR will deliver more expensive electricity than present nuclear!
Helmut Frik says
Maybe in the next century, we will se if something useful comes from this direction. if anybody still cares about nuclear then.
And the prices they hope to reach are still pricing this system off the table.
Helmut Frik says
So in some years SMR reactors might be where wind power was with the GROWIAN Project in 1983. And another 35 years of development, and some decades to see if they are really safe, ther might, or might not be a competitive product, in 50+ years from now if you look at things a bit more realistic. Till then CO2 problems have been solved and fossil fuel be removed from market for some decades.
So better to concentrate on the ceaper, low risk equipment which is availe to do this today, and at a scale necceary to phase out fossile fuels.
Existing reactors are way too expensive, and supply chains do not scale up in time to be of any use for removing fossil fuels. And nuclear, at least of todays design can not ramp in significant amounts, so is unable to run residual loads, making a mix of wind+solar+nuclear only possible in a grid layout, where wind+solar could fulfill all neds alone, at lower costs. Nuclear simply does not make sense any more.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Helmut Frik – MSR is only one form of the SMR’s being developed, you […] ignored my comment on the fact that China is having a 210MWe SMR under construction that is going critical this year. They confirmed to build some 400 of them in the next 20 years. http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/12/chinas-plans-to-begin-converting-coal.html
Helmut Frik says
And the SMR are also not running, so till they are in the market in significant numbers it will take a long time, and the price they hope to achieve when going to market in big numbers already prices them off the table. They want to start building, maybe, maybe not, in the next 13 years. If they do not run in any trouble in the prototype operation which will come in some future. Times have changed the recent years, and they keep changing fast. What was considereed as acceptable costs some years ago is completely out of the market today.
Nigel West says
That was said about renewables in the development phase. SMRs will be a success too and costs will come down. SMRs should receive subsidies to help now renewables are cheap enough not to need support.
Helmut Frik says
Why? We could as well subsidise horses to make them competitive again against cars?
O POTS-Telephones to compete better against mobile phones? Promote the use of mechanical calculators against the use of computers?
Bob Wallace says
Try to remember, you’re talking about decreasing costs from ~$0.13/kWh to around $0.04/kWh in order to make nuclear competitive.
That’s a huge cost drop. A very efficient factory might bring down the reactor cost by a third. Perhaps half. But the investment in the factory would be huge and the cost would have to be spread over relatively few reactors.
Nigel West says
UK has not seen costs as low as $0.04/kWh! So far >£100/MWhr for off-shore wind excluding back-up. Stop quoting meaningless wind outliers.
Bob Wallace says
Whose fault is it that the UK lags so far behind in the development of offshore wind?
Might it be the same people that brought Britain the Brexit?
Just look to the east of the UK. There you will find offshore wind farms which purchase the hardware for the same price as the UK and pay about the same rates for labor.
If they can do then (eventually) the UK should be able to get their costs down.
Helmut Frik says
In science a series of outliers in a short time make up a trend. You know this, so stop thinking the time of expensive offshore power will ever come back.
Bas Gresnigt says
Due to UK’s tender policy which severely limits competition, UK pays about twice the prices NL, DK, Germany pay.
Bas Gresnigt says
SMR’s will get at least the nuclear liability limitation subsidies (regarding accidents and nuclear waste) that nuclear laws grant. Those have a value of 2-4cnt/KWh.
Then we don’t calculate the genetic damage they create, while operating normal, to newborn up to 40km in their environment!
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bas Gresnigt – Nuclear while operating normal, creating, genetic damage to newborn up to 40km in their environment! Lies, lies and more lies.
You really are destroying the quality of any of the commentary. I read some peer reviewed papers on Hagen Scherb. They conclude; at present, there is no credible evidence to support the LNT model, and plenty of evidence against it. Superficially examining publications, you can come to wrong conclusions. One needs to examine them reasonably thoroughly to find the problems in data, analysis, and/or interpretation. There is not one publication that has withstood such scrutiny, amongst the tens that have been examined closely. If you have even one solid evidence for the LNT model, please research it carefully and then let me know the reference. Even Hagen Scherb admits that more research is required.
https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/radiation/related-info/faq.html
Bas Gresnigt says
Hagen Scherb etal show that increased genetic damage around all NPP’s. Read the link in my previous comment.
He also shows same around Germany’s prime nuclear waste (dry casks) storage. The high (10%) increase of the m/f sex ratio of new born caused Federal govt to close the site prematurely (pro-nuclear scientists found even higher increase in the M/f sex ratio) while the storage building was still 70% empty!
LNT
You mis-cite Scherb!!
I spelled Scherb’s papers and discussed with him.
Regarding LNT he simply says look to the findings…
He has no true/false position as the matter is rather complex. Research also showed that LNT under-estimate the health damage in a number of situations!
Seems you’re not used reading scientific publications. If results which may raise questions, those always end with cautionary statements.
Bas Gresnigt says
Hendrikus,
Sorry forgot to answer your question:
This rock-solid study*) delivers solid evidence of LNT at radiation level increases between 0.15-0.8mSv/A (7%-33% of normal background).
It shows next increases per mSv/a radiation increase:
– Stillbirth:33% (P=0.0003)
– Heart malformations; 83% (P=0.002)
– Serious limb deformities: 129% (P=0.00004).
_____
*) Rock-solid thanks to unique circumstances, which become clear reading the study.
Bas Gresnigt says
Bob,
Like to add to your point 4 (decreasing regulations):
There is now considerable pressure to ease radiation standards with statements that radiation would be harmless until levels of 100mSv/a. Normal background ~2.4mSv/a.
While significant increased genetic damage is shown for increases of less than 0.05mSv/a.
Such easing of radiation emission standards imply cheaper NPP’s while also disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima would become cheaper. All against against increased health damage to the population. As shown in e.g. Germany for increases of 0.2mSv/a due to Chernobyl.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bas Gresnigt – All old stuff published by Dr. Hagen Scherb and Eveline Weigelt from the Munich Institute for the Environment. They both are examples of “researchers” who attempt to fit the statistical data to their foregone conclusion. Herr Scherb decided long ago that atmospheric weapons testing and Chernobyl affected birth rates and the sex of the babies. Then has spent the past decade or so throwing every statistical tool at data he has accumulated to prove himself correct. The problem with his “analysis” is that he never allows other factors to enter into his equations. That is the sign of a agenda driven researcher. Scherb’s narrative plays into anti-nuclear crusaders own narrative since it fits their own belief system that man made radiation is bad and somehow affects the human body differently then natural, or otherwise know as background- radiation differently. That belief system is not based on science but on a political agenda to eliminate nuclear power from the discussion of power generation sources that we humans can build and use to power our industrial world.
Scherb is a mathematician and statistician by trade. He is not formally trained in epidemiology or any medical field for that matter. Therefore he does not have the formal medical training to dig deeper into his statistical results to see if his results are vaild. What is sad to see is that apparently he does not have the intellectual curiosity to question himself on his results.
Just something of interest – the carcinogenic risk induced by low doses of ionizing radiation is controversial. It cannot be assessed with epidemiologic methods alone because at low doses the data are imprecise and often conflicting. Since the 1970s, the radiation protection community has estimated the risk of low doses by means of extrapolation from the risk assessed at high doses, generally by using the linear no-threshold (LNT) model. The advances during the past 2 decades in radiation biology, the understanding of carcinogenesis, and the discovery of defences against carcinogenesis challenge the LNT model, which appears obsolete. In recent years, however, an increasing number of researchers have questioned the assumption that all radiation is bad, and have begun studying whether low doses might in fact aid in genetic repair, prevent tissue damage, and other benefits.
In conclusion, show me one peer reviewed document on any of his related work. Bas Gresnigt have you yourself produced any scientific research in this area.?
Bas Gresnigt says
@Hendrikus,
The publications of Scherb etal are all in peer reviewed scientific journals. So pick your choice.
Your statement: “The problem with his “analysis” is that he never allows other factors to enter”
Shows that you never read his publications. He just shows the highly significant (P=0.0001) jump like increases in e.g. perinatal death in not evacuated prefectures ~10month after Fukushima. And doesn’t state conclusions…
Your comment shows too many such wrong conclusions to explain all.
Just two more:
1. “… that man made radiation is bad and somehow affects the human body differently then natural…” Which is nonsense.
Natural radiation damages as well, as shown with people living in areas with increased natural radiation.
2. “…radiation protection community has estimated the risk of low doses by means of extrapolation..”
Nonsense. The highly significant (P=0.00001) increases of very serious birth defects in this study were found at doses of ~0.2mSv/a (10% increase of natural background radiation).
And the increased genetic damage around nuclear facilities was found at even much lower radiation increased with high significance (P=0.0001).
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bas Gresnigt [ ] – the LNT model, appears to be obsolete. Radiation protection standards assume that any dose of radiation, no matter how small, involves a possible risk to human health.
This deliberately conservative assumption is increasingly being questioned. Today, we know more about the sources and effects of exposure to ionizing radiation than to almost any other hazardous agent, and the scientific community is constantly updating and analysing its knowledge.
The sources of radiation causing the greatest exposure of the general public are not necessarily those that attract the most attention. In fact, the greatest exposure is caused by natural sources ever present in the environment, and the major contributor to exposure from artificial sources is the use of radiation in medicine worldwide.
The maximum annual dose allowed for radiation workers is 20 mSv/yr, though in practice, doses are usually kept well below this level. In comparison, the average dose received by the public from nuclear power is 0.0002 mSv/yr, which is of the order of 10,000 times smaller than the total yearly dose received by the public from background radiation.
This discussion is about the “cost of electricity generation” and yes the health and waste cost to the economy also apply in this. But it does not need a constant repeat of anti-nuclear comments.
Bas Gresnigt says
“LNT model, appears to be obsolete.”??
Only in the minds of few nuclear fanatics, who created the dose-response journal to get their stuff published.
In the past decade the LNT model is shown to apply to levels far below natural background radiation.
The US National Academy of Sciences confirmed in its most recent BEIR that LNT is the best estimate of the health damage even at very low levels. Furthermore it states that there are studies showing that low level increases create more health damage than LNT predicts.*) But the authors found those not strong enough to deviate from the simple easy to use LNT model.
Male workers at Sellafield indeed get less than 20mSv/a. But they get 39% more boys than girls. And these children do have significant more serious health problems (both significant differences despite the low numbers).
People living up to 40km from a nuclear facility or power plant also get significant more boys than girls (up to 10%) indicating increased genetic damage hence also increased health risks (P=0.001). Germany closed its prime nuclear waste (dry casks) store, Gorleben, prematurely (the building for 70% empty) because of that.
Why should we accept those risks for an electricity generation method, while cheaper non-risk methods are available which also emit less CO2/KWh??
Btw.
We agree that natural background exposure (together with medical) is far bigger than that by nuclear for most of us.
But it’s also shown that such natural background radiation is responsible for important part of our health damage (cancers, heart, etc).
_____
*) So opposite to your statement!
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bas GresnigtBut – “it’s also shown that such natural background radiation is responsible for important part of our health damage (cancers, heart, etc).”
Absolute total rubbish, the wrong lifestyle, alcohol, cigarettes, recreational drugs, KFC, MacDonald, Coca Cola – resulting in obesity, are the causes of health diseases, such as heart, vascular, diabetics, cancers, and a whole lot more.
Over time, natural background radiation, an small additional amounts are responsible for important evolutionary adjustments in our cells.
Bas Gresnigt says
People living in high background radiation area suffer from significant more genetic damage as shown through scientific research by university of Tehran, Iran.
People living in areas with increased background radiation suffer from significant more serious health damage as shown by a meta-study executed by scientists from universities of S.Carolina and Paris.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
Bas Gresnigt – Using data from Chernobyl effects we find a new ERR for CM of 0.5 per mSv at 1 mSv falling to 0.1 per mSv at 10 mSv exposure and thereafter remaining roughly constant. This is for mixed fission products as defined though external exposure to Cs-137. Results show that current radiation risk models fail to predict or explain the many observations and should be abandoned. Further research and analysis of previous data is suggested, but prior assumptions of linear dose response, assumptions that internal exposures can be modelled using external risk factors, that chronic and acute exposures give comparable risks and finally dependence on interpretations of the high dose ABCC studies are all seen to be unsafe procedures.
Bas Gresnigt says
Hendrikus,
Your data is irrelevant, as no publication in scientific journal?
Btw.
What’s CM?
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bas Gresnigt – Hagen Scherb claims that LNT is not merely a theoretical concept but rather is reality. A nearby and well known explanation for the observed effects of such “very small doses” might be that the dose concept energy/mass is much to crude to be meaningful for events at subcellular levels.
If you wish to know of the current status of the debate on this subject, you may read the latest moderated, peer-reviewed debate published in Medical Physics journal:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1118/1.4881095/full
If you read the opening statements of the two sides and the rebuttals, it would be clear the LNT side lost the debate.
Bas Gresnigt says
@Hendrikus,
Hagen Scherb claims only his findings, such as:
1- that the m/f sex ratio increases when radiation increase with very small amounts (few % of natural background).
He also shows that such increases indicate increased genetic damage. Which is general scientific knowledge, already communicated in 1958 to the UN general assembly by UNSCEAR
(before it got infected by pro-nuclear).
2- that increases of 5%-30% of local background (due to Chernobyl fallout) in Bayern were followed by increases in serious birth defects.
3- that he found a linear relation between the level of radio-active contamination, being 0.13-0.8mSv/a, and the increase of those serious birth defects (P=0.0001)!
That linear relationship being: (% are per mSv/a increase):
– Heart malformations: 83% (P=0.002)
– Stillbirth: 33% (P=0.0003)
– Deformities of skull, face, jawbone, neck, spinal column, hip joint, long bones of the legs, and feet: 129% more per mSv/a increase in radiation (P=0.00004)!!
Your link
That discussion considers cancer risks to grown up people by medical radiation; a total different subject.
Those people have orders of magnitude lower cell division rates. Genetic damage can be repaired as DNA is double stranded, but at cell division it is single stranded and DNA cannot be repaired!
The studies I refer show genetic damage inflicted at the moment of sperm production (highest cell division rate, so highest risks) and/or serious health damage inflicted to fetuses (also extreme high cell division rate).
Question
The question is whether it is acceptable to have significant higher genetic damage levels (hence health damage) and higher serious birth defects for a method of electricity production. While other much cheaper methods are available which don’t cause genetic & health damage and also emit less CO2/per KWh???
I don’t understand that people still choose for the more expensive and more dangerous method.
It’s also a matter of taking care for next generations.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bas Gresnigt – Hagen Scherb claims have been refuted by the Real Scientist active in this field.
“It’s also a matter of taking care for next generations.” The way it’s going with AI, unless we stop this, there will be nothing left for the generations after this century.
Bas Gresnigt says
No. The study I linked is rock solid due to unique circumstances:
1. Bavarian birth registers registered all serious birth defects at district level systematically since before 1980 (6yrs before Chernobyl.
So no sampling confounding. The research includes all births.
2. People were not aware of the small radio-active fall-out as they live ~ 1800km from Chernobyl, so they felt safe.
3. The radiation contamination varied heavily per district from nearly none to ~0,8mSv/a.
4. The districts were very similar regarding population.
5. The significance levels found are extreme high (P=0.00001).
Hence the study and its results published in scientific journal was even not attacked as it’s so solid that nobody can.
So your ‘refuted’ exists only in your imagination.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bas Gresnigt – This study considers whether or not exposure to radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident led to an increased prevalence of congenital malformations in infants born in Bavaria, the German state with the highest levels of contamination after the accident. Consequently, this study provides no evidence that radiation from Chernobyl caused an increase in the birth prevalence of major congenital malformations.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01720294
Bas Gresnigt says
@Hendrikus,
You refer to a 10yrs older study, which of course found nothing due to its design.
The contamination only occurred in some districts. So the increase was highly diluted in the figures for all Bavaria (and those for N and S).
Scherb etal refer to them in the article I linked. Please read the articles I link before you react…
Btw.
That the contamination only occurred in some districts and hardly in similar nearby districts allowed the Scherb study to become so rock-solid!
Albert Rogers says
There is a very simple answer to the outrageous costs of building a reactor today even one that is little different from what Electricite de France put up to supply 75% and more of their electricity.
Lars Jorgenson of Thorcon Power calls it “Efficient and evidence based regulation”
The obvious opposite, imposed upon and by the NRC by the pseudo-environmentalists who hate anything nuclear, is
“Ignorant and fear-based regulation.”
