The United States has allowed itself to fall behind in nuclear power technology and market development, writes author and thorium expert Robert Hargraves. Regulations have unnecessarily driven up costs of nuclear power and scared the public. According to Hargraves, to revive the nuclear sector, the first steps that needs to be taken are to fight historical fear-creating radiation regulations with science, and to replace the federal regulator, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) with a regulatory organization responsive to technological progress.
Westinghouse’s bankruptcy culminates the collapse of potential US strategic leadership in world nuclear energy. The US has faltered in many aspects of nuclear technology, now allowing other nations to become the world leaders in nuclear and energy diplomacy. Regaining the strategic power will be technically straightforward but politically difficult.
Nuclear energy importance
More important even than its 8% share of world GDP, energy is the master resource, enabling industry, agriculture, and services worldwide. Energy is worth a war. Conflicts over energy include China’s usurpation of territory in the South China Sea, Sudan atrocities, Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, and the blockade of Japan’s SE Asia oil imports that sparked Pearl Harbor. Energy is important in war and peace.
Nuclear fission can provide virtually unlimited motive power, and selling its energy can provide strategic economic power. Though US officials regularly self-congratulate themselves about US gold-standard nuclear policies, the US hardly advances industrial nuclear technology and sells little of it, so has little strategic influence.
The nuclear nonproliferation treaty implemented the desires of permanent members of the UN security council US, Russia, China, France, and the UK to reserve nuclear weapons for themselves, offering fission power assistance to the have-not-weapons states in exchange for forswearing nuclear weapons. Many countries also have signed bilateral “123” agreements enabling and controlling trade with the US in nuclear-related technology. However, none of these agreements stopped India, Pakistan, Israel, South Africa, or North Korea from developing nuclear weapons.
To re-energize the nuclear industry the US must change its regulatory apparatus to encourage progress rather than impeding it. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission should be replaced by an organization like the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), responsive to technological progress
In 1994 North Korea agreed to suspend its nuclear weapons program in exchange for two 1000 MW nuclear power plants to be constructed with a target date of 2003, but by 2003 little progress had been made. North Korea demanded compensation for delays, which demand was refused, the civilian nuclear power plant project was suspended, and North Korea resumed its weapons program. Unable to offer a nuclear power carrot, the US now waves a nuclear weapon stick.
Without a strong nuclear power industry and international trade the US has lost negotiating leverage. For example the new 123 agreement with Vietnam does not prohibit it from enriching or reprocessing uranium or other fuels in order to be permitted to trade with US suppliers. The renewed agreement with South Korea weakened limitations on fuel manufacturing and offered some spent fuel processing assistance at US national labs.
US competitor nations
Russia is building nuclear power plants on its own territory. This reduces internal consumption of natural gas, which Russia exports by pipeline to Europe. This provides Russia with money and the threat potential to turn off the gas, as happened with Ukraine. The proffered strategy to supplant Russian power by shipping US liquified natural gas to Europe won’t work. Liquifying and shipping cheap Texas methane far exceeds the cost of gas delivered by existing Russian pipelines. Russia’s Rosatom claims $300 billion of signed contracts to export its VVER light-water-cooled nuclear power plants, achieving a 60% market share. Russia often offers to lend construction money or to build, own and operate the power plants, gaining more influence over developing nations.
Just as Space-X is taking over much of NASA’s role in space rockets, private industry can lead development of advanced nuclear power plants
China already operates 36 nuclear power reactors, with 21 more under construction. With no US nuclear power plants under construction in 1999, Westinghouse was sold to British Nuclear Fuels, then to Toshiba. In 2007 Westinghouse agreed with China to build four new-design AP1000 nuclear power plants, the first of which will now operate in 2017. China also purchased technology rights to build and export larger versions; China’s new CAP1400 has already completed pressure vessel testing. China is already bidding to build foreign nuclear power plants.
South Korea’s KEPCO has built and operates 25 nuclear power plants in South Korea, generating up to 23 GW of power, supplying a third of the country’s electricity. KEPCO has completed the first of four 1400 GW nuclear power plants they are building in the United Arab Emirates.
The fall
Though the US once led the world in nuclear power technology, from naval ship engines to commercial power plants, these examples illustrate the fall of US nuclear power industry.
Uranium. The US imports 85% of its uranium from Russia, Canada, Australia, Kazakhstan, and Namibia, though substantial uranium resources exist within the US. For two decades half of US power plant uranium fuel was provided by Russia, which diluted its highly enriched, weapons-grade uranium in a mutual agreement to reduce stockpiles.
Uranium Enrichment. Nuclear power plants require uranium fuel enriched from natural 0.7% density of the U-235 isotope to around 6%. Today the single US enrichment plant, owned by a Netherlands company, can satisfy a third of current US needs.
Heavy Water. Deuterium dioxide, D2O, is similar to H2O except each hydrogen nucleus is twice as massive, able to slow neutrons more effectively than ordinary water. D2O is used in research and plutonium production reactors. The US has not had a heavy water production capability since 1996, importing it recently from Iran.
Spacecraft Power. Plutonium-238 produced in nuclear reactors decays steadily, producing heat to power radioisotope thermoelectric generators that power NASA’s space vehicles, some for decades. The US is hardly producing any Pu-238, curtailing NASA’s space exploration.
Spent Fuel. The US has not fulfilled its commitment to take care of power companies’ spent fuel. There are many places to store spent fuel besides Yucca Mountain. Deep boreholes would be safe and economic, but the US DOE backs away from testing at the slightest opposition. NRC (the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) has stated that dry cask storage is safe for 100 years or indefinitely.
Mixed Oxide Fuel (MOX). Reducing the threat of nuclear war, the US and Russia each agreed to destroy 34 tons of weapons-grade Pu-239. The US Savannah River MOX plant is supposed to mix Pu-239 and uranium oxides to make solid fuel to be burned in the country’s existing power plants. Areva uses MOX technology successfully in France. The US MOX project overran its initial $5 billion funding by $12 billion, so President Obama moved to end the program, despite the agreement with Russia. The program’s future is not clear. Meanwhile Russia has just started up its new BN-1200 fast neutron reactor, which will consume Russia’s excess plutonium.
Sodium Cooled Fast Reactor. A SCFR was the first US electric power plant, EBR-I, designed to use plentiful U-238 fuel at a time when U-235 was thought to be in short supply. Fast neutrons convert U-238 to fissile Pu-239 within the reactor. EBR-II was the prototype for the Integral Fast Reactor project of Argonne National Labs, terminated in 1994, three years before completion. SCFR technology is in the GE S-Prism reactor design and in Bill Gates’s Terrapower Traveling Wave Reactor design. Unable to foresee a path to regulatory permission in the US, Terrapower has made agreements with China to build and test the TWR power plant there. GE and Advanced Reactor Concepts are asking Canada for SCRF construction permissions. Russia’s new BN-1200 is an SCFR, one of three there.
Toshiba/Westinghouse AP1000. Many parties share blame for the Westinghouse AP1000 cost overruns. The selected contractor was inexperienced. The NRC changed the aircraft impact rule after the design was approved, adding a 2.5 year delay, even though “compliance with the rule is not needed for adequate protection to public health and safety or common defense and security.” Because of the Westinghouse bankruptcy and Toshiba finances, it’s not now known if the 4 US AP1000 nuclear power plants under construction will be completed.