Helmut Frik says
“Evidence based regulation” refering most likely to “evidence based medicine” would require enogh evidence. So a huge number of huge accidents and cre melt downs giving a stable statistic base which measures help to lower the number of accidents nad which less, or not economic enough. YOu surely do not want this with nuclear systems.
You can do so where the results of accidents are much much smaller.
“usually” nuclear power plants are killed by events which were noct considered in design becuse noone thought of them to be possible. Such events can not be included in a “evidence based regulation”. A logical impossibility.
Bas Gresnigt says
@Albert,
“… simple answer to the outrageous costs of building a reactor today …”
It’s not regulation as such but it are the major accidents which cause that reactors have to become more safe so similar accident won’t occur again.*)
Those cause that new reactors have to meet improved safety requirements, which makes them so much more complicated and expensive!
Even for pro-nuclear authorities it would be too stupid if a major accident repeats itself because the new reactor hasn’t provisions against it. Especially since ~2% of all power reactors ended its life already prematurely due to accidents (near 1% in a disaster).
A bad safety track record!
_______
*) Note that regulation authorities are rather loose. Near all French reactors didn’t implement all agreed safety improvements, shown to be necessary after Fukushima, yet.
Major argument is that those improvements are so expensive (and those after Chernobyl and TMI were also expensive…) and take so much time..
Albert Rogers says
The problem is not the cost of building a working reactor, it is the cost of fear-driven regulation, in part driven by the fear of coal, gas, and petroleum industries that nuclear could indeed replace them, which in spite of all the airy-fairy nonsense about :renewables” of the weather dependent kind, the latter cannot do.
James Hansen and Pushker Kharecha have shown that even including the meltdowns, nuclear kills and injures a trifling number of people compared with fossil carbon.
Helmut Frik says
Which could only happen ude to the “fear-driven regulation”. Building a nuclear reactor in a unused barn using pipes and equipment from the scrap, although it might reduce costs, would rise kills and injuries threw the roof. Also other peolpe count different numbers of killed and injured people. And also with emissions, the affected people vary widely between different countries due to different emission standards. But fossil fuels are on their way out, so this historic discussion does not matter any more.
Lawrence Coomber says
@Hendrikus Degenaar
I understand that climate change is fundamentally fuelled by greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel energy generation globally and gasoline powered reciprocating engines. I also understand that over half of the world’s population are energy starved and as such are denied opportunities to aspire to the modern standard of living enjoyed by those of us fortunate enough to exist in an energy abundant society.
It is axiomatic surely that the energy deprived must do what it takes to redress this imbalance. The maths around this premise are astonishing. The current world’s total generation output by all forms may need to increase by a factor of 50 over the next 20 years to begin to seriously start to redress this imbalance!
Energy commentators and readers might benefit from pondering a bit on the simple term “new age global energy generation imperative”; it has a book worth of meaning in its few words.
The “new age global energy generation imperative” demands an enduring energy science solution that:-
1. Must be an energy dense technology able to deliver abundant, safe, clean and low cost energy;
2. Reduce energy generation global greenhouse gas emissions to insignificant levels permanently;
3. Be scalable and easily deployed cost effectively to power new age energy intensive industries and businesses;
4. Be available through modular design to cost effectively benefit all people throughout the world.
The key takeaway term is: “abundant, safe, clean and low cost energy”. A technology that gets that right – will precipitate a falling into line of the other critical requirements.
It seems Hendrikus from your well-considered post, that the SMR technology has distinct advantages over the other clean energy generation alternatives such as solar PV and wind power that we currently see being promoted everywhere in near hysterical fashion.
So why isn’t there a critically needed and equally noisy global discussion going on about “new age clean safe nuclear energy generation” science? Or maybe that discussion is already maturing in the policy boardrooms that really matter, rather than the overly hyped mainstream energy media forums.
From my vantage, I identify a distinct and purposeful connection between the Chinese “one belt one road” innovative technology global expansion policy in place now for over 10 years, and now starting to mature and the “new age global energy technology imperative”. I operate as a manufacturer in the renewable energy sector in China now since 2007 and have watched the “one belt one road” policy unpack since its inception. It has exciting implications for the global energy sector and climate change science.
Learn more about it. Connect the dots commentators and readers.
Lawrence Coomber
Helmut Frik says
So far nuclear does not qualify for “low costW and “safe”, and in some of it’s variations also not for “abundant”. But one or two out of the for criteria you mentioned is enough for some people to wish to have nuclear.
Wind and solar qualify for all 4 of these criterias, which might explain the “hype”.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Lawrence Coomber – Well put – FYI, I have been on the ground on large EPCM projects in China since the early 90’s…
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Lawrence Coomber – The propaganda is all about stopping nuclear, think about it. Not a single death at Fukushima due to radiation. Not one! Not a single damaged house from the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. No animals died. Contamination levels at 6 times less than having an old glow-in-the-dark alarm clock. Yes, that old clock is six times the evacuation level around JP NPP’s. New evidence (2015) from Fukushima shows that as many as 2,000 people have died from suicides caused by unnecessary evacuations. 230,000 residents were evacuated, if they and the authority hadn’t panicked, they could have stayed home.
Caused by the Earthquake and the following Tsunami, Japan’s National Police Agency confirmed the number of deaths at 15,891 as of April 10, 2015, . Most people died by drowning, with more than 2,500 people still reported missing. According to the Japanese government, the total damages from the Earthquake and Tsunami are estimated at US$300 billion. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster cleanup cost for the three nuclear reactors involved, is currently estimated at US$187 billion.
The Chinese are expanding it’s nuclear industry as fast as they can. They also provide 95% of the rare earth elements needed for all this fancy tech we have (green and otherwise). However, they also know that they will need clean nuclear electricity generation in their energy mix together with renewables. Furthermore they see it as an export opportunity.
So what would we do with the radioactive waste?- Well until we come to our senses and start burning it in breeder reactors and we could refine it into new fuel that can power Nuclear Reactors for over a 1000 years or stockpile it in deep geological repositories. Finland has a well educed small population, they have started to do this. It’s not dangerous in any way.
Thorium occurs naturally in large quantities. it’s NOT fissile, it’s just a metal. Have you ever used a gas lantern? That mantle has thorium in it. TIG welder tips are thoriated. it’s a rare and precious medical isotope (want to believe in miracles?: Targeted alpha therapy! Want to see some bs? Fear has forced medical isotope makers out of business, more deaths. 5000 tons of thorium would power the Earth for a year. One smallish mine could provide that. Easy. It’s harmless. You could eat a little piece and it would pass right through you. It’s in the ground under you right now. The heat of the Earth is created by thorium, look, a lifetime supple of ALL the energy, fuel, concrete, steel, aluminium, water pumping, fertiliser, tires, tv’s, glass. ALL of it right there in the palm of your hand. That versus the 20 tons of CO2 that will be emitted for you this year.
Despite much optimism and promise, the development of thorium energy has historically been hampered by politics, bureaucracy and economics. For a species whose hallmarks are greed and violence, it is sometimes puzzling that a $50 quadrillion discovery is lying around, waiting to be tapped even 70 years after the realisation of its terraforming potential.
One of the most interesting arguments for including nuclear energy in the renewable energy portfolio came from Professor Bernard L Cohen, formerly at the University of Pittsburg. Professor Cohen defined the term ‘indefinite’ (time span required for an energy source to be sustainable enough to be called renewable energy) in numbers by using the expected relationship between the sun (source of solar energy) and the earth. According to Professor Cohen, if the Uranium and Thorium deposit could be proved to last as long as the relationship between the Earth and Sun is supposed to last (5 billion years) then nuclear energy should be included in the renewable energy portfolio.
Thorium is said to have more energy than all the world’s fossil fuels combined. Thorium together with uranium, will sustain the worlds fuel requirements for eternity. Think about it.
http://thmsr.nl/images/abundant-energy.a32e4121.png
Helmut Frik says
If one excludes costs, excludes death by cancer and many other things, one might come to such pipe dreams.
Forunately there are much cheaper and lower risk tehnologies aavailable to power the world without CO2 emissions.
By the way there are rare earth deposits in germany too, which would have been mined if china would have kept the high prices for a bit longer. I guess the same for Australia, the US and many other countries.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Helmut Frik – If you were right why are we having this discussion.
Bob Wallace says
You do realize that had the wind been blowing toward Toyoko the outcome would have been disastrous, do you not?
I hope you aren’t in denial.
Nigel West says
No Tsunami risk in the UK. Reactors have adequate flood defences. Nuclear safety culture totally different to Japan where their culture was to cover up issues. No GE (US) designed BWRs either. UK safety, design and operational standards are high as on other European countries too.
UK’s AGR gas cooled reactor fleet is inherently safer than lightwater reactors too. UK’s Sizewell PWR, based on a US design, has enhanced safety features compared to the reference design.
Bob Wallace says
The east coast of Scotland was struck by a 70 feet (21 m) high tsunami around 6100 BC….
The coast of Cornwall was hit by a three-metre high tsunami on 1 November 1755….
On 20 July 1929 a wave reported as being between 3.5 and 6 metres high struck the south coast including busy tourist beaches at Worthing, Brighton, Hastings and Folkestone.
In the 1990s, geologists realised that the Cumbre Vieja volcano in La Palma, in the Canary Islands off North Africa, could pose a tsunami risk to Britain and Ireland, as it is seemingly unstable. They concluded that a future volcanic eruption will result in the mass of rock alongside the volcanoes breaking off and falling into the sea as a massive landslide. This in turn will generate a huge tsunami, which will surge into the Atlantic Ocean and hit Spain, Portugal, the east coast of the United States, France, the southern and western parts of Ireland and the south coast of England. It is estimated that the waves will take around 6 hours to reach the British Isles, and that when they do they will be around 10 metres (30 ft) high.[14] Britain would be badly hit, and it is believed by some that if nothing is done, thousands of lives will be lost. There is considerable controversy about the accuracy of these predictions. Researchers at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands found the island to be much more stable than was widely believed, estimating that it would take at least another 10,000 years for the island to grow enough for there to be a danger.[15]
Wiki
Remember. It was well known that the Fukushima area had been struck by a large tsunami previously in history (5,000 years earlier?) but TEPCO and the Japanese government decided to ignore the possibility of another similar event. Very infrequent along that coast. Just like the UK.
But….
Hendrikus Degenaar says
Bob Wallace – GE’s original design for the Fukushima power plant was based on a much higher location. The plant was to be built on a bluff which was 35 meters above sea level. The Japanese TEPCo group had never build a Nuclear Plant, decided to lower the height by 25 meters as the lowered height would keep the costs of the seawater pumps low. GE failed in it’s responsibility to supervise on the construction of the plant and as such should be held responsible.
Furthermore, General Electric (you country man) knew well before the Fukushima accident that It’s Nuclear Reactor Design was unsafe. General Electric’s Mark 1 reactors, which account for five of the six reactors at the Fukushima 1 power plant, did not take into account the dynamic loads that could be experienced with a loss of coolant.
Helmut Frik says
Well, roo many black swans running around, which were not considered in the construction.
Huge research about software errors in the 1990’s revealed, that errors whoch occure more often than atoud once every 5000years, can be found and eliminatd with good practice, and a lot of testing, and a lot of debugging during use of the software for many years.
Software bugs which occure less frequent, are just found accidentally, and what is worse, with each bug removed of this kind of rare bugs, in average one new bug of this kind is included in the software.
As it seems human brains are not capable to handle circumstances which happen so rare, even when working with biggest possible care. The same is to be expected with all other engineering work.
Nigel West says
UK nuclear plants have an emergency shut down system that is hardwired to bypass computerised systems in the event of an emergency.
BTW I haven’t seen any black swans flying around UK power stations. If you have seen them around German nukes please post a photograph here?
Bob Wallace says
Do they have a built in system that keeps engineers from crawling through their innards with a lit candle?
Do not underestimate the human ability to create a black swan out of nothing.
Nigel West says
The EPR has six independent diesel generators secured against flooding. So no need for candles to be kept in a cupboard.
UK nuclear plants are designed using the defence in depth approach. Layers of protective systems would contain and delay the release of radiation so limit the risk of harm. Reactor operators are required to analyse fault sequences leading to severe accidents. They have to demonstrate they have done everything reasonably practical to reduce risks.
Helmut Frik says
A) hard wired things suffer the same basic problems as software.
B) Part of the fukushima desaster was to shut down the reactors. Because in this special situation this was a fault, but this fault was written in the instructions for such cases. Doing this hard wired does not make things better.
Bas Gresnigt says
Hendrikus,
It shows nuclear’s bad safety culture.
While it was widely known it was unsafe nobody took action! Something impossible in e.g. the aviation safety culture!
It also explains the frequent accidents with nuclear.
E.g, the Fukushima nuclear disaster was called a manmade disaster in the Japanese investigation report. Compare Onagawa NPP which was more near the epicenter and took an higher tsunami….
Nuclear management fights the regulator and its rules, tries to circumvent. While airline management cooperates with the regulators as they know their shared interest is far more important.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bas Gresnigt- While airline management cooperates with the regulators, is that why there are so many fake parts in circulation. Or have a plane shot out of the sky with many Dutch and Australian Citizen flying over a war zone.
Bas Gresnigt says
@Nigel,
“Reactors have adequate flood defences.”??
The Dutch NPP had similar statement. After Fukushima it showed that air-inlets of emergency generators were 6meter below sea level at flooding. Official estimate; one flooding in 10K years (the grid in the polder fails immediately then).
Japanese sites before 2011: “Reactors have adequate earth quake, tsunami and flood defences.” ….
“UK safety, design and operational standards are high”?? I concluded opposite.
Accidents such that:
– Norway suffered from increased radiation;
– Part of the Irish sea contaminated such that fishing is/was forbidden and beaches cannot be accessed due to health dangers;
– Similar with a bay in Scotland (may explain the Scottish fast move to 100% renewable).
Comparing UK, German, etc. accidents,
it’s clear that UK is by far the most dangerous / less safe nation regarding nuclear in the EU.
You should be ashamed about UK’s bad track record.
Nigel West says
Bas, those historical failings are mainly military issues, not from civil nuclear plants.
Accidents such that:
– Norway suffered from increased radiation; (Windscale military reactor fire 1957?)
– Part of the Irish sea contaminated such that fishing is/was forbidden and beaches cannot be accessed due to health dangers; (Windscale marine discharges are at much lower levels now and within limits compared to historic levels)
– Similar with a bay in Scotland (caused by radioactive paint on dials dumped by the military after WW2?)
Helmut Frik says
Hmm – 8000 years ago UK suffered from 20m high tsunami waves as it seems : http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/tsunami-in-nordsee-storegga-rutschung-traf-menschen-in-steinzeit-a-1011946.html, so much higher than in Fukushima. Are you sure flood defenses in UK are three times higher than in Japan? German nuclear power stations have flood defenses just for 7,5m above NN, useless with such a tsunami.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Helmut Frik & Bas Gresnigt – the world could be hit by a massive meteor or comet. Booom all is gone.
Helmut Frik says
that’s why some computers are permanently scanning trajectorys of extraterestrical objects, and engineers think how to prevent such impace. No joke.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Helmut Frik – Asteroid 2017 AG13 zoomed terrifyingly close to Earth and we didn’t see it coming. No joke.
Bas Gresnigt says
Hendrikus,
So you feel you can add extra risks for an expensive method of electricity generation which emits more CO2/KWh
than
cheaper and faster to implement alternatives which can easily supply all energy the world needs?
Bas Gresnigt says
@Hendrikus
Why take such risks when we have eternal free fuel available that require no mining, etc. at all?
Leading to much cheaper electricity! Delivering enough to supply nn times the world’s energy needs for ever!
With much less CO2 emissions than nuclear.
And must faster to implement!
Hendrikus Degenaar says
Bas Gresnigt – Being funny again, “we have eternal free fuel available that require no mining”. Bob Wallace just got shot out of the sky trying the same line on a YouTube discussion. Please substantiate your comment regarding the no mining bit.
Nigel West says
Bob, Bas, Helmut, sea walls are not the only method of defending critical parts of a nuclear facility from flood damage….
Helmut Frik says
Well mybe UK nuclear plant are designed to swim around in such cases, who knows?
Nigel West says
The UK does have reactors in nuclear powered submarines at sea if that is what you mean?
Bob Wallace says
So Hinkley Point is a submarine?
Who knew?
And all the other seacoast UK reactors are about to be packed into submarines?
What astounding news you bring us.
Please, Nigel, park your nuclear advocate bias at the door and let us discuss energy matters in a realistic way.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Nigel West – They would’t be able to understand that critical components can be housed in water tight structures, with its own power sources and backups sufficient for a modern reactor to shutdown. Some of them like the AP1000 are even large aircraft impact proof.
Bas Gresnigt says
@Hendrikus,
Present UK NPP’s are far away from that safety standard.
So I assume you agree that those have to be closed asap?
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bas Gresnigt – No the present NPP’s don’t need to be closed asap. They do help in lowering global green house emissions whilst producing electricity.
Bas Gresnigt says
Your requirements fit far better on wind & solar!!
1a: “…energy dense technology…”
The land use of the NPP with highest density in USA is 15MWh/m2 per yr with 90% CF (from NRC). The plant, Indian Point, will stop after 47yrs of production which is >7yrs more than av.
Correct for the land use(d) during its 10yrs construction, its 10 yrs decommission, the ~50yrs its nuclear waste takes land, and part of the land use by the fuel production plant and the uranium mine.
Then you end at ~7MWh/m2
The standard 3.5MW wind turbine which we have nearby at the parking lot has a density of 9MW/m2. With a CF of 25% it produces 75MWh/m2.
An 10 times higher energy density.
And offshore wind and rooftop solar don’t take any land at all…
1.b “… able to deliver abundant..”
While each of those renewable “wind onshore, wind offshore, rooftop solar” can produce far more than all power the world needs, for endless number of years!
1.c “… safe…”
Near 1% of nuclear reactors ended in disasters which killed up to a million people (Fukushima only 3000 thanks to its wind which blew 77% of its airborne radiation direct over the ocean).
No decent person can call that safe.
No such risks with wind & solar.
2. “reduce GHG emissions” “low cost energy”
Nowadays new nuclear is at least 2 – 5 times more expensive than wind & solar, incl (flow)batteries and P2G for seasonal storage.
This spring the Germans got offers to install, operate and decommission 1380MW offshore wind for whole sale prices, being 3cnt/KWh.
Compare with new nuclear which requires at least ~15cnt/KWh.
For non-fossil energy, the costs are closely related with GHG emissions. As in the end all costs (incl. taxes, interest) are income for people who spend it to GHG emitting activities and products. So wind & solar also emit 3 – 5 times less per KWh.
3. “Be scalable and easily deployed cost effectively…”
Wind & solar is far more and far easier scalable as its many applications show.
In a few years China’s wind grew from nothing towards being bigger than nuclear. Solar will follow.
4. “modular design .. cost effectively”
Wind & solar + storage are far more modular with their millions of generating units dispersed all over the country!
And they costs 2 – 5 times less than nuclear.
Why should anyone want to take risky nuclear when 2-5 times cheaper alternatives which emit 2-5 times less GHG, and are implemented 2-5 times faster, are available in abundance?
Especial since all normal operating nuclear power plants significantly damage the genes of newborn up to 40km in its surrounding.
Nigel West says
“Near 1% of nuclear reactors ended in disasters which killed up to a million people (Fukushima only 3000 thanks to its wind which blew 77% of its airborne radiation direct over the ocean).”
Bas, I think you must have confused Tsunami caused deaths with those related to the reactor accident. That according to the authorities has resulted in 1 death.
Helmut Frik says
Or just counted those where there is only a statistical connection (cancer etc), too, and not jus those where the death is caused directly and fast by radiation.
Russia & GUS only count those deads which were undiniable caused by sidefects of the Tschernobyl desaster, so where any other natural cause can definitely be excluded. This excludes all deaths by cancer, since there always can be a natural cause, no matter how high the statistical evidence is that radiation did rise the level of cancer deaths. This again results in the number of 42 people dying from tschernobyl which is a fake news number. The real number can only be estimated by statistics, which leaves the exact number unsure. But it is for sure higher than 42. Same for Fukushima. If you exclude al deaths by cancer etc. maybe the number so far is 1. But then that number is irrelevant, because it excludes the by far biggest effect.
But your way of argumentation is about the biggest argument AGAINST nuclear. Because if people with this mindset are running nuclear power stations, the pose a giant risk to the public.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Helmut Frik – The risk in crossing the road is higher.
Bas Gresnigt says
Nigel,
Sorry, I made a mistake though not the one you think.
My sentence should be:
“Fukushima only 3000 thanks to its wind which blew 97% of its airborne radiation direct over the ocean.”
Sources:
This study shows significant (P=0.001) increased levels of perinatal deaths, starting ~9 months after the reactor exploded, in not evacuated prefectures!
WHO expert committee reports that it estimates up to 7% more cancers for evacuated Fukushima chiidren in later life (~40% of all cancers en in death).
The evacuation of the radiation contaminated zones itself caused already ~1200 deaths (widely published).
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bas Gresnigt – I think that you obtain your information from those press releases printing false information. Please give me a link to a peer reviewed document that confirms that the evacuation of the radiation contaminated zones itself caused 1200 deaths (widely published) from radiation. Or did you in some twisted way try to avoid to make mention that it was caused by suicide.
Predicted future cancer deaths due to accumulated radiation exposures in the population living near Fukushima have ranged in the academic literature from none to hundreds. Note this is a prediction, it has not happened yet.
Bas Gresnigt says
@Hendrikus,
Please read the links I state before you react.
The research report I linked is published in a peer reviewed scientific journal.
You can easily find the the WHO expert committee report at the UN WHO site.
Bas Gresnigt says
@Hendrikus,
Regarding you second paragraph:
Many, e.g. the LSS studies, showed that it takes 10-60 years before the health damage (cancers, heart) due to small increase in radiation shows. Similar as with smoking, asbestos, etc.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
Bas Gresnigt – all those LSS studies, are out of date. Find something not older than 2 years.
Bas Gresnigt says
The effects of an amount of radiation on humans is still the same!
Those do not change!
So those research results are as relevant as they were when the research was done.
Lawrence Coomber says
@Helmut Frik
Helmut [ … ]
1. Climate Change: – Global greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel generation technologies must be reversed permanently and at the same time the principal replacement generation technology required to do the genuine “heavy lifting” must be able to deliver a massive increase (factor of ?) in generation capability to industrialise (from a very low base) those communities, cities, countries and continents that are home to over 50% of the world’s energy starved people, for them to have any chance of moving in the direction of modern era living.
This requires massive infrastructure development which comes through massive energy intensive industries being able to come online through massive reticulated distributed energy being readily available and dirt cheap to boot.
The amazing history of human development over the last 150 years has been predicated entirely on human ingenuity and the availability of energy.
Please be mindful of the exciting new age energy intensive industries and technologies that are poised to come on line over the next 20 years Helmut. They need power. Artificial protein production replacing inefficient and costly agricultural practices worldwide being just one of those. These new industries and technologies need power, and lots of it.
2. This is where the “new age global energy generation imperative “gives us a roadmap to work towards. It enforces the key imperative attributes (not optional) that we must embody in our energy technology and policy making going forward:-
– abundant (meaning massive energy density science; low footprint per MW; scalable modular pop up plug and play construction; an enduring energy science that may last forever; not labour intensive to deploy anywhere);
– Clean and safe (explains itself);
– low cost (meaning low cost – global advancement is based on us all using more power, much more power rather than some recent discussions and thoughts about the exact opposite) and it needs to be low cost power (definitely not cost effective power which of course is a euphemism for anything goes re costs!).
Lawrence Coomber
Bob Wallace says
Abundant does not require massive energy density.
Energy density is a misleading argument. A volcano blowing its top off is extremely energy dense. But it’s unusable energy.
The critical considerations are:
1) Is there an ample amount of energy available?
(Wind and solar = yes. Uranium = no. Thorium = yes. Natural gas = no. Hydro = no. )
2) Is transforming that energy into a usable form (mainly electricity) affordable?
(Wind and solar = yes. Nuclear = not really.)
3) Can the transformation be done quickly?
(Wind and solar = yes. Nuclear = not really.)
4) Does that energy source create any new dangers in our lives?
(Wind and solar = no. Nuclear = yes.)
—
” over 50% of the world’s energy starved people, for them to have any chance of moving in the direction of modern era living.
This requires massive infrastructure development which comes through massive energy intensive industries being able to come online through massive reticulated distributed energy being readily available and dirt cheap to boot.”
Most of the world does not need some massive energy intensive industry to come to their rescue. Modest wind and solar systems can easily provide the energy that most people need for a quality life.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bob Wallace – “Modest wind and solar systems can easily provide the energy that most people need for a quality life”.
What a philosophical answer.
Something more on energy, on another discussion thread you mentioned that you care for this planet. Since we have had a number of destructive energy wars after 911 with the invasions of Kuwait, Iraq, and Libya spearheaded by Bush and Tony Blair under false pretences of them having weapons of mass destruction. And the absolute mess we see in Syria now. Where the Russians get rewarded for the destruction they make against a civilian population that is against the Assad regime. The Russian reward is the agreement made with Syria and Iran to give Russia a 40 year control of the Leviathan offshore gas fields. Are those energy wars giving you any concern at all about the millions of people displaced, killed and the economic destruction. What I am trying to say with this, I leave up to you.
Helmut Frik says
So you want to replace wars for oil with wars for uranium? I’d propose to switch to wind and solar. this switch even persuades india and pakistan that it’s better to coperate and exchange power.
Bob Wallace says
There’s nothing “philosophical” in my response.
Millions are living an electrified life right now with small solar, wind, and/or hydro systems. The cost of buying a small solar system that provides LED lighting, charges a cell phone, and runs a radio is less than what the typical non-electrified house spends in two years on kero, candles and flashlight batteries.
” What I am trying to say with this, I leave up to you.”
I have no idea what you are trying to say when you bring oil wars into the discussion. Have you seen anything from me about continuing to use petroleum for transportation?
I am, in case you missed it, a strong advocate for electrifying as much of our transportation system as possible and obtaining that electricity from renewable sources.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bob Wallace – What I am trying to say with this, I leave up to you. I would have thought that a person like you would also show some concern regarding the energy wars. In conclusion, looking at the amount of time you spent on a good number of energy discussion threads, I take it that you are a professional anti-nuclear activist. See I am all for renewables including clean nuclear power generation. You appear to be focused on doing it with wind & solar alone, which naturally is you prerogative. However discussing commentary through constant repeating rhetoric (including me reacting to the anti-nuclear component) by just a very small number of participants turns other contributors away. The author of this article, puts in an effort to convey a message to people in the energy industry and deserves a better outcome.
Bob Wallace says
“I would have thought that a person like you would also show some concern regarding the energy wars.”
“I take it that you are a professional anti-nuclear activist.”
“You appear to be focused on doing it with wind & solar alone”
Hendrikus, you would have to look hard to find someone more concerned about and more against energy wars. That’s why I push facts to show people how we can move away from fossil fuels and replace them with clean, safe renewables and electric vehicles. And at the same time save ourselves money.
I work for no one. I’ve been retired since 1989 and haven’t earned a penny from anything but investments since.
I do not see the solution as wind and solar alone. We need to also add in hydro, geothermal, tidal, biogas and biomass. We may be able to make use of wave and osmotic generation as well. The more renewables we include in the mix the less storage we will need.
I hate to see people misled by false claims. I hate to see our move off fossil fuels slowed by nuclear advocates and I hate to see people having to pay more for electricity because some people insist on making nuclear a part of the mix when it is unneeded.
And I really hate the idea of passing more and more highly dangerous radioactive waste to the many generations that follow when there is absolutely no need to endanger them any more than we already have.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bob Wallace – and I hate to see people spending all their time on trying to show others on how we can move away from fossil fuels and replace them with clean, safe renewables and electric vehicles. When the millions of war torn refugees living in poverty, many thousands of their children dying from hunger, and they don’t care about what kind of power is going to provide them with electricity. What they need is people that spend time on helping them out in what ever form possible, even if it means just writing about it to convey a message.
Bob Wallace says
We’re going to help those people receive electricity very much faster if we take the solar/wind route.
Building large central generation plants and extending the grid to them is just not going to happen for decades.
Right now we’ve gotten basic electricity to millions via micro-solar, small wind turbine, and run of the river hydro.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bob Wallace – since there are only some 5 people on this discussion repeating matters over and over, I have better things to do in conveying my message so I am moving on, with showing some video’s produced a Nuclear Humanist being one of my country man.
This particular video would be for those that have been fooled by the constant barrage of news about installed capacity of wind and solar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGt5Yp7SGfA
Bob Wallace says
Hendrikus, you are the one who keeps these discussions going by continuing to post false statements about nuclear and renewables.
And your linked video is simply more of the same.
Yes, posting nameplate capacity can be misleading. But most people interested in energy know that. We look at energy produced.
Your video stretches the truth when it use 34% CF for wind and 92% for nuclear.
34% CF for wind averages in wind turbines that were installed decades ago. Some have CFs as low as 16%. Current wind CFs are now in the mid-40% range with some wind farms returning over 50%.
And 92% is a cherry picked number for the US’s best year. If we were to average nuclear CF over several years as the video does with wind the nuclear CF would be well under 80%.
BTW, the DOE has identified large areas of the US where we can expect CFs >60% using 140 meter hub heights and modern technology.
As you well know, CF is not an important metric. The cost of electricity is what we need to look at.
Along with speed of installation and overall safety.
Finally, your video makes a false statement. It claims that the gap between renewables and fossil fuel generation is increasing with FF generation pulling further ahead of renewables.
In fact, wind and solar have taken a 6% market share away from fossil fuels over the last six years. The percentage of US electricity produced by fossil fuels has been dropping since 2010.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bob Wallace – most of the accredited scientist will disagree with you. The question is can we reach the 2050 GHG target by moving to a grid with 100% renewables, whilst taking global population and providing sufficient electricity for he developing countries. The answer is NO.
34% CF for wind averages in wind turbines that were installed decades ago. Some have CFs as low as 16%. Current wind CFs are now in the mid-40% range with some wind farms returning over 50%.
So the average of 34% CF for current wind would be fine. I just noticed that my good friend The Nuclear Humanist took you on and stated; “I just did the calculation on 2016 average, congratulations, you’ve won 0.7 %.
False statements about nuclear and renewables. (BIG SMILE) By last count there are less than 5 people participation, half of them are experienced Googalist, looking for press releases.
Nigel West says
Bob, one reason the discussions keep going is misinformed zealots promoting 100% renewables, so excluding all other options:
“To date, efforts to assess the viability of 100% renewable systems ….. have substantially underestimated the challenge of excising fossil fuels from our energy supplies. This desire to push the 100%-renewable ideal without critical evaluation has ironically delayed the identification and implementation of effective and comprehensive decarbonisation pathways.
….. they provide only general suggestions as to what these pathways might be:
A change in approach by both researchers and policy makers is therefore required. It behoves all governments and institutions to seek optimised blends of all available low-carbon technologies, with each technology rationally exploited for its respective strengths …..”
Source: University of Adelaide, B. Heard et al review of 100% renewables studies.
Bob Wallace says
There are two possibilities:
1) Some people are promoting 100% renewables when the facts do not support affordable 100% renewable grids.
2) Some people are promoting nuclear energy as a “must have” when the facts do not support affordable grids with a large nuclear component.
We’re arguing over facts.
Here’s what we know:
Renewables are very much cheaper than nuclear in terms of MWh cost.
Both renewables and nuclear require backup generation at some level.
Both renewables and nuclear require storage at some level.
What would be helpful would be for some ‘group 2’ people to present a back of envelop for the cost of electricity produced by new nuclear + backup + storage.
I’ve done that several times for a renewable grid.
Your cited Heard paper is wrong. The studies they claim that don’t exist do exist.
Nigel West says
“What would be helpful would be for some ‘group 2’ people to present a back of envelop for the cost of electricity produced by new nuclear + backup + storage”
Actually it wouldn’t be particularly informative because:
1. Nuclear doesn’t need storage. Older nukes can run part loaded without any significant economic penalty.
2. No location in the developed world would now be designing a large power supply system from scratch. System planners base their new capacity decisions on existing generation portfolios.
3. The choice should be based on an incremental decisions to replace plant soon to be decommissioned, or to provide more capacity. Not to close plant prematurely e.g. safe nukes.
4. Cost is just one factor the other main issues are security of supply, clean energy and need for firm capacity.
“I’ve done that several times for a renewable grid.”