High Temperature Gas Reactor. Fourth generation nuclear technologies such as the high temperature gas reactor and molten salt reactor are recognized as safer and better than existing water-cooled reactors. HTGR fuel is half-millimeter grains of uranium oxide, encased in three ceramic layers, permanently containing radioactive fission products even in accidents. Helium transfers the high temperature heat of fission to steam to power generators. The US built two pioneering HTGRs, closed in 1974 and 1989. China’s Tsinghua University built a small, pebble bed HTGR based on Germany’s experiences, and China is now loading fuel into a commercial version. The US DOE created the Next Generation Nuclear Plant project. Working later with the cost-sharing NGNP Alliance a French Areva design was selected over the US General Atomics or Westinghouse designs. Little has progressed since. Veterans of South Africa’s cancelled pebble bed HTGR project have founded X-energy in the US.
Molten Salt Reactor. MSR fuel may be melted fluoride salts of beryllium, sodium, uranium, and thorium. Fission takes place as the liquid is pumped through channels in graphite blocks, then through heat exchangers making steam to power a turbine-generator. Hazardous radioactive fission products such as cesium-137 would remain in the low-pressure salt in any accident. The US Oak Ridge National Laboratory built two working MSRs, but the project was terminated in the 1970s. Such walk-away-safe liquid fission power plants promise to generate electric power cheaper than coal-fired plants. US ventures ThorCon, Terrapower, Flibe Energy, and Transatomic Power are designing MSRs. China has hundreds of engineers designing an MSR.
Nuclear Regulation. Unit costs for US nuclear power plants tripled after the 1970 Three Mile Island accident, while South Korea’s successful KEPCO now builds them for a third of US costs. Obtaining an NRC license to build a conventional water-cooled power plant costs $100-200 million. NRC licensing hearings can stretch out for years. NRC admits third party intervenors to participate in questioning license applications, adding time and cost. NRC says hundreds of annual hearings increase public confidence, but the Big Green opponents (Greenpeace, Sierra Club, National Resource Defense Council, and Union of Concerned Scientists) have the money and legal expertise to use intervention to add delays and costs. Without a stable regulatory system, future investors will fear uncontrollable costs and schedules for building even refined water-cooled power plants. It will be even more difficult for advanced ones. A 2016 audit of NRC by the Government Accountability Office reported that just obtaining a license to build an initial fourth generation MSR or HTGR plant would cost $1 billion and take a decade.
Electric Power Regulation. The US electric power market has been distorted by new rules that give subsidies and preferential treatment for selected energy sources such as wind and solar. Nuclear power plants are not easily powered down as the wind freshens and prioritized wind turbine generators come on line. Nuclear plants are sometimes allowed to continue to operate, but paying out money to idled wind or solar generators. Natural gas generators are more easily powered up or down, and natural gas is inexpensive due to modern shale fracking. Legislators and regulators have created state, regional and federal rules, making a complex market rewarding for clever, politically influential ventures. Regulator Travis Kavulla writes “Even experts in certain places, such as New England, profess that they cannot understand the market rules for the product’s trade in, say, California.” The consequence is that many nuclear power plants are shutting down, though they can generate inexpensive electricity.
The rise
Regaining strategic power will first require changing public perceptions of radiation dangers created by regulatory agencies’ nonscientific rules. With permission to innovate and test, private industry can then best advance the commercialization advanced nuclear power.
Changing public fear of radiation
Aside from Chernobyl, no member of the public has been killed by radiation from a commercial nuclear power plant. Nuclear power is statistically by far the safest energy source. Yet unfounded fear of all radiation is the root cause of the changing rules, regulations, hearings, costs, and opposition to nuclear power and innovative radiation medicine.
Regulatory agencies NRC and EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) exacerbate public radiophobia with the scientifically disproven LNT (linear no threshold) model of health effects and the ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) rule for radiation protection. The history of LNT and ALARA dates back to the beginning of the Cold War when Nobel prize winner Hermann Muller proclaimed “no threshold” at the 1946 award ceremony, but having no evidence below the very high dose levels that he used in fruit fly experiments. The LNT model was adopted by the National Academy of Sciences’ BEAR (Biological Effects of Atomic Radiation) committee a decade later, partly to obtain genetics research funding, though Muller was also motivated by his desire to increase fear of nuclear weapons testing that might escalate into global nuclear war.
Today’s radiation science makes it clear low dose radiation is not harmful, but changing the regulations will require recanting historical pronouncements by the NRC, EPA, and scientists of the National Council on Radiation Protection and the National Academy of Sciences
Radiation safety limits have since been ratcheted down, from 150 mSv/year in 1948 to 5 mSv/y in 1957 to 1 mSv/y in 1991, without supporting evidence, relying on the erroneous LNT model. EPA limits are set a hundred times lower than could cause harm. ALARA leads people, the press, and Big Green to falsely conclude that any radiation exposure may cause cancer and kill you.
EPA and NRC receive petitions from scientists, oncologists, radiologists, and nuclear engineers to relax radiation protection limits. The petitions include references to published articles documenting the observed benign health effects of low dose radiation, along with modern science explaining the biological mechanisms of dose response. Radiation stimulation of the immune system can sometimes suppress cancer. EPA and NRC responses do not counter the presented evidence, which is simply ignored, and the petitions are not granted.
Ending radiophobia
Today’s radiation science makes it clear low dose radiation is not harmful, but changing the regulations will require recanting historical pronouncements by the NRC, EPA, and scientists of the National Council on Radiation Protection and the National Academy of Sciences, negatively impacting the reputations of many people still in power.
Scientists for Accurate Radiation Information (SARI) have petitioned that radiation exposure limits be set to 50 milliSieverts per year and ALARA abolished. SARI is concerned that LNT proscribes promising radiation-stimulated immune-responses therapies to cure cancer, and that LNT induces patients and parents of patients to refuse CT scans, leading to misdiagnoses or risky alternative procedures, and that LNT needlessly forces evacuations of hundreds of thousands of frightened people in the event of a nuclear power plant accident.
Today the world is installing 100 GW of fossil-fuel-fired power plants each year, which could be replaced by safe, less expensive fission power plants, garnering near $200 billion per year of sales
Over a thousand people were killed by relocation stress at Fukushima, but none by radiation. Unfounded radiation fear drives the public to reject what would otherwise be the cheapest source of electrical energy, as well as the safest, cleanest, and most sustainable.
Congress can overcome public radiophobia by requiring radiation protection limits to be based on observed evidence and modern science rather than appeasement of frightened, ignorant opponents. This will force revision of many regulations of EPA and NRC, including abandonment of the LNT model and ALARA rules. One benefit will be expanded use of radiation in medicine and improved public confidence that limited radiation exposure is not harmful.
Changing government dominance
To re-energize the nuclear industry the US must change its regulatory apparatus to encourage progress rather than impeding it. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission should be replaced by an organization like the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), responsive to technological progress, encouraging and observing safety testing of prototypes, and then licensing similar commercial follow-ons.
By becoming a sought-after supplier of nuclear power plants the US will be able to offer the economic and environmental benefits of nuclear power rather than the threats of nuclear weapons
Just as Space-X is taking over much of NASA’s role in space rockets, private industry can lead development of advanced nuclear power plants. Today the Department of Energy (DOE) supports some development of several nuclear-related technologies, but envisions itself as selecting the winning design during a proposed 25-year, $10 billion development program. Rather, competing private industries should make the choice, leading to a more rapid, less costly development of safe, economic advanced nuclear power plants. A constructive DOE might provide developers with the use of prototype parks such as the Hanford Reservation in Washington state.