You can’t be serious! Back of the envelope stuff is not credible.
Bob Wallace says
1) ” Nuclear doesn’t need storage.”
Then let’s here your explanation why grids built pump-up hydro storage in order to time-shift nuclear output.
Load following could be a non-storage solution. But run a 13 cent nuclear plant 50% of the time and the cost of electricity rises to 26 cents/kWh.
2) Of course no country is going to build a FF free grid all at once or from scratch.
But a model like I suggest would tell planners where to best put their efforts.
Learn the limits of what you will need and don’t carelessly overbuild one part of the system.
3) Same as 2). Figure out where you need to go and take a well thought out route rather than randomly doing stuff.
4) Obviously a good model has to take all relevant factors into consideration.
The bottom line is the cost of building a carbon free (or almost totally carbon free) grid that meets demand 24/365.
—
“Back of the envelope stuff is not credible.”
That’s how Musk starts his projects. Know anyone more successful with as many different endeavors?
Nigel West says
“I work for no one. I’ve been retired since 1989 and haven’t earned a penny from anything but investments since.”
Let me guess – investments in renewables and EV makers in the US?
Bob Wallace says
Truthfully?
Probably more in companies that own nuclear reactors than in renewables.
Probably none in Tesla. But in other US car makers who make ~99% ICEVs and 1% EVs.
I’m pretty sure I own stock in oil companies. And coal companies. And companies that own coal plants.
If you’re really interested check out the companies in the S&P 500, S&P 2000 and Nasdaq. I invest only in non-managed index funds. And I’ve never looked to see what was in them, other than a quick scan of a page or so of the listing.
—
Just checked. Tesla is not part of any of the three indexes I mentioned.
First Solar was in the S&P 500 at one time but isn’t now.
If you want you can read through the listings and see if there are any renewable energy companies included in the indexes. I’m not that interested.
Nigel West says
Bob, sheesh you came to Energypost proclaiming that wind/solar is taking the world by storm and that EVs are a sure fire bet etc. etc. Yet your investments do not walk the talk or support the beliefs you expound here with such fervour……
Bob Wallace says
Correct. My investing does not match my stance on energy.
Back in the 1980s I spent a lot of time, a lot of time, figuring out an investment approach which fit my needs for decent growth along with reasonable security.
I realized that one does not beat the market unless they have very specialized knowledge or inside information. I have neither.
That led me to index funds.
Back then, when I knew nothing about climate change, I knew that there would be companies that I owned through the indexes that were not going to behave as I would approve.
I decided that I would vote for politicians who I felt would be most likely to do the right thing even though the right thing might not be good for my investments.
Now I push for a rapid move off fossil fuels even though I realize that I own some fossil fuel associated companies.
I don’t invest in renewable energy because the individual company risk is too high. I have no doubt that the future is renewable energy and EVs but there are not enough well established companies at this point in time to build a low security risk by inclusion of large numbers.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Nigel West – no it’s investments in bicycles with a dynamo.
Helmut Frik says
Energy density is the wrong metric, the question is how much useful area is resticted from other kinds of use by the production of energy.
When comparing how many m² per TWh generated cannot be used for agriculture any more, wind and nuclear are about the same. Solar is better, ecasuse it can make use of deserts, roofs, water surfaces which are not useable in other ways. In sunny areay experiments have shown, that solar panels intalled some meters above the field even increases agricultural production per m² by reducing irradiation to a useful level and so reducing evaporation. ( as floating photovoltacs reduces evaporation from water storages in arid countries)
Offsore does not need arable land at all.
So there is no problem with the land use wof wind and solar.
But there are hoge problems with extremely expensive nuclrear power, coming with huge risks comared to competing technologies.
A lot of people in the world needs huge amounts of energy, and fast. The easiest way to bring the power to the people are solar and wind power.
Two thirds of all housholds with access to electricity in tansania today recieve their electric power supply from solar, and the share is rising fast. Only one third have a grid connection.
Wind power can be installed wherever a all whell drive truck can go, and pwoer whole villages. And the economic uprise triggered by this initial power supply allows th commuities to build up local grids, which later on get connected to neighbouring local grids, and finally to the central grid. Nuclear can not porvide anything useful to bring power to energy starved people.
Solar panel manufacturing capacity worldwide seems to be somewhere in the area of 150-170 GW today, allowing a production of around 220TWh with the coapcity produceable in one year, and this production capacity is rising fast. Nuclear is nowhere near to that, and supply chains are crumbling, and it takes decades to come from the start of planning to a running power station, not months as with wind and solar in many cases.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Helmut Frik – Making stuff up again’ “Nuclear is nowhere near to that, and supply chains are crumbling.”
GLOBAL LIVE POWER USEAGE: I still don’t see much of that wind and solar you talk about. Nuclear at 48% is still the biggest source of clean electricity generation in Europe.
http://data.reneweconomy.com/LiveGen
Helmut Frik says
And this tells nothing. beside the simple fact that nuclear has been built many decades when no wind and solar generation was built.
Wind and solar are expanding their output in tWh per year very fast, whlie nuclear output in TWh merely remains constant. That’s like betting on POTS Telephones in the 1990’s because there still were more old POTS telephones than mobile phones then.
Bob Wallace says
One can’t tell much about annual use by looking at what is happening today. Let’s look at 2014 EU data (I haven’t found 2015 and 2016 yet).
In 2014, electricity generation by fuel in the EU-28 was as follows (Figure 2):
29 % from renewables (compared with 13 % in 1990);
28 % from nuclear energy (compared with 31 % in 1990);
25 % from coal and lignite (compared with 39 % in 1990);
15 % from natural and derived gas (compared with 9 % in 1990);
2 % from oil (compared to 9 % with 1990); and
1 % from other fuels (unchanged from 1990).
Your claim of 48% from nuclear looks incorrect. Renewables in 2014 generated more electricity in Europe than did nuclear.
Bob Wallace says
Following up on my 2014 EU electricity source data…
From 2014 to 2015 wind generation increased 21%. Nuclear consumption dropped 3%. Solar consumption increased by 12.7%.
Wind and solar grew 2014 to 2015, nuclear fell. 2016 numbers do not seem to be available.
Bas Gresnigt says
Lawrence,
Renewable wind+solar+storage (PtG+batteries) meets all those requirements:
– far cheaper than nuclear
– with far less CO2 emissions than nuclear
– much faster to implement as little high level scientists necessary.
– much faster to expand so it can deliver all energy the world needs
– doesn’t need a fuel like uranium, it uses the eternal sun;
– much easier to implement as in small increments;
– delivering a more reliable grid thanks to the many thousands of small generators dispersed all over the country.
[…]
Lawrence Coomber says
@Bob
Bob are you seriously suggesting that nation building through modern day industrialization policies, that result in industrial outcomes such as those that we of the developed nations of the world have enjoyed during the last 75 or so years, and which our prosperity and living standards are underpinned by, such as (manufacturing, ship construction, aircraft construction, roadways, railways, high speed trains, bridges and dams, machinery, automobiles, skyscrapers: the list is endless) can be successfully emulated and repeated in the undeveloped nations of Africa for example, through access to (your suggestion of) “modest wind and solar systems can easily provide the energy that most people need for a quality life”?
Bob really – more information please?
Lawrence Coomber
Helmut Frik says
Exactly look at the actual development policie of the world bank, the plenty of grid projects in Africa, e.g. the development plans of Ethiopia with hydropower, wind and solar, the development plans of Kenia with geothermal, wind and solar, and look at the prices, and look what alternative prices for conventional power generation would be.
Africa also skipped the use of POTS,and used mobile phones, they skipped the use of traditional brick and mortar banking and jumped diectly to mobile money, and as it looks like they will also skip conventional power generation, and leapfrog directly to the most modern systems.
Bob Wallace says
Lawrence, I was saying that the electricity needs of the hundreds of millions (1.2 billion?) can be easily and efficiently met with modest sized wind and solar systems.
Helmut has dealt with the large stuff.
Are you aware of the vast amount of energy that is available in and easily harvested from wind and sunshine?
Ed Lohrenz says
One major energy source is missing from these calculations…the value of electricity that doesn’t have to be produced in the first place. Homes and commercial buildings with a ground source heat pump system reduce kW demand by about 0.55 kW per ton of cooling capacity (about 0.16 kW / kW) with an equivalent reduction in kWh savings. That frees up electricity for other uses. The kWh you don’t use is almost invariable cheaper than the kWh you have to produce.
Bob Wallace says
Exactly. We far too often overlook the lowest hanging fruit – efficiency.
In the US just replacing incandescent lightbulbs with LEDs is creating a huge drop in demand. More efficient appliances, TVs and computers. (Moving from computers to smartphones.) New very efficient heat pumps. Better insulation and weather stripping. Cutting down on summer heat gain.
The list is long and fruitful.
Nigel West says
US is years behind. Europe banned incandescent bulbs years ago and LED ones are now very common. German domestic appliances had to become very energy efficient too. 2000W vacuum cleaners were also banned by the EU. Why is this – simple, Germany & Denmark had too stop bills rising due to overpriced leccy caused by renewables…..
Bob Wallace says
True. Asia used fluorescent tubes rather than incandescent long before compact fluorescent and LEDs were available.
The US has enjoyed cheaper electricity than Europe. And cheaper gasoline. Europe has taxed energy very heavily and created a reason for people to seek out ways to lower their electricity use.
Do you happen to know when Europe started heavily taxing electricity and fuel? And what the rationalization might have been? I assume to reduce use and cut down on fuel imports (and exports of cash).
Nigel West says
UK electricity is not heavily taxed. Although VAT is 20% normally in the UK, a special 5% rate is levied on energy. The EU minimum rate permitted is 5%.
About 16% currently of a UK electricity bill pays for ‘environment’ measures which includes renewables support measures:
http://www.energy-uk.org.uk/customers/about-your-energy-bill/the-breakdown-of-an-energy-bill.html
This has grown fast over recent years. To prevent the burden becoming too great UK Government introduced measures to control green taxes. They stopped the FiT free for all and introduced a CFD auction so there is competition to drive down renewables costs. Also a phased approach to renewables development. Finally a levy control framework (LCF) to cap costs.
The LCF was designed to control the costs of supporting low carbon electricity, paid for through consumers’ energy bills. It sets an annual budget for projected costs of all low carbon electricity levy-funded schemes until 2020/21, rising to £7.6 billion in 2020/21 (2011/12 prices). The Framework includes the costs of the ‘Contracts for Difference’ (CFD), the ‘Renewables Obligation’ (RO), and the ‘Feed in Tariff Scheme’ (FiTs), as well as early CfDs awarded under the ‘Final Investment decisions Enabling for Renewables’ (FiDeR) process.
UK consumers are very sensitive to energy costs. They have been very volatile over recent years. 20% jumps from year to year. The reason is not renewables but wholesale energy costs mainly gas prices exposed to world prices. Affects heating and electricity as the UK has a large gas fired CCGT fleet. A reason given by Government for needing to replace UK nuclear is to reduce consumer exposure to volatile and rising gas prices.
Bob Wallace says
I was asking about Europe. Not about a small island nation that is in the process of isolating itself from Europe.
“The reason is not renewables but wholesale energy costs mainly gas prices exposed to world prices.”
The smart thing to do would be to install a lot more wind and solar in order to cut down on NG use.
Not what the leaders of the UK seem to understand. Instead they opt to build nuclear with a strike/wholesale price around the retail price of electricity in the UK.
” A reason given by Government for needing to replace UK nuclear is to reduce consumer exposure to volatile and rising gas prices.”
“UK consumers are very sensitive to energy costs.”
We’re going to be hearing an entire nation full of squealing pigs when their electricity bills start reflecting the addition of Hinkley Point.
Stupid people making stupid decisions….
Nigel West says
“The smart thing to do would be to install a lot more wind and solar in order to cut down on NG use.”
Solar is not so good in the UK at 10% CF, half that of Calf and extended dark periods lasting days in the winter.
More offshore wind – yes.
Gas consumption decreasing is unlikely because UK has a 30GW fleet of CCGTs and most homes have gas heating. UK imports LNG now, although the North Sea continues to produce for a while longer. But the future will see the UK fracking for gas like the US has. France and the UK sit on vast quantities of shale gas.
Bob Wallace says
Solar in the US is approaching $0.02/kWh with ~30% CF. That means that the UK should see solar hitting $0.06/kWh.
Natural gas is cheaper than six yankee cents?
If solar is cheaper then you install solar and save money when the Sun does shine. Do the math.
” homes have gas heating”
For the planet’s sake educate your people about today’s very efficient heat pumps and install more wind.
You really think the weekend country gentlemen who cringe in horror at seeing a wind turbine are going to put up with gas fracking rigs and the destruction NG extraction causes?
Hendrikus Degenaar says
Bob Wallace – A small island nation that is in the process of isolating itself from Europe. The United Kingdom is the fifth-largest national economy in the world measured by nominal gross domestic product and not as bankrupt as the USA. Actually they are not isolating themselves from Europe. They have always been part of Europe, now they no longer want to be dictated by Brussels and be in charge of their own country. But then what would people living in the country side of the USA understand about this…
Nigel West says
“We’re going to be hearing an entire nation full of squealing pigs when their electricity bills start reflecting the addition of Hinkley Point.”
Nope. HPC will only add £10/year to an average bill yet will produce 26TWh/year (UK consumption is c.300Th) of clean and reliable leccy for decades.
UK consumers would be squealing if prices were at the outrageous levels of Germany and Denmark caused by renewables – double the UK.
Lawrence Coomber says
Hi Ed.
What is this ‘major energy source’ you refer to and how can it guarantee low cost 24/7 reliable base-load power that energy intensive industries and factories require to industrialize communities and cities of developing nations for example?
Remaining mindful of course that half the worlds population exist in these developing nations and cities, and who would all understandably aspire to elevate their families future in order to live more-like the other more prosperous half?
Along with climate change and GHG emissions, these are the questions that the current global energy generation politicking needs to focus on above all other discussions, and move forward with absolute determination to solve these key issues co-jointly and absolutely.
Lawrence Coomber
Lawrence Coomber says
@Helmut & Bob
Future energy security for the world is not a game, it’s deadly serious. Greenhouse gas emissions teach us that.
I am an energy technology agnostic and therefore totally supportive of any energy generation technology that satisfies the “global energy generation imperative” fully.
That technology must of course be that which can provide massive clean, safe, and low cost baseload power 24/7 to all people; businesses; those major industries necessary to industrialize undeveloped nations to a modern standard rapidly and in particular new age power intensive industries coming on stream.
I am sure you both wouldn’t disagree with these ‘energy generation ideal model attributes’.
If your ideas satisfy those absolute ‘energy must haves’ as the world moves forward Helmut and Bob, then voila mission accomplished – sign me up please, and I will happily join your vanguard.
Lawrence Coomber
Bob Wallace says
Lawrence, let’s start with a couple of questions…
1) How do you think the cost of fossil fuel replacement electricity would impact our speed of moving off fossil fuels?
Do you think we’d move slower if the replacement cost more and faster if the replacement was cheaper?
2) Do you think we could move off fossil fuels faster if installation time was faster or slower?
How about needed skills? Might lower skill requirements speed up the transition?
Let’s hear your thinking there and then go on to “massive clean, safe, and low cost baseload power 24/7”.
Helmut Frik says
Well to understand how baseload from wind and solar works, be aware that wind power generation is uncorrelated if distances between generation is >1500km. Then look at the central limit theorem (I hope I translated “zentraler grenzwertsatz” correct, which causes that lulls and times of high generation get ever more rare with each area with uncorrelated wind generation which is connected to the grid. This reduces the need of storage and dispatchable generation (hydro, biomass) with rising grid size. It can be calculated when needed soorage falls below existing hydropower storages within the grid. As well as you can design the day peak of load within the grid with the east-west dimension of the grid, which expands solar pwoer generation by 1 hour each day with every 1000km east-west expansion of the grid. That’s why chinese grid ingeneers are very interested to get a strong grid connection to the european grid.
Understanding how it works takes a while, since it works different from conventional power generation. but since it works grid operators in europe have “changed sides” towards generation by wond and solar after understanding how it works. Which took some years.
African states today build interconnectors which are often strong enough to power the whole country with one interconnector from outside, enabeling africa to shift a comaratively lot of power over large distances. And Africa has a very high share of hydropower, usually with storages, and turbine capacity which only makes sense if utilisation is just a few thousand (2000-4000h) per year. And with the possibility to add more turbines.