Regaining strategic power
US universities and ventures are still producing nuclear-skilled, ambitious scientists and engineers. Ending NRC overregulation will allow a successful domestic nuclear industry to arise, provided nuclear power is allowed to participate in an economically fair marketplace for non-CO2 emitting energy sources. Economically displacing fossil-fired power plants with reliable nuclear power plants will prevent additional CO2 emissions, a major contributor to global warming.
With a vibrant domestic nuclear industry the US can rise to compete internationally with the emerging leaders Russia, China, and South Korea. Economic benefits to the US could be very high. Today the world is installing 100 GW of fossil-fuel-fired power plants each year, which could be replaced by safe, less expensive fission power plants, garnering near $200 billion per year of sales.
By becoming a sought-after supplier of nuclear power plants the US will be able to offer the economic and environmental benefits of nuclear power rather than the threats of nuclear weapons.
Editor’s Note
Robert Hargrave is author of the book “Thorium: energy cheaper than coal,” and founder at ThorCon International. He is also Chief Information Officer at Boston Scientific Corp., Senior Consultant at Arthur D Little, Vice President of Metropolitan Life, President of DTSS Inc.and Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Dartmouth College.
This article was first published on our sister website The Energy Collective and is republished here with permission from the author.
[adrotate group=”9″]
Jan Veselý says
Few remarks:
1) This article could have a reason in 1980s or 1990s, now it’s too late.
2) Nuclear power is “just” a source of electricity, so it will hardly, just by itself, do anything with oil consumption dominated by transport or gas consumption dominated by heating and chemical feedstock usages.
3) Nuclear industry should stop dreaming about social changes or regulations relaxing, that won’t happen.
4) Renewables are now cheaper and getting cheaper in a fast pace, faster and easier to be built, keeps time and financial plans and you may sell the stuff even to your worst enemies, they pose no threat, they are not a source of international conflicts. The article ignored them, that’s huge error.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Jan Veselý – Renewables are cheap and getting cheaper in a fast pace, faster and easier to be built. Maybe but their result is zero. Just look at what is proclaimed to be the best example; the German Energiewende Project, that will cost some 1.5 trillion dollars and produces nothing like what nuclear would have done using the same amount of investment. In real-time compare Germany with France, the UK and Ontario Canada. Also have a look at the USA. https://www.electricitymap.org/?wind=false&solar=false&page=map&countryCode=DE
Bob Wallace says
Some countries (Germany, Spain, the US, others) did spend a modest amount of money to bring down the cost of wind and solar to the point at which they are now the two least least expensive sources of new generation.
Now that we’ve reached cheap we are seeing rapidly accelerating rates of installation. Both wind and solar are being installed (globally) faster than nuclear was installed in its best times.
The subsidization for nuclear has been massively higher than what wind and solar have received. But the cost of nuclear has never become affordable.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bob Wallace – a modest amount of money. Germany spends €1.5 billion per annum on energy research in an effort to solve the technical and social issues raised by the transition. The total cost of Germany’s green energy transition (Energiewende) amounts to over €520 billion euros by 2025 but their result currently is ZERO and produces nothing like what nuclear would have done using the same amount of investment. Their consumer price for electricity is gone through the roof. I still don’t see much of this globally installed wind and solar. GLOBAL LIVE POWER USEAGE:
http://data.reneweconomy.com/LiveGen
Mark Diesendorf says
Hendrikus, it’s ironic that nuclear supporters talk about subsidies to renewable energy, ignoring the much bigger subsidies that nuclear energy is still receiving after 60 years of ‘commercial’ operation. These subsidies include:
• government funding for research and development, uranium enrichment, decommissioning and waste management;
• loan guarantees backed by governments (that is, taxpayers);
• stranded assets paid for by ratepayers and taxpayers and
• limited liabilities for accidents paid for by the victims and taxpayers; and
• inadequate insurance.
The Japan Center for Economic Research estimated that the Fukushima disaster caused US$71-250 billion damage, excluding damage to Japanese industries. It was only insured for $1.5 billion.
In the USA, an estimate by Public Citizen of nuclear power subsidies accumulated over the 50-year period 1948 to 1998 amounted to about US$130 billion in 2012 currency. A report by Koplow (2007) found subsidies to US nuclear power to be about $9 billion per year in 2006. Surely it’s time that nuclear power stood on its own feet?
Helmut Frik says
The “ZERO” provided 37,7% of power consumption in germany so far this year.
And still none of the blackouts which everybody promised.
Robert Hargraves says
The “common knowledge” that renewables make cheap electricity is exaggerated. Press-reported costs usually exclude the subsidies, such as the 20-40 cents/kWh solar Renewable Energy Credits that utilities pay in states that have renewable portfolio standards. This does not appear as a power cost, but as an “other” cost that is spread to all utility customers. Also, renewables’ energy storage is at least an order of magnitude too expensive. Here’s an article comparing liquid fission power to renewables.
https://atomicinsights.com/clean-doable-liquid-fission-lf-energy-roadmap-%E2%80%A8powering-world/
Bob Wallace says
Robert, any RECs that may or may not be paid have zero impact on the cost of generating electricity from renewable resources.
Subsidies played a role in bringing the cost of solar panels from around $100/watt down to their present cost of less than $0.50/kWh.
Subsidies played a role in bringing the cost of wind generated electricity from $0.39/kWh to now under $0.03/kWh. That’s 3 cents – without subsidy. Subsidized wind is selling for 2 cents.
The US nuclear industry has received multiple times as much subsidy as wind and solar yet the price of nuclear produced electricity has risen over time.
We’re now seeing storage under $0.07/kWh. That’s an acceptable price. Stored 3 cent wind stored for 7 cents becomes 10 cent dispatchable electricity. Cheaper than gas peaker electricity.
A mix of 3 cent wind and 10 cent stored-wind is greatly cheaper than new nuclear. Wind and solar should be at 2 cents/kWh and storage even cheaper before a new reactor could be brought online.
Jan Veselý says
Where did you get that absolutely of reality numbers? Recent utility scale solar PV capacity auctions in Germany and Denmark brought price ~60 EUR/MWh, the only “subsidy” is fixed PPA for next 20 years. Not bad for cloudy northern countries. Sunnier locations (India, Mexico, Chile, SAR, UAE, Austin, Texas) got much better deals (25-50 USD/MWh) and costs are falling rapidly.
You are a living example that wrong assumptions allows to proof anything.
Our state controlled utility is eager to build new nuclear plants. Why don’t you sell them one of that 3 cnt/kWh thorium reactor? They would like that idea. Just one condition, it must exist. Where could they see some?
Mark Diesendorf says
It is well documented that nuclear power has contributed to the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the UK, France, India, Pakistan, North Korea and South Africa. Nuclear power also assisted in cloaking nuclear weapons programs, that were fortunately discontinued before fruition, in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Libya, South Korea, Taiwan and possibly Algeria. The more countries with nuclear weapons, the greater the risk of nuclear war, but Robert Hargraves ignores this risk.
Furthermore, based on the linear-no-threshold (LNT) model, authors from the International Agency for Research on Cancer estimate conservatively that the Chernobyl disaster will cause 16,000-19,000 cancer fatalities. Other medical researchers, drawing upon a much larger population of exposed people, obtain much higher results. LNT is supported by a large body of scientific evidence, including:
• childhood cancers from prenatal x-rays of pregnant women;
• cancers in nuclear industry workers (comparing exposed with non-exposed);
• cancers in children and adolescents exposed to CT scans;
• childhood leukemia as function of distance from German nuclear power stations.