E.g. the Kariba dam in Zambia gets a extension with solar pwoer, it is suffering from draught, and adding solar is faster than rain could fill up the giant storage again. the solar power additions allow to shut down the turbines partly or fully (depending on which state of solar projects you look) and so to collect more water – and operate with a bigger head then, so producing more kWh from each m³ of water. One of many examples in Africa how they go in one step towards a 100% renewable power supply.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Helmut Frik – One of many examples in Africa how they go in one step towards a 100% renewable power supply. Are you still a University Student.? – Related to Africa and it’s energy needs. Uncovering immoral choices in 100% renewable studies.
Doctoral Researcher Ben Heard has authored a peer reviewed study which asks a couple of simple questions in order to check whether feasibility has been weighed correctly in 100% renewable studies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FARZBZAGon4&feature=youtu.be
Bob Wallace says
This video is from the same guy who made that misleading wind/solar/fossil fuel video you linked earlier.
My, my, my….
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bob Wallace – misleading wind/solar/fossil fuel video – Do you think it’s going to work with throwing some peanuts their way. my, my, my
Helmut Frik says
Hendricus, in Tansania already 2/3 of people get their electric pwoer from microgrids, only 1/3 from usual grids. The usual grid is so “stable” that hospital build solar power supplies (without battery) to have a more reliable power suply for urgently needed medical equipment. Have you ever been doing business in Africa?
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Helmut Frik – Yes I have together with my teams been building a number of multi billion dollar mega-projects none of them used wind or solar to power them.
Tasmania already 2/3 of people get their electric power from micro-grids. Yes only to power their homes not it’s industry.
Helmut Frik says
Well, what you have built is history. today technology and costs are very much different from the times then.
My father built telephone systems for many millions of people, but none of them included any voice over IP. Although IP existet then for decades. Funny isn’t it?
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Helmut Frik – A mega-project completed in 2014 is that history.? The DCS is something you would not even get your head around. Or the Siemens direct coupled pinion drive technology for grinding mills. There will none of those mega projects due to their remote locations ever to be powered by wind & solar. Even if they were not remotely located, I can guarantee that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRsWEHvMXQg
Nigel West says
Sounds plausible but will not work. Near 100% renewables studies are based on historical weather data. The models drop enough wind/solar at locations where the wind blew and sun shone in the past to supply demand around Europe at coincident times over about a year.
Problem is weather patterns vary from year to year and some will be wildly different to the norm, more so during severe weather events. Any country that thinks future weather patterns are predictable enough to choose just renewables spread around Europe would be in big big trouble without conventional back-up as the lights would go out at times.
“grid operators in Europe have “changed sides” towards generation by wind and solar after understanding how it works. Which took some years.”
Nonsense. TSOs charged with keeping the lights on would be the last to accept such risk floated by extreme renewables fanatics.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Nigel West – My comment at May 17, 2017 at 15:41 – Looking at your reply, I am not sure on that you viewed the video, as it demonstrates that 100% renewables will not work in time.
Bob Wallace says
If 100% renewable will not work in time then we are 100% screwed.
The world can install renewables incredibly faster than we can build nuclear plants.
(I suspect your claim is incorrect. ;o)
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bob Wallace – After all, who doesn’t like renewable energy? It’s clean, it’s green and it’s saving the planet. What’s not to like? Surely, there’s nothing wrong with having a target? Few people bother to ask: How does the Renewable Energy Target work? Is a massive investment in renewable energy the most effective way of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions? Or even, what’s the true cost of replacing electricity generation capacity with renewables? These are questions that the renewable energy swindlers don’t want you to ask. https://www.electricitymap.org/?wind=false&solar=false&page=map
Helmut Frik says
Beating strawmen once again. All research about 100% renewable also includes the additional costs beside the pure capacity. For nuclear that’s often forgotten to mention…..
Nigel West says
To approach a 100% renewables nirvana (pointless green aspiration) would take >80 years. So that would not be fast and better solutions would derail it along the way too.
Modular nuclear plants like SMRs are just round the corner and factory built they would achieve the job of carbon reductions quicker than renewables. No need to waste money either on the duff ‘supergrid’ idea.
LA could hook up to 165MWe reactors on board decommissioned US carriers moored off Long Island, or down the coast at San Diego.
Helmut Frik says
¨…* Your 80 yaars fall from heaven, and you want us all to rely on a technology which does not even exist. but which you expect to be installed faste, although no supply chain exists for it, too. What a joke.
A really expensive and dangerous joke.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Helmut Frik, – Russia I believe is already building a floating nuclear reactor for electricity and heating to be placed in the antarctic.
Bob Wallace says
There is absolutely no guarantee that there will ever be affordable small reactors. Going small is the opposite direction when it comes to lowering the cost of nuclear.
With nuclear and wind “big is beautiful”.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bob Wallace – I like the old windmills in my country, as a matter of fact, my birth city has the biggest in the world. Now when it comes to off-shire wind turbines, I am okay with them, but not in landscape they are ugly, and distort what was once a beautiful view.
In contrast SMR’s can be built underground. China is well underway to make them competitive.
Nigel West says
Bob, you may like to ponder these numbers and consider whether wind on the scale needed would be practical:
A needed cut of 4Gt in carbon emissions per annum by 2050 will lead to 465±11 ppm, a reduction of 33 ppm relative to do nothing.
To achieve 4 Gt carbon cuts by deploying wind turbines would require 3,300,000 – 3 GW turbines to be deployed with a deployment rate of 156,000 in 2050 compared with 20,943 in 2015. That is a 7.5 fold uplift in effort.
Not forgetting that many turbines would not last to 2050 before needing replacement too.
Helmut Frik says
3 GT of cabon are about 4000TWh per year. With todays offshore wind turbines, 8MW, 34 GWh per turbine, it needs 30 turbines for 1 TWh per year. That’s 120.000 turbines which are needed. As Siemens wants to reach one turbine in 24 hours in installations, the’d install 250 turbiens in a yer per installation ship, 7500 in 30 years. So less tha 20 installation ships with installation crews could do the job, installing 1 TWp of offshore wind. With 15 MW turbines this is reduced to half, so less than 10 installation ships are enough. worldwide. Without onshore and solar.
You have seen the video of the robot installing solar panels. Two lifts per minute, amybe three, each with 6 or 8 panels, 2x1m² they would be today for utility solar. so 2,5kW per lift, 5kW per minute, 300kW per hour, 7MW per day if you keep it working. 2,1 Gw per unit per year, producing 3 TWh in worlds average.
100 TWh per unit in 33 years. So 40 units needed wich keep installing to get the 4000TWh from utility solar alone. Worldwide.
It’s definitely no problem to roll out solar much much faster, and use much more equipment.
Nigel West says
Helmut, Siemens having slipped to 8th player in the world is struggling to keep up with the no. 1 Vestas, and GE – no. 2. China’s Goldwind may blow away all the European competition too.
Once the easy shallow water areas have been developed the deep water areas will be much more expensive and take longer to develop. 15MW machines are unproven technology too.
Bob Wallace says
I’ve contemplated those numbers, multiple times. Yours are tilted in favor of, I assume, nuclear. But let’s bypass numbers for the moment and contemplate the big picture.
Whatever we do to get off fossil fuels will require a lot of new construction.
Even if we don’t get off fossil fuels we will do a lot of new construction.
Plants wear out. The average age of US coal and nuclear plants is about 40 years and we have to build new ones. None of our existing plants are likely to be in operation in 2050. Europe’s nuclear fleet will be worn out as well.
Developing countries will need more energy production. They will have to build something.
So, Nigel, here’s the bottom line.
Between 2017 and 2050 the world will probably build more new electricity generation than now exists. Only hydro, solar and some recently built facilities will survive in 2050.
The question comes down to what is the cheapest, fastest to install, and safest route to repowering the world?
(We know that answer, don’t we? It’s not coal and it’s not nuclear.)
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bob Wallace – Your thinking and conviction goes against all the published scientific based energy mix sources predicted up to 2015. They all include nuclear.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
that should have been 2050
Nigel West says
“The question comes down to what is the cheapest, fastest to install, and safest route to repowering the world?”
Nope. New nuclear is safe and Far East reactor vendors will drive down costs. Modular construction will reduce construction times too. Clearly the world could not be powered by intermittent renewables alone so new fossil plants will be built, probably virtually all gas fired in the west.
Strategic decisions will be taken by sovereign nation states not at the insistence of bodies like the IPCC, EU, or misguided liberal and la la land funded US lobbyists.
Nigel West says
Hendrikus, I totally agree with the findings of the Heard et al study. (My comment ‘sounds plausible but will not work’ was directed at Helmut’s – May 17 10:17)
100% renewables will not work. Not needed either. Some critical posters here are amateurs compared to the authors of the Heard study who definitely are not nonentities. Barry Brook is a leading environmental scientist with hundreds of publications to his credit, Tom Wigley is “one of the world’s foremost experts on climate change and one of the most highly cited scientists in the discipline” and Corey Bradshaw has co-authored books with Paul Ehrlich.
Bob Wallace says
“100% renewables will not work.”
Please. […]
“Not needed either.”
True. We could power our grids with 100% nuclear and no renewables. No one argues differently.
Of course we’d need to pay 3x to 5x as much for our electricity which would be a major damper on our economies and lifestyles.
And we’d leave incredibly large piles of very hazardous radioactive material for other to deal with.
The issue here is “What is the intelligent route off fossil fuels?”
The smart answer will consider cost, time of installation, and safety.
Nigel West says
“Of course we’d need to pay 3x to 5x as much for our electricity which would be a major damper on our economies and lifestyles.”
You must be talking about the German and Danish showcase where renewables have made their leccy far too expensive for less wealthy developing countries to contemplate copying. Intermittent renewables would be a major damper on their economic development and lifestyles.
Nuclear and coal have been the driving force behind economic development in the west for decades.
“And we’d leave incredibly large piles of very hazardous radioactive material for other to deal with.”
Nope. The ‘large piles’ are legacy issues mostly military waste arisings – problems like Hanford. New nuclear plants produce little waste compared to those of the past. New nuclear has to fully cover the future storage costs of spent fuel too. Spent fuel will be safely stored in repositories. Finland is leading the way here.
Bas Gresnigt says
@Nigel,
Nowadays wind & solar are so cheap that even 100% over-provisioning is much cheaper than nuclear.
The 100% extra produced during normal years can be converted to gas (H2) stored in earth cavities*)
That renewable stored gas (H2) can be used by cheap gas turbines (or fuel cell assemblies) in periods of no wind & solar.
Cheap unmanned gas turbines or fuel cell assemblies as those will operate only about 10% of the time…
The overall efficiency of the PtG-S-GtP process will be ~40%. The Germans are busy expanding Power-to-Gas.
*) Germany uses deep earth cavities in the south and north already for decades to store gas. Capacity already >220TWh = enough to cover ~4months. No problem to increase capacity.
NL uses such earth cavities in order to store processed/conditioned gas (right composition, caloric value, etc) to cover the bigger demand during winter.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bas Gresnigt – Telling fibs again – The Netherlands, for over 50 years the largest natural gas producer in the EU – all houses will be disconnected from the gas grid by 2050.
The plan has broad parliamentary support, in fact, many political parties believe it does not go far enough. The Dutch politician Geert Wilders wants to see construction of thorium-based nuclear power stations.
Helmut Frik says
Beating strawmen again? what is the connection of gas pipes in residental houses with gas pipes to power staions? None.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Helmut Frik – beating straw woman again. Try to give you friend on Bob Wallace a hand on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGt5Yp7SGfA&lc=z132zzbq2kquwpehd04cffsgwpn5hzdogww0k.1495130965613290
He’s in a lot of trouble with wind & solar.
Helmut Frik says
Now you miss thte topic completely. Nobody here talks about capacity beside you.
Nigel West says
“Nowadays wind & solar are so cheap that even 100% over-provisioning is much cheaper than nuclear.”
wind or solar capacity ≠ nuclear capacity
Bob Wallace says
Please use CF correctly.
Capacity factor ≠ hours of production.
We know that reactors are capable of running about 90% of the time. CF and hours of production are very similar for nuclear.
We also know that the Sun does not shine 24/365, nor does the wind blow all the time. But hours of production are much larger than CF for wind and solar.
We know that by using the appropriate amount of storage wind and solar can power our grids 100% of the time. (Nuclear needs some sort of backup generation to reach 100%.)
Now, there are times when the Sun is shining but the clouds are blocking enough sunlight so that no more than 50% of nameplate is being produced. And sometimes wind farms are running between 50% and 100% of nameplate.
How do deal with that shortfall? Overbuild 100% and those 50% to 99% hours become 100% hours.
If wind and solar fall below $0.02/kWh as some predict we could overbuild x2 and the price rises to less than $0.04/kWh which is cheaper than any storage technology available.
A four cents is less than a third the cost of new nuclear in the US and probably the rest of the western world.
Bob Wallace says
A study that I sometimes reference is one in which they used four years of minute to minute demand data from the largest wholesale grid in the US along with hourly wind and solar data from NOAA for the same four year span.
It should be no problem to use a decade or more of weather damage in order to identify the longest low wind and solar periods. We now have wind farms that have been collecting performance data for 30+ years and solar farms for at least a decade. In addition there are research solar arrays that have been in operation for more than 20 years.
There are weather stations spread all around the planet that collect frequent wind and solar data. And have been collecting for decades.
Figuring out the amount of backup needed should not be a large problem.
Obviously a 100% renewable system would have to be designed to deal with those periods of low production, just as grids now have to be prepared for multiple large thermal plants to go offline without notice and stay off for days to months.
Short term we simply park enough NG and coal plants. Keep them in working order and adequate fuel stockpiled. If something really nasty happens we turn them on. Then, over time, we build up our renewable/storage capacity so that we can deal with a similar problem if it happens again.
It’s very, very minor issue if by 2040 we’re stilling having to use fossil fuels a few hours a year.
We may find that our permanent solution is to maintain a certain number of combined cycle plants that can be run using methane from sewage and landfill gas. And/or converted coal plants that can be run on wood waste.
These are just engineering issues. There’s no hair on fire issue that justifies having expensive nuclear or fossil fuel plants running all the time with a mostly renewable grid.
Nigel West says
Do the NOAA studies take account of US hurricanes and tornadoes? The US would not rely on an international grid as it would threaten homeland security.
The security risks for a small country like the UK are too great. UK Government strategy for future energy supplies is they must be secure. Renewables flung far and wide are not. Regardless of the weather risk that is also a fact.
Helmut Frik says
imported oil, gas and uranium are much more a problem for national securioty. the size of the U.S. makes it likely that it might not rely on imports for many years ina purely renewable grid, if at all. But still trading power can make things even cheaper.
Nigel West says
Nope. Solid and liquid fuels are all easy to store, and cost effectively too. Electricity storage on the scale needed to secure the UK for your duff ‘supergrid’ system would not be.
Furthermore, a large part of the UK could go black at the press of a switch outside of the UK if renewables were being imported from far flung places not under UK sovereign control.
So will not be happening I assure you. Neither will it happen in Germany too as you very well know. One can see a huge 100% backup generation fleet in Germany too to cover renewables intermittency.
Bob Wallace says
” Solid and liquid fuels are all easy to store, and cost effectively too.”
Which says that it makes sense to hang onto some paid off coal and gas plants as deep backup. Convert them to run on biomass and biogas.
With ample storage the grid will continue to function without change while thermal plants are dusted off and heated up.
Grids now have generation which rarely to never runs. But is there if needed. When the two SONGs reactors suddenly went offline the grid pulled up some old gas generators that had been mothballed many years earlier.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
Bob Wallace – A beautiful solid fuel that one day will power the world so that we can start to recycle the metals from all that wind & solar rubbish. This is enough to cover a persons clean power needs for a lifetime. http://www.ipunix.com/New-Nuclear/thorium-abundant-energy.png
Bob Wallace says
Thorium will not make nuclear cheaper. The cost of uranium is only $0.008/kWh.
Someone has to figure out how to cut the cost of building reactors by 4x to 5x in order for nuclear to be competitive.
BTW, I spent a little time today looking at UK electricity prices.
Hinkley Point Strike Price is £92.50/MWh in 2012. Adjusted for inflation using the UK CPI and converting it comes to € 0.113/kWh in 2016 euros if it were going into operation this year.
Turns out that the 2016 four month average wholesale price of electricity was £ 34.91/MWh.
That works out to € 0.041 euros per kWh if Google didn’t fail me.
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/chart/electricity-prices-day-ahead-baseload-contracts-monthly-average-gb
The UK is planning on mixing in electricity that will be almost 3x the wholesale price of electricity.
That’s not going to help the UK be more competitive as they strike out to make a living in the big competitive world.
Bas Gresnigt says
UK has more than enough land and sea to generate >10 times the total energy it consumes with wind & solar. Even dense populated NL has enough land and sea.
Furthermore it can easily use PtG to convert and store (in earth cavities) the superfluous cheap wind power..
Nigel West says
Bas, yes the UK is fortunate to have good wind resources. But the majority of people, many in Scotland, do not want more on shore wind turbine blight. So Government no longer provide subsidies for on shore wind turbines.
Off shore will be developed competitively and at a reasonable pace to avoid the subsidy burden for consumers getting out of hand as it has in Germany and Denmark due to the FiT free for all approach.
The results of the latest auction for offshore wind CFDs should soon be in and I hope prices will be <£100/MWhr.
Most UK off shore development so far has been in shallow waters. The costs of building in deeper water to exploit the North Sea potential will be significantly more than prices seen so far for shallow water offshore wind in Europe.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bas Gresnigt – Possibly the average person living in UK is more intelligent and collectively opted for nuclear in their clean energy mix, that includes wind & solar. The same people that decided to leave the European Union.
Bob Wallace says
Offshore wind turbines are designed to withstand a Category 3 hurricane.
There’s a video of a Force 3 tornado moving through a wind farm. The turbines directly hit lose their blades. The turbines on each side of the damaged turbines appear undamaged.
The extreme damage zones for both hurricanes and tornadoes is not great. Neither wide nor long.
Remember, the US has huge numbers of oil rigs offshore in hurricane zones.
Had the massive Force 5 tornado that hit Joplin, MO been a hundred miles or more further north there is a good chance the US would have had its own Fukushima. It could have struck the Fort Calhoun reactor.
A Force 5 strips away the grid. It takes days to bring power back into the area struck. Fort Calhoun would have lost grid power and needed an alternate source of electricity while it powered down.
Fort Calhoun’s emergency backup generator was located in a simple metal building. After a Cat 5 hit there would be a bare spot of land where the backup generator once resided.
Oops. Cook one off in the US time.
—
“The US would not rely on an international grid as it would threaten homeland security.”
The US Northeast get an appreciable amount of its electricity from Canada hydro.
The US Southwest is tied into the Mexican grid.
Nigel West says
‘Oops. Cook one off in the US time.’
OHL line systems can be restored quickly after a storm where essential supplies are involved. Spent fuel pools do not boil as soon as the cooling is lost. It would take days. Emergency power supply systems to nukes have multiple lines of defence including independent diesel generator sets. New nuclear stations typically at least four. Nice anti scare story though. BTW that plant is closed now which you no doubt knew.
Helmut Frik says
Nigel, that’s why they use many years of weather data for validation. And yes, utilities and grid opwerators have changed sides. They understand now how renewable systems work. No grid operator in germany sees any problem any more with 80% renewables on the grid, and no need for storages until at least 60% renewables in the grid, more likely 80%.
Be aware that germany, together with neighbouring countries e.g. expands power lines towards austria and swizerland (where already very strong interconnecors exist) to make better use of wind power from north germany. Our southern neighbours value that very much, since it rises the value of thei hydropower systems.
Nigel West says
Helmut, TSOs have to keep quiet about the problems they face due to political pressure. All is far from rosy. German TSOs have to cope as best they can with an inferior system containing too much renewables capacity:
Constantly having to reschedule generation close to real time to deal with swings in renewables output to try and keep demand and generation in balance. The slightest mistake and the grid could collapse, or circuits be damaged through overloading.
Germany’s grid creaking at the seams because the Government failed to control renewables deployment, much being in the wrong places too far from demand centres.
A massive increase needed in transmission capacity almost doubling the grid to try and cope. Major reinforcement years behind schedule and growing more costly as undergrounding required. New overhead lines adding to the blight caused by too many on shore wind turbines.
Neighbouring countries fed up with Germany dumping surplus subsidised leccy on their grids and destabilising their grids. QB’s needed to control the situation which will force Germany to stop over producing renewables.
German TSO’s very worried about losing synchronous generators. Synthetic inertia from wind generators completely unproven at the scale needed to control frequency on the grid. Wind/solar unproven and problematic for covering a black start situation too.
Reliable generation being closed in the south and transmission links from the north bogged down in planning.
Grid charges to consumers set to take off to cover doubling the size of the grid. TSOs will be very unpopular as consumers expected prices to decrease having born the brunt of high prices due to the EEG.
Need I go on?
Renewables zealots should just accept other countries have seen the costs and disaster looming for Germany due to their Energiewende experiment. UK and France will not be following, instead a mix of generation sources including renewables and nuclear is best.
Bob Wallace says
You don’t need to go on. […]
All you describe is nothing but growing pains. We’re in the very early days of a massive move off of fossil fuels, the old ways of grid management will need to be adjusted in order to deal with new realities.
The US greatly increased renewable penetration by moving from one hour purchase blocks to fifteen minute blocks.
Aside from some programming nothing else was required. One hour blocks were established back when purchases were done by humans using telephones. By the time we moved from 60 to 15 minutes computers had already taken over that task.
Storage most likely will be the way we deal with grid regulation. Rather than running large thermal plants below nameplate.
And the grid problems were not caused by Germany “dumping” electricity. If any country dumps electricity it’s France. Germany sells electricity to countries that pay Germany a profit.
The grid problem in Poland and other eastern EU countries came from electricity not generated in Germany, but passing through Germany from other European countries.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Nigel West – Good points and now Germany leads they way in showing others that it doesn’t work.
Bob Wallace says
Germany.
Falling wholesale prices since they began installing renewables.
Third lowest grid interruption record in the EU. Only Luxembourg and Denmark have been performance and only slightly better at that.
The UK is about 3x worse than Germany.
France is about 4x worse than Germany.
German fossil fuel use has been dropping since 2006. In 2016 Germany obtained 29% of their electricity from renewables.
” Germany leads they way in showing others that it doesn’t work”
You must live in a world where up is down….
Helmut Frik says
Using the equipment which was installed to manage the grid is not a sign of a “creaking” grid, but just a sign of a grid working as it should.
And you will find out that making the kind of “error” you are talking about is about impossible in the crid controll centers.
And since there are not unly non regulatable nuclear power staions on the grid, but fast adjustable renewables, there are enouch possibilities to deal with overloads, which de facto do not happen. The maximum you get is a n-1 violation.
We still wait for the big and lon g blackouts which were promised for 2011 and the following years due to the closure of nuclear power stations. You always forget that the Grid of UK is much less stable.
Bas Gresnigt says
Your demand list: “massive clean, safe, and low cost baseload power 24/7 to all” contains one nonsense word:”baseload”.
People want / need uninterrupted power. And countries with high renewable share (e.g. DK where wind generates >40%) do that far better than countries with lot of baseload (e.g. France where nuclear generates 75%).
Furthermore nuclear doesn’t meet your demand list as nuclear is very expensive (not low cost).
Renewable (wind, solar, storage, etc) is nowadays 2-5times cheaper than new nuclear (emit also 2-5 times less CO2/KWh than nuclear).
Bob Wallace says
Baseload is a term that emerged as a descriptor of thermal plants which are hard to turn off and back on quickly.
There is a certain minimal level of demand that grids could expect, the base load. Those highly inflexible plants were the base load suppliers. Baseload generators. Shortened to baseload.
Above the base load utilities had to figure out how to match supply to demand. Some of the job could be done by running coal plants at a lower output than full capacity. Some by hydro plants. Some by diesel generators. Some by gas turbines.
We’ve run our grids for decades using baseload generators. We did that because that was what we had to use. There’s nothing that says that we have to use large, inflexible thermal generation. It’s just what we did in the past.
When the automobile became affordable we did not insist that horses be included in our transportation mix. We recognized the advantages of a new technology and shifted accordingly.
Nigel West says
I really don’t understand why renewables advocates drone on about ‘baseload’ not being relevant – they seem very sensitive whenever the term is mentioned.
“Baseload is a term that emerged as a descriptor of thermal plants which are hard to turn off and back on quickly.”
Wrong. Baseload describes the minimum demand on a grid, not ‘thermal plants that are hard to turn off and on’.
“Those highly inflexible plants were the base load suppliers. Baseload generators. Shortened to baseload.”
Inaccurate. Only some large thermal plants are inflexible, others aren’t – it’s only a power plant design issue. Flexible thermal plant costs more to build. Cycling the plant incurs more maintenance costs and lowers thermal efficiency.
“Above the base load utilities had to figure out how to match supply to demand. Some of the job could be done by running coal plants at a lower output than full capacity. Some by hydro plants. Some by diesel generators. Some by gas turbines.”
Inaccurate. Old power stations had steam ranges, small 20/30/60 MW steam turbines were loaded as needed. Oil fired plants were used too being more flexible than coal and fast to warm up. Diesels are not connected at transmission system levels being too small. Open cycle gas turbines are inefficient. CCGTs are better. Large coal fired plants can two shift daily if needed. Only a few sets need to be part loaded to provide system reserve. Pumped storage and hydro are good, if available.
Gas fired CCGTs are the way forward following the demise of heavy fuel oil and coal burning. They are built to run uninterrupted, or for flexible operation at a higher £MW cost.
To meet the constant baseload demand, firm capacity is needed which wind/solar in isolation is not able to provide. Wind/solar only displaces CCGTs which need to step into cover intermittency. New CCGTs need to be built when firm capacity is short relative to peak demand. A wasted expensive asset sitting idle to cover renewables intermittency. Makes little economic sense.
“When the automobile became affordable we did not insist that horses be included in our transportation mix. We recognized the advantages of a new technology and shifted accordingly.”
Likewise, when the industrial revolution occurred steam power replaced slow unreliable sail ships, and wind mills for producing foodstuffs.
Helmut Frik says
[…]
Diesel enginges range up to 100 MW per unit.
And baseload is a outdated concept to describe loads on the grid. Today topic is residual load for the types of generators you describe.
Problem of baseload is, that it is often not clear if it describes something on the load side or on the generation side. If you want to be accurate in german you say “baseload / Grundlast” for the load side and “Bandenergie” für the supply side.
But today that’S outdated like piston steam engines or lineotypemachines.
Nigel West says
Germany and renewables fanatics can use the term residual load if they wish, but the UK and France will be sticking with baseload to describe minimum electricity demand. Baseload in Germany is around 30GW now – that will grow as Germany electrifies more sectors.
Firm generation capacity is needed to meet baseload demand reliably. Renewables are not firm.
Helmut Frik says
Retired engineers might keep on using the terms they learned many decades ago although they are useless now. Wind and solar can provide firm suply, but you insist on ignoring physics and mathemathics.
Nigel West says
Helmut, try arguing that in front of an audience of engineers. The facts are as any engineer will tel you:
wind ≠ firm capacity
solar≠ firm capacity
hydro = firm capacity
coal fired = firm capacity
gas fired = firm capacity
nuclear = firm capacity
diesel = firm capacity
Bob Wallace says
Nigel, none of the sources you list are 100% firm capacity.
Stuff breaks.
The engineers designing electricity grids engineer around problems of all generators not producing 24/365.
Nigel West says
Firm means low probability of unplanned outages, also dispatchable.
Both prerequisites for a stable and secure grid system.
Bob Wallace says
Radioactive waste, some of which will remain extremely hazardous for thousand of years.
Chernobyl
Fukushima
—
MSR might drive down the cost of new nuclear. By 5x? We’ll have to wait and see about that.
Will some governments decide to build new nuclear even though it wastes their capital?
I won’t be surprised. Just look at some of the other dumb things governments sometimes do.
Bob Wallace says
Low ≠ zero.
I’m sure you realize that reactors can and do suddenly go offline without notice. Grids must engineer in a way to either quickly replace that supply or cut off some demand.
There are two levels of dispatchable…
1) Source can be turned on and off as desired.
2) Source can be rapidly and efficiently cycled off and on.
Nuclear and coal satisfy #1 but not #2. Coal plants take hours to bring up to speed. Nuclear reactors can require days.
Number 2 is met with hydro, battery storage, running thermo plants below capacity.
Gas peakers come in as 2.2 with startups that take minutes, not ‘almost instant’.
Nigel West says
“Diesel engines range up to 100 MW per unit.”
Understandable Germans are keen on Rudolf Diesel’s invention! Without them U boats would not have been such a menace too during WW2.
Those massive slow speed diesels are a problem to move due to their huge size and weight even stripped down. But in cogen applications they are good when low grade heat is needed. Okay for small power plants and isolated systems.
But for large GW/grid size applications CCGTs are best.
Helmut Frik says
Nope. CCGT is much to expensive for backup. Just does not make the slightest sense to waste so much money. Especially since they can not supply lokal backup to critical infrastructure at the same time, by being way too big as minimum size. I am afraid you still have a lot to learn.
Nigel West says
Nope, CCGTs are better than multiple diesels for GW size plants. CCGT plants start life on high LF operation then move to peaking duty. CCGTs in Germany will be needed to cover renewables intermittency once lignite is gone. Diesels are too small.
I am afraid you need to go on a generation planning course.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Helmut Frik – If we take Germany’s energiewende at an cost of €520 Billion by 2025 in the electricity sector alone, and I hate to think how much it will be by 2050. And what has this marvellous investment yielded? The highest electricity prices in the world, (alongside Denmark) a series of rolling brown outs, energy poverty for hundreds of thousands of German households and precisely zero carbon emissions reduction for Germany. Now if that money had been spent on SMR Nuclear Technology, by now we would have had a manufacturing facility rolling out the SMR modules required and shipping them to the construction sites.
Bob Wallace says
CCGT (CCNG) plants have a very low installed price compared to other generation. Even a bit cheaper than onshore wind (using US prices).
Wind Onshore
$1.64 Installed Cost/Watt
DOE 2015 Wind Technologies Market Report
PV Solar
$1.06 Installed Cost/Watt
$1.18 With Tracking
Greentech Media 2nd Qtr 2016 Executive Summary
CCNG
$1.09 Installed Cost/Watt
Open EI DOE Database
The CCGT plants being installed now will be paid off in a few years. After that they become very affordable deep backup generation which can be run on biogas.
Mothball them, keep them from rusting, and they can serve a deep backup role for a century or two. They may be needed only a few hours a year.
Nigel West says
“The CCGT plants being installed now will be paid off in a few years. After that they become very affordable deep backup generation which can be run on biogas.”
Biogas okay to run small diesels. But the volumes (and pressure needed >30Bar) to feed say a Frame 9FA GT in a CCGT plant is huge. A big CCGT station in the UK running at full output consumes about 5% of the total UK national gas demand. I can’t foresee biogas being able to do that. Natural gas will be needed.
Helmut Frik says
Thae gas volume is consumption x operation times. For 100 hours once in 5 or 50 years, not much biogas is needed.
The talk was about backup, not baseload.
Well, both start with the letter “b” maybe this is confusing.
Bob Wallace says
Depends on the hours of deep backup needed.
Once study in the US found that no more than seven hours per year was needed for gas deep backup.
Bas Gresnigt says
@Hendrikus,
Your €520B is factor >10 to high. It implies €10,000/household as those pay the costs. Simply ridiculous. Energiewende has also high support as the costs are of little significance.
Note that German households spend lower share of their income for electricity than US households.
It’s ~€15B, study the EEG, etc.
It will hardly increase until 2023 and then go into long term decrease as the high FiT guarantees (70cnt/KWh) of the first years end (Agora studies).
Using French ADEME study (80% renewable cheapest in 2050), Germany will pay less in 2050 then those who didn’t migrate to renewable.
“rolling brown outs”??
German power supply is 10 times more reliable than that of US, 4 times more than that in UK and France.
“energy poverty” exist in all countries, incl. USA. No indication its worse in Germany, opposite compared to USA.
I estimate that same or worse
“No carbon emissions reductions”??
Regarding electricity:
In 2002 last year before first NPP closed due to Energiewende: 651g/KWh
In 2005: 608g/KWh
In 2010: 557g/KWh
In 2015: 535g/KWh
(figures from UBA)
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bas Gresnigt – GERMANY’S ENERGIEWENDE TO COST STAGGERING €520 BILLION BY 2025, FIRST FULL-COST STUDY FINDS.