Furthermore, no evidence could be found for a threshold for cancer induction in the latest (14th) mortality study of the atomic bomb survivors in Japan.
The basis of Hargraves’ claims the low-level radiation is beneficial is pseudo-science, such as comparing radiation workers with the general population, thus ignoring the healthy worker effect.
Stephen Williams says
Mark, it is true that there is a large body of poorly done studies that attempt to link low dose radiation to cancer and thereby support LNT. UNSCEAR has looked at these studies and roundly rejected them.
As for the International Agency for Research on Cancer “conservatively” estimating that the Chernobyl disaster will cause 16,000-19,000 cancer fatalities–thank you for pointing out yet another ridiculous outcome of applying LNT inappropriately. Some 30 years after the Chernobyl accident the death toll still remains well under 100.
If you really believe LNT is valid, are you advocating shutting down the airline industry? They must be dying like flies, right? And should we evacuate the many places on earth that have higher background levels of ionizing radiation than Fukushima. People living in those places should be extremely worried, right?
Meanwhile, 3.7 million people die prematurely every year due to air pollution from burning of fossil fuels. This tragedy could have been greatly lessened by now if it weren’t for the radiophobia that drives much of energy policy and keeps us from replacing fossil fuels with nuclear power.
Mark Diesendorf says
The substantial, peer-reviewed studies on the link between low-level ionising radiation and cancers carry more weight than organisational stances such as UNSCEAR’s that could be influenced by bodies such as the International Atomic Energy Agency, that has the conflicting goals of promoting nuclear power and controlling the spread of nuclear weapons. The validity of the research on prenatal x-rays and childhood cancers has been supported in a review paper by Richard Doll, one of the world’s leading epidemiologists (British Journal of Radiology 70:130-139, 1997). To my knowledge it has NOT been specifically rejected by UNSCEAR.
No Stephen, I don’t advocate shutting down the airline industry, but I do advocate that pregnant women avoid unnecessary flights and medical x-rays to the torso.
There is no scientific basis for your claim that “the death toll (from Chernobyl) still remains well under 100”. That claim is similar to the discredited tobacco industry defence that rejected statistical evidence based on empirical observations.
Stephen Williams says
Mark, you claim that, ‘There is no scientific basis for your claim that “the death toll (from Chernobyl) still remains well under 100”.’
Yet you reject the work of UNSCEAR, WHO, and perhaps others because their work “could be influenced by bodies such as the International Atomic Energy Agency.” How do you know that their work was influenced to somehow disregard proper science? Please provide your evidence.
Bob Wallace says
Robert, please give us more information about regulations.
Specifically, I would like to know which unnecessary regulations are making nuclear energy unaffordable. And how much each unnecessary regulation adds to the cost.
Are nuclear plants being required to gold plate their elevator doors at a cost of $0.01/kWh?
A silly example, for sure, but an example of what I want to hear. Specific requirement and associated cost.
Nigel West says
It’s not the regulations as such, more that codes and standards and regulatory requirements vary throughout the world. That means an AP1000 approved say in the US has to be substantially redesigned to suit requirements in other countries, aside from site specific design and environmental issues. This adds to development costs and extends the planning phase.
Allowing Russia and China to usurp US prowess in civil nuclear power would be a big mistake. Misguided liberal voices who think renewables alone are the future, based on the US west coast and around New York and financed by ‘Hollywood’ types, should simply be ignored. They are wrong and no amount of grandstanding will convince Governments and the IPCC that to decarbonise new nuclear stations are needed around the world.
The US has many military reactors at sea and the skills needed are readily transferable between military and civilian nuclear technology.
Bob Wallace says
So regulations both cause and don’t cause reactors to be expensive. OK, got it.
Thing is, long before the AP1000 came on the scene, nuclear became too expensive and regulations were blamed.
No one, as far as I can determine, has ever listed the “unnecessary” regulations and how much they drive up the cost of reactor construction.
“Allowing Russia and China to usurp US prowess in civil nuclear power would be a big mistake.”
OR – letting Russia and China have the civilian nuclear power industry could be a great move for European and US economies. Let them drive up their energy costs if they’re that stupid. Cheaper energy makes our countries more competitive.
Nigel West says
Not all the costly red-tape is safety related. The planning process takes years of consultations locally and with European bodies too. European environmental regulations require extensive studies on impacts. None of that has anything to do with safety. The cost in project time, staff, lawyers consultants can run into
many £100m.
Too much intermittent renewables would lead to any country becoming uncompetitive for sure.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bab Wallace – incorporating enhanced safety including an aircraft impact. Is this applied to any other energy storage or energy production facility in the USA.?
Anyhow, Russia with the OKB Gidropress VVER-1200 Nuclear Reactor an Advanced Generation III + Design; incorporating enhanced safety including that related to earthquakes and aircraft impact (V-392M especially) with some passive safety features, double containment, and core-catcher. Overnight capital cost was said to be US$ 1200/kW (though the first contract was about $2100/kW) and serial construction time 54 months. It has become the worlds first advanced Generation III + to go into commercial operation at the Novovoronezh Nuclear Plant, about 600 kms south from Moscow last January 2017. This is ahead of the Westinghouse Advanced Generation III + AP1000 Projects.
Earlier generation Russian VVER Nuclear Reactors were, or are still used by Armenia, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bulgaria, China, Czech Republic, Egypt, Finland, Germany, Jordan, Hungary, India, Iran, Slovakia, Ukraine, and Russia. A second advanced Generation III + unit is under construction and the New VVER-1200 Nuclear Technology is being offered for export use.
Bob Wallace says
” incorporating enhanced safety including an aircraft impact. Is this applied to any other energy storage or energy production facility in the USA.?”
Perhaps you didn’t hear about what happened in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001? In case you didn’t, groups of people took over commercial airliners and flew them into large buildings.
You want to leave nuclear reactors vulnerable to someone crashing a large airplane into them and having them melt down?
No other energy production or storage system creates the potential danger of a nuclear meltdown.
I’ll put that suggestion on my list of “Nuclear regulations we don’t need”. The other suggestion on the list was that we eliminate security guards for nuclear plants and if bad guys go inside we send in local SWAT teams to kill them.
(Good Golly, Miss Molly….)
Hendrikus Degenaar says
Bob Wallace – You quote “You want to leave nuclear reactors vulnerable to someone crashing a large air-plane into them and having them melt down?” Nuclear power in the United States is provided by some 100 commercial reactors. Are they aircraft impact proof. NO they are NOT.
Just to highlight – Dr. Jackzo was an antinuclear campaigner while he was a student at the University of Wisconsin, what a joke to see him obtaining this career appointment as the NRC Chairman. Senator Harry Reid played an important role in President Obama’s early decision to run for office. He pushed a lot of support to Obama from his position as Senate majority leader. After he became president, Obama made a payment on his political debt by firing Dale Klein as the Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and promoted Dr. Jaczko 2009 into the position. Dr. Jaczko from there on was the driving force behind the aircraft impact rule for the new AP1000 reactors; he pushed as hard as he could to add more requirements for design changes as a way to significantly delay the the four new Westinghouse AP1000 reactors under construction. Every delay at the NRC in producing the final COLA approvals for Vogtle and VC Summer after the staff had already completed its review added at least a million dollars per day to the cost of each unit that had already received it’s design approval years before. Dr. Greg Jaczko spent at least a decade misusing his impressive brain power in destructive ways by focusing it on halting the beneficial use of nuclear energy. This included Dr. Jaczko, withholding information from his colleagues in an effort to keep plans for the the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository from advancing. In October 2011, all four NRC commissioners, two Democrats and two Republicans, sent a letter to the White House expressing “grave concern” about Dr. Jaczko’s actions at the NRC. This resulted in his resignation as chairman (2012) after months of conflict with his colleagues on the NRC commission. I am surprised that he never got prosecuted for industrial grand scale sabotage.