At the end of 2015, 150 billion euros had already been spent on the Energiewende, not including the cost for network expansion. The bulk of the cost (which amounts to 25.000 euros for a family of four) will have to be paid in the coming years.
https://www.thegwpf.com/german-energiewende-to-cost-staggering-e520-billion-by-2025-first-full-cost-study-finds/
http://notrickszone.com/2017/03/08/die-welt-article-warns-german-energiewende-risks-becoming-a-disaster-as-costs-explode/#sthash.1PVnpyAA.dpbs
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bas Gresnigt – Unsustainable Cost Of Germany’s “Energiewende” To Soar To €31 Billion In 2016 Alone! According to the Institute of German Business (IW) the cost of Germany’s once highly touted “Energiewende” (transition to green energy) will soar to a whopping €31 billion ($35 billion) in 2016 alone, thus further burdening the already ailing German consumer.
German transmission system operator Tennet recently announced an 80% increase in its transmission fees because of the high construction costs of new power lines to accommodate renewable energy.
A study of the Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics found that by 2025 costs of the Energiewende could exceed €25,000 for an average four-person household. Jeffrey Michel concludes that the Energiewende is running up against its limits – but may be saved by imported coal power from Central Europe.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bas Gresnigt – German politician, Peter Altmaier described as “the most powerful man in Berlin”, has publicly admitted. Feed-in tariffs supporting renewable energy could account for over two-thirds of the cost. Furthermore, Altmaier said that costs for the plans to reform and restructure the country’s energy sector by the end of the 2030’s could reach €1 trillion ($1.3 trillion).
Feed-in tariffs – guaranteed electricity prices designed to support the adoption of renewables such as wind and photovoltaics – would alone cost some €680 billion ($910 billion) by 2020. That figure could increase further if the market price of electricity fell, he warned.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bas Gresnigt – Germany’s Energiewende and the resulting rapid expansion of renewable energy in Germany has been held out as the model for other nations to follow, but there are growing doubts as to its effectiveness.
As I have noted before, the decision to exit nuclear power in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster has meant that at the same time as building large amounts of wind and solar generation, Germany’s CO2 emissions have not fallen due to the increase in the use of cheap, dirty lignite (and high prices meaning that relatively cleaner gas was pushed entirely out of the merit order, although has recently seen some recovery). At the same time, the cost to consumers has risen sharply.
In its most recent annual review, Agora Energiewende reports very mixed progress towards Germany’s climate goals. “On the one hand, the power system became more climate friendly for the third year running: gas power plants gained back market share from coal-fired plants; the phase-out of nuclear power continued as planned; renewable energy systems delivered more electricity than ever before; electricity use fell; and support for the energy transition among Germans grew from its already high level. On the other hand, by the end of 2016 it became clear that Germany’s total greenhouse gas emissions had risen once again; that in 2017 domestic electricity prices would exceed the 30-cent per kilowatt hour mark for the first time; and that the transition’s progress has been too slow to reach the 2020 climate and efficiency targets without major additional efforts.”
However, other problems are looming. This winter has seen prolonged periods of still, cold weather and high levels of fog, meaning that both wind and solar output has been unusually low. These weather patterns, when they arise, can persist for some time and pose a real threat to German security of supply, as outlined in this blog post by the German economist Heiner Flassbeck.
THE END OF GERMANY’S ENERGIEWENDE? https://www.thegwpf.com/the-end-of-germanys-energiewende/
Bob Wallace says
“Baseload describes the minimum demand on a grid, not ‘thermal plants that are hard to turn off and on’.”
That is exactly what I said. And now we commonly describe coal and nuclear as “baseload”. People make statements that we must have baseload generation when what we need is the electricity we demand when we want it.
The source is irrelevant. Costs (including external costs), time to install, and safety are the issues we need to address. The “baseload demand” doesn’t care if the electricity comes from coal, gas, nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, storage, ….
“Cycling the plant incurs more maintenance costs and lowers thermal efficiency.”
And cost of electricity. Capex and fixed opex have to be spread over fewer MWh. Which is why grids try to avoid using thermal plants for load-following.
Plus they can only crudely load-follow. As you say, CCNG plants are commonly used for load following. Along with gas turbines, hydro, and storage.
“To meet the constant baseload demand, firm capacity is needed…”
No, that’s a myth perpetuated by coal and nuclear interests. What is needed is a reliable source of electricity which can be met by renewables + storage. (That includes dispatchable renewable generation.)
I’m glad you agree that better technology pushes out old technology. That is exactly what we are seeing now as renewables replace fossil fuels and nuclear.
Do you realize that for the EU28 –
Fossil fuel generation peaked in 2007 at 1,866,455 TWh and fell to 1,345,878 TWh in 2014?
Renewable generation rose from 549,902 TWh in 2007 to reach 930,924 TWh in 2014?
In 2007 renewables produced 29% as much electricity as FF but by 2014 renewables produced 69% as much as FF. The EU is short years from producing the same amount of electricity from renewables and FF and then renewables will pull into the lead.
If I could show you the graph you’d see that renewables and FF could reach production parity by about 2020.
BTW, nuclear fell from 935,277 TWh in 2007 to 876,293 in 2014.
—
Heck, I can probably show you what is happening in the EU. Click on this…
[URL=http://s619.photobucket.com/user/Bob_Wall/media/European%20Union/EU%2028%20Elec%20FF%20Nu%20Ren.png.html][IMG]http://i619.photobucket.com/albums/tt275/Bob_Wall/European%20Union/EU%2028%20Elec%20FF%20Nu%20Ren.png[/IMG][/URL]
Nigel West says
” …..which can be met by renewables + storage.”
Nope. In many locations like the UK a wind/solar powered system would require storage levels that are totally impractical and would be uneconomic. At times stores run out too, so would be far too risky.
Helmut Frik says
UK has interconnectors too, and relys on imported oil, gas, uranium etc, for which also no unlimited storages exist. The difference is once thos storages (oil, gas, uranium) are empty, they will never ever fill up again if supply is cut. this is not the case with solar and wind, this supply always comes back. Reducing risks for national security.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
Bob Wallace – Renewable fantasies an educational commentary… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KetjDQgFO8&feature=youtu.be
Bob Wallace says
Your video was produced by someone who is ignorant when it comes to renewable energy.
The “Nuclear Humanist” should not be making videos above his pay grade.
Nigel West says
Bob, re. your comment on renewables + storage.
I assure you that large-scale energy storage in Germany in 2050 will not look too much different to this:
https://tinyurl.com/m5h6zxb
https://www.flickr.com/photos/stundenglas/3189682114
Bob Wallace says
Well Nigel, I suggest you take your crystal ball in for servicing.
Coal as deep backup in 2050? Highly unlikely. Perhaps wood waste burned in converted coal plants.
Gas? Fairly likely. But not the natural gas that you foresee. Methane from sewage and trash is a good possibility. Like burning wood in paid off coal plants, keeping some paid off gas plants on hand for deep backup could make a lot of sense.
I use the Budischak paper as my reference when thinking about the need for deep backup. They found it uneconomical to overbuild wind/solar and install storage to cover 0.1% of annual demand. In their modeling they found it greatly lowered the cost of an almost 100% wind/solar/storage grid if the last tiny bit of demand was met by some sort of fuel. Seven hours per year over a four year span.
They modeled in NG, but biofuels would work as well.
Albert Rogers says
Have you noticed that there is a determined campaign for the crippling of nuclear power both in Europe and in the USA?
47% of the electricity supplied to my house by Dominion Power is emissions-free, because it comes from nuclear reactors. I sincerely hope they will resist the urgings of the more ignorant of my fellow-liberals, to build “renewable” energy plantations.
Bob Wallace says
Well, yes I have. In the US it seems to have started post the 1979 TMI meltdown. Which occurred after the US had greatly slowed building new reactors.
6.2
https://goo.gl/8cbAX4
We all know that there is a very strong anti-nuclear movement in Germany.
Now, what would happen if Dominion were to replace the reactors that now give you affordable electricity with brand new reactors whose electricity would cost more than the 11.9 cents retail you now pay? (Virginia?)
Stuff wears out, don’t cha know?
BTW, remember the turnkey bid that North Anna received for new reactors? Didn’t that turn out to be 19 cent/kWh wholesale electricity?
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Nigel West – renewables advocates don’t like the word baseload as they love intermittent, fluctuation, unstable and the likes. They like to tell you that 100% renewables is definitely not a technology challenge, but that it is a political one.
The great renewable energy swindle. The difficulty with the Renewable Energy Target (RET) is that few people understand it, and the people who do are usually the one’s making money off it. It’s a classic case of diffused costs and distributed benefits. The average person simply doesn’t have the incentive to understand the RET in any detail; by the time the average person discovers the true impact of the policy their electricity bill has already skyrocketed and it’s too late.
Albert Rogers says
[…] Intermittent “renewables” are of course useless for supplying steady base load. But the one thing that they do even worse is their response to changes in demand.
In essence, the nature of capricious supply is to simulate even worse changes in load.
Helmut Frik says
intermittend renewables have no problem to supplying steady base load in large grids. But some peole prefer to ignore mathemathics and physics, and argument as if renewables in large grids behave exactly like ons single local generator. Which is nonsense.
Albert Rogers says
Show us one instance. The data form E.ON’s 2005 report show that their large grid in 2004 did no such thing
Bas Gresnigt says
Bob,
Thanks. But baseload is nonsense in the requirement list of Lawrence. Lawrence inserted it because he still lives in the past.
Baseload power plants are a burden in grids with high shares of wind & solar. Danish authorities expect that in 2020 wind will produce more than needed during >25% of the time.
Nigel West says
Bas, you may dislike the term ‘baseload’ used to describe big thermal plants. However Denmark is retaining large thermal plants to provide firm capacity to back-up renewables. Firm back-up capacity is essential regardless of renewables installed capacity. If those stations were a burden as you claim they would all be closed pronto.
Denmark producing more from renewables than the country requires will drive Denmark’s electricity prices even higher. Norway/Sweden’s capacity to soak up surplus renewables is limited. Germany definitely will not need more imports from Denmark – they already have too much renewables capacity in the wrong places.
Actually Denmark’s consumers are being exploited by renewables investors. Denmark’s leccy, most expensive in Europe, will get more expensive due to over capacity.
Helmut Frik says
Danmark equips their district heating plants with thermal storages and heat pumps, so they can run residual load. something completely different from baseload. Sorry if you can not understand that. The world is changing. Learn how it works today.
Bas Gresnigt says
Nigel,
As those large thermal plats run more and more idle with the increasing share of wind, those will be replaced by cheap unmanned generators such as gas turbines and fuel cell assemblies (Denmark also invests in PtG).
The superfluous electricity when the wind blows can be used for PtG stored in earth cavities and used during the ~15% of the time there is a shortage.
Bob Wallace says
Don’t call them baseload plants. That’s a misnomer.
Call them what they are. Large thermal plants.
—
“Denmark producing more from renewables than the country requires will drive Denmark’s electricity prices even higher. ”
Why wouldn’t Denmark sell their surplus production on to other European countries? Especially those who don’t have access to strong offshore winds.
Denmark’s overproduction, like Germany’s overproduction, should be a profit source.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bas Gresnigt – I think that you will know of Bill Nye. Bill, like you, thinks that the world can be saved with renewables, particularly wind and solar. He spreads this message and keeps referring to the Solutions Project, which is not an accurate assessment of feasibility. Besides it has been falsified by a recent publication by Ben Heard called “The burden of proof” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RPHD0H-g14&t=545s
Bas Gresnigt says
@Hendrikus,
Sorry but this nuclear promotion video produced by nuclear fanatic Ben Heard misusing fragments from Bill Nye’s speech, isn’t convincing at all.
How deep did nuclear sink?
Also since it has to flee towards promoting well-known dreams such as those of Terrestrial, TAP, etc.
Bob Wallace says
We really need to quit using the word baseload. It’s misleading.
We should be talking about demand, minimum demand, peak demand and the other considerations in matching supply to demand.
When someone states that we must have baseload generation all they are saying is that there is a minimum demand that must be met. That’s obvious. And it does not require a certain type of generation to provide it. Anything that works will work.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bob Wallace – Finally we are in agreement; anything that works will work, like nuclear electricity generation. New Nuclear Power Plants are able to maintain their output at 25% and then ramp up to full output at a rate of 2.5% of rated power per minute up to 60% output and at 5% of rated output per minute up to full rated power. This means that potentially the unit can change its output from 25% to 100% in less than 30 minutes.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
New built Nuclear Power Plants are able to maintain its output at 25% and then ramp up to full output at a rate of 2.5% of rated power per minute up to 60% output and at 5% of rated output per minute up to full rated power. This means that potentially the unit can change its output from 25% to 100% in less than 30 minutes.
Bas Gresnigt says
@Hendrikus,
The issue is not whether nuclear power plants can operate at lower power and up-/downrate their power.
The issue is that it’s so expensive (fuel poisoning, thermal stresses, etc) that they don’t do it on a regular base.
None of the new power plants have shown those high flexibility costs don’t apply for them.
Ed Lohrenz says
Lawrence…the energy source is energy we don’t need to use in the first place…efficiency. Example: IKEA store in Denver integrates ice storage with a ground source heat pump system. Total cooling load is 530 tons (1,860 kW). it only has 350 tons of cooling equipment to produce (1,230 kW) chilled water. The difference is made up with ice made in off-peak periods when electricity is more available and cheaper. The electrical demand in this store is reduced by 225 kW…the electric utility doesn’t have to produce it and the grid doesn’t have to deliver it. That 225 kW is available for other users all the time. The utility still sells the same number of kWh, but sells them when they are more available. They don’t need to build the additional generating capacity for about $2-5,000 / kW.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bas Gresnigt – produced by one of our country man – Uncovering immoral choices in 100% renewable studies. Doctoral Researcher Ben Heard has authored a peer reviewed study which asks a couple of simple questions in order to check whether feasibility has been weighed correctly in 100% renewable studies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FARZBZAGon4&feature=youtu.be
Bas Gresnigt says
@Hendrikus,
Heard needed to introduce self invented criteria in order to discredit the 24 studies he selected…
Then he could find that the studies didn’t provide “convincing evidence” (from the summary of his study report)…
The propaganda video discredit assumptions about energy needed in the future, which is not relevant for the discussion as renewable can provide more than enough energy, and do that much cheaper than nuclear.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bas Gresnigtenergy – 100% Renewables – Of the studies published to date, 24 have forecast regional, national or global energy requirements at sufficient detail to be considered potentially credible. We critically review these studies using four novel feasibility criteria for reliable electricity systems needed to meet electricity demand this century. These criteria are: (1) consistency with mainstream Demand forecasts; (2) simulating supply to meet demand reliably at hourly, half-hourly, and five-minute timescales, with resilience to extreme climate events; (3) identifying necessary transmission and distribution requirements; and (4) maintaining the provision of essential ancillary services. Evaluated against these objective criteria, none of the 24 studies provides convincing evidence that these basic feasibility criteria can be met.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032117304495
Helmut Frik says
Requiring half hour or 5 minute data is nonesnse, since this only provides very small deviations which e.g batteries providing grid services can smooth away. But wen can also define feasibility requirements for nuclear power stations which fall from heaven without significant cause. E.g we could require that a nuclear porwer station to be only remotely secure mmust be able to withstand a atack with any military weeapon availabne on the market today. And than conclude that there are no useable reactor designs on the market.
Bob Wallace says
“none of the 24 studies provides convincing evidence that these basic feasibility criteria can be met.”
Budischalk et al. 2012. Four years of minute to minute demand data from the largest wholesale grid in the United States. The study used NOAA hourly wind and solar data for the four year period.
[…]
Lawrence Coomber says
@Bob and Helmet
As well intentioned and passionate as you are about the subject of solar and wind power your comments simply don’t stack up against current thinking at the international policy making level and what’s actually gaining traction and being implemented in highly populated regions worldwide (except in the USA at the moment it seems).
Early adopters of solar and wind energy are not all happy campers with many of their decisions in retrospect. No one can turn back the clock though, so there are many energy policy decision makers who have little alternative than to keep on making a square peg appear to be able to occupy a round hole in the energy equation context.
Generally that’s OK though, we are all familiar with and ultimately forgiving of stranded capital assets expenditure, commercial non-viability is often only exposed over time.
Let’s look at an example hot off the press (17/05/2017) in the ASEAN Region that might surprise you both and unfolding this week, that seems to be diametrically opposed to your viewpoints on solar and wind power technologies being worthy of serious consideration globally moving forward.
ASEAN covers a land area of 4.4 million square kilometres, 3% of the total land area of earth. ASEAN territorial waters cover an area about three times larger than its land counterpart or about 9% of the earth’s surface. The 10 member countries of ASEAN have a combined population of approximately 625 million people which equates to about 8.8% of the world’s population, and twice that of the population of the USA.
Collectively ASEAN have just released a report (17/05/2017) which states that their collective energy polices about to be made law will be framed about national power grids across all 10 countries being supplied by clean coal generation technologies. Solar and wind energy has not featured at all in this international energy policy framework.
Here are the opening paragraphs of the report:
“The delivery of affordable, reliable and sustainable electricity plays a central role in improving living standards and unlocking economic potential. Over the coming years, few places will this be more true than in the ten countries that make-up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).”
“ASEAN’s preference for coal is forecast to continue as it remains the most economic source of long-term base-load generation. The IEA forecasts that the installed capacity of coal will increase nearly 150% from 2013 levels to 163 GW by 2035, covering over 34% of total power plant capacity in the region. Coal is expected to overtake natural gas by 2030 to become the largest source of power capacity.”
“In terms of generation, the IEA forecasts a three-fold increase in coal-fuelled generation from 255 TWh in 2013 to 920 TWh in 2035. As a result, the share of coal-fuelled generation in total electricity generation is expected to increase from 32% in 2013 to 48% in 2035.”
“COAL WILL BE AN IMPORTANT GUARANTOR FOR SUSTAINED GROWTH IN ASEAN’S ENERGY EQUATION”
Here is the report titled: THE ROLE OF LOW EMISSION COAL IN DRIVING A SUSTAINABLE ENERGY FUTURE
http://www.aseanenergy.org/events/past-events/ace-wcas-joint-report-launch-jakarta-17-may-2017/
Lawrence Coomber
Helmut Frik says
Well, but if you look inside of those countries, you will find that the phillipines install more and more wind and solar and skip coal, since coal is getting too eexpensive.
Also indonesia is reducing build out of coal, since owner of coal plants think 7ct/kWh is too few. It takes time till the changes in economic arrive at highest levels of politics, thex start to do their ways from bottom up in most countries.
Which means in many cases that there is still a lot of coal power plants in the plans, but simply noone starts building them. While ther is no wind and solar in the plans, but people start building them. The IEA was never up to date with solar and wind installations. The world is changing fast.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Helmut Frik – I spent 6 month’s of the year in the Philippines and have not seen much wind and solar installed. http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/southeastasiaenergyoutlook/aseanreport_presentationtopress.pdf
Helmut Frik says
Nice historic paper. Maybe you should take a closer look on your next journey. but since wind and solar don’t need much space, maybe you will still not see it.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Helmut Frik – you are entertaining. Most of the Philippine islands (and there are many) use bio-fuel and diesel. They can’t afford expensive wind turbines and yes in the larger cities there is a little bit of rooftop PV Solar.
Bas Gresnigt says
@Hendrikus,
When they can afford expensive bio-fuel and diesel, they also can afford cheaper solar and wind with some batteries!
Nigel West says
Lawrence, thanks – a thought provoking post.
I think the ASEAN strategy recognises that wherever regional electricity demand is growing rapidly, firm generating capacity must be built to support economic development. Renewables are only a complementary technology once there is adequate firm capacity to meet demand, and where there is money to pay for unneeded renewables capacity. Firm conventional capacity must come first in growing economies.
Bob Wallace says
ASEAN countries are walking away from coal (with the exception of Indonesia).
ASEAN countries are not building nuclear reactors.
ASEAN countries are installing wind and solar generation.
Bas Gresnigt says
Nigel,
Look around in rural regions in India. 20years ago they had a diesel in the village which generated light for a few hours in the evening.
Two years ago*) I found those are all gone. Now households each have a solar panel with an old truck battery, and lights the whole evening and still enough to load their mobile, etc.
More advanced villages have a micro-grid using solar panels, etc..
_____
*) I cycled with my bike two months through Jammu and Kashmir.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bas Gresnigt – households each have a solar panel with an old truck battery, and lights the whole evening and still enough to load their mobile, etc. More advanced villages have a micro-grid using solar panels. Where is you verified data.
The Adani Group an Indian multinational conglomerate is spending $20 billion on a coal mine in Queensland Australia to power their coal plants for electricity generation in India.
Bob Wallace says
Coal and nuclear do zero good for people who are living remotely from the grid.
Micro-solar has now given affordable electricity to well over three million households in Bangladesh.
Similar programs are underway in other Asian, South American and African countries.
Micro-solar systems are typically paid off in less than two years with the money families save on kero, candles and flashlight batteries. They get a much superior light source, avoid kero fumes, and can charge a cell phone.
Villages and towns that are isolated from the large grid are now installing solar and wind in order to save money on diesel fuel.
Bob Wallace says
Lawrence, I would appreciate you answering the questions I asked you earlier. The questions about cost and speed of implementation.
As for the ASEAN countries, you might want to look to see what they are actually installing. It isn’t “clean” coal.
The report you linked was written by the World Coal Association. Did you consider your source?
The only ASEAN country that uses more than a teaspoon of coal is Indonesia and Indonesia is a very minor consumer. Overall ASEAN coal use is less than 4% of total global use.
The World Bank and major industrial banks will no longer finance coal plants. What you’re likely reporting is a meeting set up by a desperate Australian coal industry that if finding its business collapsing around them and are trying to promote more coal use somewhere.
The report you linked states “As demonstrated in the graph above, the various coal-fuelled power generation technologies are the lowest cost option available for mass deployment.”
We all know that’s 100% bullshit.
The people in ASEAN countries know climate change and they know that significant parts of their countries are in danger from rising sea levels. There’s no Murdock-fueled climate change denial going on in SEA, that’s a UK, US, AU phenomenon. People in those countries want clean energy and they need affordable clean energy.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bob Wallace – ASEAN) is a regional grouping that promotes economic, political, and security cooperation among its ten members: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. ASEAN countries have a population of more than 622 million people and a combined GDP of $2.6 trillion. Whilst I am not in favour of coal at all for electricity generation, it is still required for the production of steel. FYI – the Australian coal industry is not finding that this business is collapsing around them and are continuing it’s massive export of coal to Japan, China and India.
Last but not least; Your remark on Indonesia “a teaspoon of coal and Indonesia is a very minor consumer”. My reply to you, Indonesia accounts for 85% of Southeast Asia’s coal production; it remains the world’s top exporter of steam coal by a very large margin, through to 2035. About 85% of electricity consumed in Indonesia is generated by thermal power plants, renewable generation sources supplies about 6% of Indonesia’s electricity. The Indonesian Jokowi government is pursuing aggressive expansion of power generation capacity. It wants to add 35 GW by 2025, out of which 20 GW or 55 per cent is to come from coal-fired power plants. Only 2.9 GW or 8 per cent is to be sourced from renewable energy sources.
On the rest of ASIAN – the following report will give you same facts – http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/southeastasiaenergyoutlook/aseanreport_presentationtopress.pdf
Helmut Frik says
As long as we don’t switch to the Voest Alpine Process using hydrogen, we will need coal for steel production. But nobody guaantees that future production will not switch to hydrogen.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
Voest Alpine Process uses gas, so its not that clean.
Helmut Frik says
[quote]
@Helmut – “a power connection from germany to china would also connect all wind power from germany to china along this way.”
Such links would very likely need to pass through Russia/Iran. If Germany wants to take that risk fine by me. UK would not accept such a security risk for sure!
BTW every converter station adds losses on top of the overall line loss. Also, how much do you think such links would cost given the 1000km HVDC Suedlink across Germany is set to cost >£15bn? On economic grounds alone sounds a non starter.
[/quote]
There is no need to convert at each station from DC to AC and back. So there are also no additional losses with the stations in between.
And the special conditions for Südlink with underground cables under most expensive possible conditions triggered by Mr.Seehofer is in no way relevant for power lines in empty plains incentral asia. (but to the 15 billions you should bemtion too, that planning of Südlink includes up to 6 2,5 GW bipolar systems, so as much capacity as all existing and planned interconnectors of UK at once)
Lawrence Coomber says
@Bob
I know ASEAN and SE Asian countries, and I have worked in these regions in a variety of roles for many years.
I know the “energy technology pulse” of the people and the decision makers in this region of the world , and I regularly work on renewable energy projects in several of them installing solar and battery (very occasionally small scale wind) off grid systems to provide various much needed (fit for purpose) power supply services. Most recently a 100KVA off grid system to drive a grain milling operation in the Philippines. The list is long.
I know their commitment to lowering GHG and their commitment to Climate Change.
I also know their commitment to advancing their prosperity and modernising their economies through modern era reindustrialisation.
I know that they see a massive increase in the availability of affordably power to their citizens, communities, cities, businesses and new are energy intensive industries coming on stream soon, as the major key to their future growth and prosperity.
People of ASEAN region like other regions are not turning to the USA or Germany for advice on what to do to shape their future energy policy initiatives Bob.
What citizens, communities, cities and nations of ASEAN are really interested in is best summarised as a principal power generation technology that can be guaranteed to deliver through a national grid network, massive clean, safe, and low cost base-load power 24/7 to all people; businesses; those major industries necessary to industrialize their undeveloped nations to a modern standard rapidly, and in particular new age power intensive industries coming on stream, whilst at the same time reduce generation GHG emissions to insignificant levels permanently.
Precisely what all peoples need and that is what the ASEAN legislators are working towards.
Similar processes are unfolding in the African energy equation deliberations also, which are of course a prerequisite as the Chinese “One Belt One Road” global trade expansion policy matures.
Bob I respectfully recommend that you learn to “connect the dots” regarding Global Climate Change, Global National Energy Policies, Global National Industrialisation Policies, and Global International Trade Imperatives (China One Belt One Road for example) in order to remain a relevant contributor about energy technologies with a global focus, rather than simply a US focus which you currently portray.
Lawrence Coomber
Helmut Frik says
Well costs of power generation change the vew on things in the ASEAN states too, It#s changing from “we build coal power because it’s cheap” to ” we build any mode of power generation when it’s cheap”. Wind and solar are always welcome when bidding at or below the prices of coal pwoer plants. This change is happening richt now, so previous experience does not help to understand this fundamental change. Nobody pays a price premium to have his power come from coal.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Helmut Frik – In much of Europe energy policy is being formulated by policymakers who assume that combining wind generation over large areas will flatten out the spikes and fill in the troughs and thereby allow wind to be “harnessed to provide reliable electricity” as the European Wind Energy Association tells them it will. They sold the policymakers the myth, that there is little overall impact if the wind stops blowing somewhere, it is always blowing somewhere else. Thus, wind can be harnessed to provide reliable electricity even though the wind is not available 100% of the time at one particular site.
Wind Blowing Nowhere’s outcome; After having littered the landscape with tens of thousands of those 400 – 500 ft tall wind turbines, AND made the grid changes for grid adequacy, AND made the generating capacity changes for capacity adequacy, to then find there are significant periods with no, or minimal wind, would mean almost ALL other generators would need to be kept in good repair ready to run, staffed and fuelled to provide the required energy to service the demand. http://euanmearns.com/wind-blowing-nowhere/
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Helmut Frik – The Chinese will be replacing coal burners with high temperature HTGR-PM SMR 600MWe Plants. Construction of the HTGR fuel-production factory in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, started in 2013. Commissioning and trial production began at the plant in 2015. An irradiation test of five fuel spheres for the HTR-PM started in October 2012 in the High Flux Reactor in Petten, the Netherlands, which was completed in December 2014. Initially the fuel pebbles due to the fixed cost of the fuel-production factory will be expensive to produce. However, much of the projected cost savings will come from mass production of parts and the larger quantity of the fuel pellets required as the project progresses. This will bring the cost down to an estimated $2,500 per kilowatt of installed capacity, being comparable with other forms of green power.
Bob Wallace says
This is only this week’s coal news from Asia…
” In India, another solar power price record has coincided with the cancellation of proposed new coal plants and the scrapping of a major power purchase agreement in Odisha. In another state, a big new coal plant lays largely idle due to lack of demand”
“In China, new coal plant plans have been suspended in 28 out of 31 provinces. However, while the construction of coal plants is slowing in China,”
“In South Korea the newly-elected President has ordered the shutdown of old coal plants during June this year and for four months next year due to air pollution concerns”
” Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs new eight-year green energy plan foreshadows cutting coal’s share of electricity generation from 45.4 per cent in 2016 to 30 per cent by 2025. The plan, developed to achieve the Tsai Administration’s goal of phasing out nuclear power by 2025, proposes increasing the share of electricity generated by renewables from 4.8 per cent in 2016 to 20 percent in 2025.”
“Indian solar price drops 25 per cent in three months: Another solar power auction by the Solar Energy Corporation of India for the Bhadla Solar Park in Rajasthan has produced another record low price in India of 3.79 US cents per kilowatt hour, lower than the record set a few days earlier and down 25 per cent in the space of three months. The current solar tariff is substantially lower than imported coal power, new domestic coal plants and some operating plants using local coal. ”
“Financial challenges for Indian coal plants grow: Facing a growing power surplus the Uttar Pradesh government has cancelled plans to finalise the purchase of 3800 MW of power from independent power producers. In August 2016, 18 companies – including Adani Power – were shortlisted to supply power over 15 years at an average of six US cents per kilowatt hour. As the price of renewables drops, the cost of financing riskier existing coal plants – which are experiencing falling utilisation levels – are likely to rise, warn researchers from the Council on Energy, Environment and Water.”
http://mailchi.mp/c97e1fb713dc/coalwire-weekly-news-bulletin-1603877?e=2bbfae5944
Now, I have to admit that China’s Belt and Road Initiative has me scratching my head and wondering what China is thinking. The head of the Chinese government has made it clear that China is very concerned about climate change. And he has stated that China intends to be a leader in the fight against climate change.
That leaves me confused about why China would be assisting other countries to build coal plants when they could be helping them install renewables and have less expensive electricity.
(Did you ever answer the questions I asked you? Perhaps you did and I missed your replies.)
Bas Gresnigt says
Those countries are more aware about climate change than USA (probably also because they are more vulnerable).
So e.g. India expanded its already impressive wind and solar targets again. And is developing own PV-solar and wind turbine industries.
Albert Rogers says
It is utter nonsense to equate annual expected MWh of production from weather-dependent power sources, with actual observed MWh of demand and consumption, UNLESS you have storage capacity in GWh that can capture the peaks of available energy, and deliver them later to the demand.
“a reliable source of electricity which can be met by renewables + storage”.
Just check out how many storage plants have been built anywhere, at what capacity and what cost, that are bigger than the Dinorwig Power station, built when the CEGB, the Central Energy Generation Board, was a public entity, which the present owner, Mitsui, refrains from telling us, as they boast about how “innovative” it is. Their webpage tells us it’s still the biggest in Europe, but it is kept quite busy enough handling variations in customer demand, which are short term compared with the long intervals when the wind does not blow hard enough, and the regular periods when the sun does not shine at all,
It disappointed me that although the capacity of the upper pond, Marchlyn Mawr (enhanced, by the way, by some extra earthworks) is given, the effective head of that water is difficult to ascertain.
Nigel West says
Albert – yes. Dinorwig, a 2GW pumped storage hydro plant, has a storage capacity of 10GWh. Whereas UK national leccy demand in the winter is over 1TWh/day. In the winter UK can be dark for days coincident with virtually no wind. So storing just 1 days worth of leccy to cover renewables intermittency would take 100 Dinorwig’s! Not feasible and would cost >£300bn. A non-starter.
People who post here and glibly say wind/solar plus storage would work for the UK are deluded.
Helmut Frik says
Large grids substitute storage for a 100% renewable supply down to the point where reqired storage for a 100% renewable supply gets smaller than the existing storages in the grid. But some people love to run up against mathemathics and physics to keep their nuclear pipedreams.
Bob Wallace says
First, do you not understand that modest levels of nuclear penetration requires either storage or load-following? Storage is probably cheaper than load-following for daily demand matching.
Of course wind and solar require storage. Wind + solar + storage is cheaper than new nuclear. Even before we add in the cost of storage for nuclear.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
It’s time to enjoy the weekend with one of my grand sons, so I wish the about 5 of you happy arguing about whatever turns you on.