Does any Oil/Gas Plant/Facility, including HYDRO need this requirement?
Nigel West says
It’s no longer possible for terrorists to enter the flight deck of a commercial jet. After 9/11 the doors were strengthened to stop that. A copilot that had mental problems took the controls of an airliner (German Wings 9525) while the pilot was elsewhere, locked the door and put the plane in a deep dive. The copilot tried to break down the door but couldn’t.
So there is an argument to say the aircraft crash protection shell is not needed. Many nukes don’t have one anyway. Western regulators now insist on it for new nukes though and it can add significant extra costs.
Helmut Frik says
Where is a VVER-Reactor in use in germany? And which one exists in egypt? when did it come online?
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Helmut Frik – My mistake having left out the words “will be used by”. In March 2017 Egypt signed preliminary agreements with Russian nuclear company Rosatom for a first VVER-1200 unit at El Dabaa to start operations in 2024. Germany 8 VVER-440 reactors decommissioned, with unit 6 finished, but never operated, unit 7 and 8 construction suspended.
Bob Wallace says
” Obtaining an NRC license to build a conventional water-cooled power plant costs $100-200 million.”
The expected cost for Vogtle 3 & 4 is now $14 billion. $7 billion per reactor.
$200 million is less than 3% of $7 billion. The projected cost of electricity from the Vogtle reactors is $0.13/kWh which is higher than the retail price of electricity in the US. A 3% decrease (assume the plant was given a free license) would drop the cost of electricity to a still unaffordable $0.126/kWh.
Which rounds to $0.13/kWh.
Nigel West says
If firm dispatchable generating capacity is needed nuclear is a good option. Intermittent renewables are not.
Comparing retail prices with the cost of new generating capacity is irrelevant. The retail energy element reflects a portfolio of generating sources much of which might be written down capacity with low marginal production costs. New generating capacity has to be paid for and the costs are spread across the retail base. Unless Vogtle is the only plant in town, retail prices clearly will not rise to $0.13/KWh.
Bob Wallace says
There are two kinds of dispatchable generation. One is “capable of being turned on and off at will”. The other is “capable of being turned on and off at will – quickly”.
Nuclear is useless as a quick dispatchable source. It can take days to bring a cold reactor online. And cycling on/off means an even higher cost of production.
An example of quick-dispatchable for wind/solar fill-in is dispatchable stored wind/solar. We’re now building dispatchable wind/solar in the US and the price is reasonable.
Vogtle is “the only game in town’. Like other US plants all its electricity will be first used because it is so unwieldy to turn reactors off and back on.
Further cost overruns have pushed the cost of Vogtle electricity to $0.14/kWh. As of now. Any further delays or problems could push the cost higher.
The two Summer AP1000 reactors have, to date, cost considerably more than the Vogtle AP1000 reactors. Their electricity cost will be higher yet.
At this point it’s not clear how high retail costs will rise in Georgia and South Carolina. The full amount of hurt is not yet known. At this point retail rates in SC have been raised at least 30% in order to “seize” money for reactor construction.
Nigel West says
Intermittent renewables are useless if firm capacity is needed to keep the lights on and industry humming.
Dispatchable wind/solar is just the latest sales talk/hype around solar and some short-term battery storage capacity.
Fact is many TWh of storage capacity and renewables overbuild would be needed in the US to make any real impact. That would not be economic now or for the foreseeable future.
Mark Diesendorf says
Nigel West: some renewables are variable (e.g. wind and solar PV) and some renewables are dispatchable (e.g. hydro with dams, concentrated solar thermal with thermal storage, and gas turbines and diesel generators operating on renewable fuels). Simulations of the operation of large-scale electricity systems show that a minor contribution from dispatchable renewables and/or storage to a supply system with major energy contribution from variable renewables can make the whole system as reliable as conventional energy mixes. Geographic dispersion of wind and solar farms increases reliability even further. Introducing demand management in smart grids allows the variable fraction to be further increased. Base-load power stations are unnecessary and, because of their limited flexibility in operation, are poor partners for variable renewables.
Bob Wallace says
“Westinghouse’s bankruptcy culminates the collapse of potential US strategic leadership in world nuclear energy. The US has faltered in many aspects of nuclear technology, now allowing other nations to become the world leaders in nuclear and energy diplomacy. Regaining the strategic power will be technically straightforward but politically difficult.”
Let’s be clear. Westinghouse did not fail because of regulations. No significant regulation changes occurred after ground was broken.
Westinghouse failed because it could not build the reactors at the price they said they could. This is the history of US nuclear energy. Bid/promise prices lower than realistic and then run into financial problems.
As for giving up the US’s “strategic leadership in world nuclear energy” we gave that up long ago. And that’s a good thing. Let other countries be nuclear suckers if they want. Like horse drawn canal barges, there becomes a time at which one needs to realize that the old technology has been upstaged by newer, better, cheaper technology.
The US is the world leader in onshore wind. We’re now producing electricity with wind turbines that costs less than 25% of what nuclear electricity costs. We’ve discovered massive wind resources all over the nation (just up there at 140 meters).
We’re one of the leaders in PV solar and the cost of solar is now less than 40% of nuclear and falling fast.
We’re not one of the leaders in offshore wind, but we have the ability to join the leader ranks.
We’re a leader in grid storage.
Let’s lead in something that counts, not in a fool’s game.
Nigel West says
“Let’s lead in something that counts, not in a fool’s game.”
I’ve noticed that you denigrate people, including your President, for having an alternative view. Are you now suggesting that China, Russia, France, Britain etc. leading world nations, are ‘fools’ because they are not abandoning nuclear power?
Bob Wallace says
Our current (US) president is a fool. Absolutely.
[censored]
France is abandoning nuclear. At least scaling it back at the moment.
China continues their nuclear program but my guess is that we will see an adjustment before long. China is run by people who can do math and numbers tell one that unless you need to dump unwanted money then you need to turn to renewables.
Russia is run by a bunch of crooks. I have no idea what Russia will do. It may be that nuclear presents more opportunity to pack more money into Swiss bank accounts and New York real estate. If so, then look for the crooks to keep building nuclear.
Britain is now talking about no further reactors past Hinkley Point and a new government report is stating that even building Hinkley is likely a mistake.
“Generations of British consumers have been locked into a “risky and expensive” project by the UK’s subsidy deal for a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset, according to a damning report by the spending watchdog.
The National Audit Office said the contract sealed by ministers last September with EDF to construct the country’s first new atomic reactors in two decades would provide “uncertain strategic and economic benefits”.
Further, Brexit and Theresa May’s decision to quit an EU nuclear treaty could make the situation even worse, by triggering taxpayer compensation for EDF or a more generous deal for the French state-controlled company.”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/23/spending-watchdog-condemns-risky-expensive-hinkley-point-c-nuclear
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bob Wallace – You quote – “China continues their nuclear program but my guess is that we will see an adjustment before long. China is run by people who can do math and numbers tell one that unless you need to dump unwanted money then you need to turn to renewables”. Yes I agree, China have done the math and numbers. China’s HTR-PM 630MWe Nuclear 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 (400) installed base of modern 600MWe super-critical coal plants will be replaced by HTR-PM 630MWe Nuclear Reactors. The projected cost savings will come from factory mass production of the nuclear reactor parts and especially the fuel pellets, as more plants go online overtime. Furthermore, China is expecting to construct four to six Generation III Hualong One Reactors annually from 2020 to achieve an installed nuclear generating capacity of at least 150GWe by 2030.
Russia is run by a bunch of crooks, I can understand that coming from someone living in the USA. They must have learned the trade from Wall Street…
Nigel West says
The UK’s NAO has rightly been critical of the Hinkley deal. It’s an outlier, not a modular build and a ‘Rolls Royce’ French design. The NAO’s critique is welcome and will help secure better deals for follow on nuclear plants. The UK Government is not talking about no further reactors either.
BTW. The Guardian has been pro-renewables and anti nuclear for years so understandable that you read it. If you want a more balanced view you should read The Telegraph.
Bob Wallace says
The Telegraph – June 22, 2017
“The UK’s public spending watchdog has reignited concerns that EDF Energy’s Hinkley Point C new nuclear project is a high stakes political gamble which may not pay off.
A fresh report from the National Audit Office has found that energy bill payers could be locked into paying a higher than expected price for the uncertain promise of economic benefits.
The now-defunct Department of Energy and Climate Change agreed to top up the French energy giant’s revenues from Hinkley to £92.50 per megawatt-hour through a levy on energy bills, but since the 2013 deal renewable energy costs have plummeted while the bill for supporting Hinkley has climbed.
Amyas Morse, head of the NAO, said the Government has committed electricity consumers and taxpayers to “a high cost and risky deal” in a marketplace which is rapidly evolving.
“Time will tell whether the deal represents value for money, but we cannot say the Department has maximised the chances that it will be,” he said.
The value-for-money tests showed the economic case for Hinkley was marginal and subject to significant uncertainty. The prognosis could prove to be less favourable because the Government has “not sufficiently considered the costs and risks” by using uncertain assumptions about the future cost of other energy options, the report found.
It is the NAO’s second stark warning against Hinkley’s spiraling costs in under a year. Last summer the spending watchdog said the subsidy bill to be shouldered by energy consumers had quadrupled. It was first estimated at £6bn but this has grown to £30bn after falling wholesale power prices caused the ‘top up’ needed to balloon.
Since then a House of Lords report piled further criticism on the £18bn project. Lord Holick branded Hinkley a “good example of bad policy” and warned the Government that it is time to consider a plan B.
James Court, head of policy at the Renewable Energy Association, said the Government has been “ignoring the most cost-effective of all forms of electricity generation available right now – renewables”.
“Solar and onshore wind are now cheaper than new gas and can be built quickly. New energy storage and flexibility technologies are rapidly developing and can be relied on to manage variability,” Mr Court added.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/06/22/hinkley-nuclear-deal-high-cost-risky-says-spending-watchdog/
I read no UK papers. I have no idea which are more liberal or more conservative. (But I seem to recall that the Sun is a Murdoch rag.)
The report was widely covered on energy engineering sites.
Perhaps if you read wider you’d discover that the UK government, at least some people in the government, are talking about Hinkley being the last reactor the UK will build. The blush is off the nuclear rose….
Hendrikus Degenaar says
Bob Wallace – Nuclear will come back, lead by Canada, Russia and the China. India will take care of it internally.
Where is all this wind and solar visible on what you claim. Yes hydro is there but not expanding much. It does not even make a dent let alone a scratch. In real-time, check on Germany, France, Ontario, and the USA.
https://www.electricitymap.org/?wind=false&solar=false&page=map&countryCode=DE
Now going global, where is all this wind and solar power.?
GLOBAL LIVE POWER USEAGE:
http://data.reneweconomy.com/LiveGen
Bob Wallace says
Hendrikus, if nuclear comes back on the back of Russia and China then those countries are going to have to greatly increase their rate of building. Canada has no reactors under construction and the two new builds they were considering have been shelved.
Nuclear started it’s march over 50 years ago. After a period of rapid building which was accompanied by huge cost overruns nuclear’s rate of construction first slowed and then settled in at a rate a bit slower than replacement rates for reactors being closed.
The US and France have a large number of reactors which are aging out. Some of those reactors may have their lives extended by subsidizing them. But it’s unlikely any would survive a serious repair bill.
Wind and solar started their marches much later. Both are being installed at a higher rate than did nuclear during its most active years.
Then, when you consider the rapidly falling cost of both wind and solar it’s a safe assumption that their installation rates will increase.
Look at the two graphs at 6.3.
https://goo.gl/8cbAX4
Bob Wallace says
“Over a thousand people were killed by relocation stress at Fukushima, but none by radiation.”
People were moved away from the Fukushima site because it was not clear if things were or were not going to get much, much worse.
Remember, it was not at all clear what was happening inside the reactor. Here’s what could have happened…
The spent fuel pool in Reactor No. 4 may have lost its capacity to retain water following a nearby explosion. A lack of water in the pool could mean that the 1,000-plus rods of fuel would heat up, catch fire, and emit so much radiation that any people in the immediate vicinity would fall fatally sick within hours.
Such a fire would lift large amounts of dangerous and long-lived radioactive particles into the atmosphere. Supplying water to the other reactors could then become impossible; their fuel would melt and more radiation would be emitted.
If you were the person responsible for civilian safety would you have told people to just stay where they were to see if enough radiation would be released to kill them or would you move them away from the danger zone?
Would you leave your family members within the ‘death zone’ of a nuclear reactor that was in danger of extreme failure?
Stephen Williams says
Actually, Bob, experts in Japan advised that residents should return a month after the accident. Instead, fear mongering folks like yourself won the day and residents weren’t allowed to return. So, no, it was stupid to keep people away after one month. It destroyed a lot of lives and killed quite a few. Ionizing radiation killed no one.
Bob Wallace says
I was not talking about allowing people to return.
I was talking about the wisdom of evacuating people since there was no way to determine if the problem would grow much larger and kill many of the people nearby.
There’s a difference between fear mongering and taking unnecessary risks with the lives of others.
I don’t think I’ve done anything that could be considered fear mongering by a reasonable person. But my attitude is to err on the side of safety rather than the side of serious risk.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Bob Wallace – Hydro is far more dangerous that Nuclear Reactors are; Banqiao Dam, China. 26,000 dead from flooding, 145,000 dead from subsequent famine and epidemics, 11 million homeless.
Oroville Dam California, USA. Damaged spillway caused evacuation of 180,000 in 2017.
Allan Hoffman says
Hargrave’s piece could have contributed to a useful public discussion of the pros and cons of nuclear fission power, but he chose not to by repeating the baseless claims that radio-phobia and regulations are the causes of nuclear power’s problems. As noted in an earlier comment on his piece, he did not provide a comprehensive picture of nuclear power by not discussing informatively some of its shortcomings and future possibilities. These include the reality that nuclear power, by its very nature, creates fissile material that can be used, after some processing, in nuclear devices (bombs) and dirty bombs, that care of nuclear wastes requires a major commitment by society to safeguard those wastes for indefinite periods of time, that while nuclear power plant accidents are low probability events they are also high consequence events if not controlled quickly, and that the costs of nuclear electricity are higher than those of other energy technologies when construction costs, safety provisions, and long term storage costs are taken into account. Hargreaves also misleads readers by implying that subsidies for solar and wind account for their current competitive costs. Sure, subsidies help but nuclear power has been subsidized since day one by the Price-Anderson Act which limits the nuclear industry’s exposure in case of an accident (transferring costs to the U.S. Treasury) – it is safe to say that the nuclear power industry in the U.S. would not exist without Price-Anderson.
I agree that nuclear power plants safer than those built in earlier years can be built today, but they are expensive compared to other technologies. I’m also surprised that Hargraves didn’t discuss nuclear fuel cycles such as the thorium cycle that limits the production of radioactive wastes. There are arguments to be made for nuclear power, including the fact that no carbon emissions are associated with power generation. Nuclear power is also not a distributed generation source, unless you consider the 250-300 MW modular plants being discussed to be ‘distributed’ (I don’t) and is not easily scaled up as needed.
The bottom line for me is that while I can see some possible advantages of nuclear power, it has shortcomings that must be addressed if it is to have s long term future, shortcomings that Hargraves mostly chose not to discuss. And when comparing nuclear power and renewable energy, which is inherently distributive, easily scaled up, inherently safer and getting progressively less expensive (including its complementary technology energy storage) the choice seems clear. We are on the path to a renewable energy future, and if nuclear is to have a place in that future nuclear power advocates will have to be more responsive to its problems and more forthcoming with the public.
Nigel West says
“…the choice seems clear. We are on the path to a renewable energy future…..”
Intermittent renewables and storage is not an economic or effective alternative. Stanford Prof. Mark Jacobson tried to show that renewables could do the job and has failed to convince 21 leading US academics:
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/100-percent-renewables-plan-has-significant-shortcomings-say-experts
Mark Diesendorf says
The critique in the journal PNAS of Mark Jacobson’s research on 100% renewable energy is just a more academically sophisticated version of the present debate in EnergyPost driven by supporters of nuclear power. However, over 30 computer simulations of the operation of large-scale electricity supply-demand systems in many different regions of the world show that 100% renewable electricity (RE) systems can be just as reliable as conventional systems, even in some cases where the RE systems have relatively little storage and where transmission connections to neighbouring countries and states have low capacity (or don’t exist, as in the case of Australia). Some of these peer-reviewed studies, published in international journals, span up to six years of real hourly data on electricity demand, wind and solar over the region, and use commercially available RE technologies scaled up. They find there is no need for any baseload power stations such as nuclear or coal. Furthermore, the reliable 100% RE systems are affordable (e.g. for Australia, see Elliston et al. 2016, Renewable Energy 95:127-139).
Furthermore, several countries and states/provinces, with small or no contributions from hydro, have already operated without problems on 100% RE for periods of up to one day. The challenges of extending this to periods of decades are well understood and solvable with existing technologies, but may require changes to electricity market rules.
Nigel West says
A renewables only solution for electricity might work in northern European countries, but only at a huge and uneconomic cost. Orders of magnitude greater than a zero carbon system based on safe new nuclear stations. There is no justification for a drive to a renewables only world other than unjustifiable fear of nuclear power which in the west has a good safety record. The latest designs are far safer than legacy plants too.
The EU member country target is 27% from renewables and unlikely to rise further. Countries like Germany and Denmark can try to move beyond that but there is no sign other countries will follow.
The simulations you refer to come up with mixes of renewables scattered around to meet historical demand. Many are not much more than undergraduate driven final year projects. They don’t address costs adequately too. Probably because they are science projects and lack enough practical engineering input. The transmission aspects of needing to wheel vast amounts of power across 1000s km are grossly underestimated too.
Jacobson is now scrambling to salvage his reputation. He is a civil engineer not an electrical power engineer so is not qualified to claim such an integrated power transmission system would work.
Australia has year round sun and their electricity consumption is a tenth of Europe’s, and that of the US. Engineers are not fooled either by attempts in S. Australia to cover up recent grid reliability problems caused by intermittent renewables. Electricity prices are outrageously expensive in S. Australia too – hardly a model to be proud of.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Mark Diesendorf – your quote” Jacobson’s research on 100% renewable energy is just a more academically sophisticated version of the present debate in EnergyPost driven by supporters of nuclear power.” My reply to you; Jacobson’s research is also disputed in other academia circles. MZJ deflects all criticism, claims he is “exactly correct” with “zero model errors” and cites himself as proof. This guy is a megalomaniac and political ideologue. He is abusing science. He even tweeted “The fight for 100% #cleanenergy happens on the ground, not in academic halls.” Interesting and I would like to state that anyone that blindly follows and agrees with him is scientifically questionable.
Bob Wallace says
Tesla is currently installing a solar storage system in Hawaii that will sell dispatchable solar for $0.11/kWh.
A mix of $0.04/kWh directly used solar and $0.11/kWh stored solar is very affordable.
As for the critics of Jacobson’s paper –
“”There’s no realistic scenario whereby you can expand the output of the U.S. hydropower system by a factor of 10,” said David Victor, one of the 21 co-authors and director of the International Law and Regulation Laboratory at U.C. San Diego”
A specialist in international law is telling us that existing dams cannot be uprated? Based on what sort of engineering background? (Does he know what upgrading a dam means?)
We have the ability to almost double hydro output by without damming any additional streams.
US installed hydro capacity was 100 GW in 2007.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectric_power_in_the_United_States
10 additional GW could be added by converting existing dams.
http://www.hydro.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Converting4.pdf
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has identified more than 65 gigawatts of untapped hydropower potential in US rivers and streams. Run or the river hydro.
http://nhaap.ornl.gov/nsd
Now the 21 critics might be right. We may not be able to hit 10X. Which means that we simply have to build more storage. Either PuHS or battery (chemical or flow).
Bob Wallace says
“Of those six, only pumped hydro has achieved widespread commercial use on the grid, but it has a clear limit to its growth potential.”
Why did the editor at GTM let that obviously false statement get published? There’s no practical limit on the amount of PuHS we can install.
It might be a problem in flat deserts, but not that much of the world is a flat desert and we don’t really need a lot of storage in flat deserts.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
@Allan Hoffman – your quote – “When comparing nuclear power and renewable energy, which is inherently distributive, easily scaled up, inherently safer and getting progressively less expensive (including its complementary technology energy storage) your choice seems clear.” However, others see the facts on this different. With global warming bringing extended periods of extreme weather (already being experienced) renewables bring about a serious energy security risk. Storage for renewables is still a pipe dream.
Mark Z. Jacobson, the sunk cost fallacy of 100% Wind Water Solar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpgOBBWA1OI
Bob Wallace says
[censored]
As far as storage, you’re behind the times. Over 100 years behind. That’s how long we’ve been using pump-up hydro storage.
And now we’re seeing storage used for solar storage to turn it into dispatchable generation. The cost appears to be about $0.065/kWh. And that will almost certainly drop. A lot.
Mark Diesendorf says
Let’s recap: Robert Hargraves has made erroneous claims regarding fatalities from Chernobyl (and in particular the LNT model of radiation dose-response). Furthermore, he neglects the reality of nuclear weapons proliferation under the cloak of civil nuclear power. He exaggerates the subsidies to renewable energy (which are now very small or non-existent in many countries) – unsubsidised solar and wind farms are already winning reverse auctions in several South American countries against all convention power sources. He ignores the huge continuing subsidies to nuclear power. He blames regulations for the bankruptcy of Westinghouse when the real reason was failure to build reactor within budget.
Several other incorrect, misleading and absurd claims can be found in Hargraves’ article, for example, the insinuation that the BEIR (not BEAR) reports of the National Academy of Sciences support the LNT model because some time in the distant past it allegedly wanted to obtain genetics research funding. Each BEIR report is based on dispassionate assessment of the latest scientific data – that’s the basis of the LNT model.
Mark Diesendorf says
Hargraves mourns the absence of production of Pu-238 for space vehicles, while ignoring the fact that in 1964 a US satellite burned up upon re-entry, spewing 20,000 curies of Pu-238 into the upper atmosphere and some of it into the lungs of my generation; similar accidents occurred with Soviet satellites. Since Pu-238 is an alpha-emitter, it’s likely that some lung cancers were induced. Nowadays solar power is used in most low-power and near-Earth space missions.
Robert Hargraves says
Wow, lots of comments.
Mark, BEAR (biological effects of atomic radiation) was the original name of the committee that became BEIR (biological effects of ionizing radiation).
The motivation of BEAR committee members is correctly described, as Rod Adams’ Atomic Insights blog reports.
There has been no weapons proliferation from commercial nuclear power plants. IAEA oversees power plants to enforce proper accounting for nuclear materials.
I understand how you may be worried about Pu-238 particles in the atmosphere, after all “expert” Ralph Nader said it was the most dangerous substance on earth. But it’s highly diluted and any single ionization of lung tissue won’t cause cancer; cancer sometime occurs when the immune system can’t hold such life forms in check.
Please check out Scientists for Accurate Radiation’s web site radiationeffects.org for many articles about the health effects of low dose radiation. Also please visit x-lnt.org for graphic summaries of the health effects of ionizing radiation.
Don’t believe the low per-kWh prices that are vaunted by the press and green-industry organizations. Find out how much a power plant actually cost; then estimate the total number of kilowatt-hours that will be produced in the plant lifetime. Divide. That’s the cost, only if loan interest rates are zero. Use financial software (even Excel) to figure out the increased costs with realistic investment return rates.
We’re certainly not a leader in grid storage. Two sites I know about are pumped hydro in Massachusetts and compressed air in caverns in Kentucky (maybe Tennessee). See my book, THORIUM: energy cheaper than coal, for the costs. Grid scale battery storage is an order of magnitude too expensive; try to find published costs per kWh.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
Yes, the renewable low per-kWh prices that are vaunted by the press and green-industry organisations. It never reflects on what the households pay for this kind of electricity with their bills going through the roof. Renewables have brought about a complex electricity pricing schemes and they are a way of life now, with energy poverty on the rise.
Mark Diesendorf says
I have already listed the countries that have used the civil nuclear power industry, both successfully and unsuccessfully, to assist their nuclear weapons programs. The specific references are given in Chapter 6 of my book ‘Sustainable Energy Solutions for Climate Change’ (Routledge 2014). Alternatively, check out the detailed research by David Albright, the reports by the Institute for Science & International Security (ISIS) and the Nuclear Weapons Archive. On a website of the high quality of Energy Post, you have to do better than simply ignoring the evidence and making unsubstantiated assertions like “There has been no weapons proliferation from commercial nuclear power plants.”
The limitations of IAEA Safeguards have been discussed extensively in the scholarly literature.
As a professional scientist, I gain my knowledge of the hazards of ionising radiation from the original peer-reviewed literature, not from Ralph Nader or biased websites like Scientists for Accurate Radiation Information, which contains some superb examples of “alternative facts”, i.e. science fiction.
Your estimates of the costs of electricity from thorium reactors must be taken with a grain of salt, since commercial thorium reactors do not exist. However, use of the thorium cycle is likely to be even more expensive than the uranium cycle, because thorium is not fissile and therefore has to be converted to fissile uranium-233 before it can generate electricity.
Robert Hargraves says
Bob Wallace, your wrote “$200 million is less than 3% of $7 billion.” The cost of regulations is more than just what’s paid to NRC, lawyers, and engineering consultancies. It’s the whole, ongoing cost of paperwork compliance, reports, meetings, n-stamp premiums, etc
Regarding Fukushima evacuations, we’d all scamper away from a power plant in danger of blowing up, sure. But after the crisis, even if radioactive material contaminated the local environment, there was no need for hurried evacuations of lightly contaminated areas. The guideline boundary was 20 mSv PER YEAR. We know absolutely that there are certainly no harmful effects from 50-100 mSv per year.
Bob Wallace says
Read the original article re: $200 million.
” A nuclear emergency was declared by the government of Japan on 11 March. Later Prime Minister Naoto Kan issued instructions that people within a 20 km (12 mi) zone around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant must leave, and urged that those living between 20 km and 30 km from the site to stay indoors.[1][2] The latter groups were also urged to evacuate on 25 March.[3]”
Wiki
[censored]
Hendrikus Degenaar says
Under the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, one new nuclear plant has been approved and launched in the last 35 years. Yet there are now nearly 50 companies in the U.S. and Canada researching and developing advanced nuclear power technologies. The net effect of the regulatory sclerosis in the U.S. is to force companies offshore. TerraPower, the startup funded in part by Nathan Myhrvold and Bill Gates that is focused on a novel machine known as a travelling wave reactor, signed an agreement with the China National Nuclear Corp. to build a prototype unit in China. Other U.S.-based startups have indicated their intention to find more nuclear-friendly countries in which to prove their technology. Even the DOE, via Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is collaborating with a Chinese partner: Oak Ridge is working with the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics to build a prototype molten salt reactor.
Mark Diesendorf says
Robert Hargraves, to claim that “We know ABSOLUTELY that there are CERTAINLY no harmful effects from 50-100 mSv per year” (my emphasis) demonstrates your lack of understanding of the scientific evidence on radiation-induced cancers and indeed the scientific method. Even the International Atomic Energy Agency would not utter such an absurd statement. If you cannot cite some peer-reviewed scientific articles to support this claim, including the use of “certainly” and “absolutely”, you should withdraw it. Furthermore, you seem to be ignorant of the fact that 100 mSv per year is not a very low dose: it is 50-100 times the average natural background radiation exposure.
Ike Bottema says
[Here a peer-reviewed criticsm][rest of the comment censored] http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13752-016-0244-4
Bob Wallace says
It was announced today that the two AP1000 reactors under construction at the Summer nuclear plant in South Carolina will be abandoned. Construction has been terminated.
After a period of intense study it was determined that the wisest choice was to spend no more money on new nuclear. It would only make electricity rates more expensive than if the plants were abandoned and ratepayers had to cover costs to date.
A similar discussion is underway for the two AP1000s being built at the Vogtle plant in Georgia.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
[Greens] in the USA are the real [loser], you will never get your emissions under control. At least in China they can make things work. The China National Nuclear Corporation (CNN) connects Fuqing Unit 4 a 1089 MWe CPR-1000 Nuclear Reactor to the Grid. The plant is designed to include six reactors, including three others identical to Unit 4, while the next two will be Hualong One reactors, all of which are expected to be operational by the end of 2021.
Bob Wallace says
Only greens in South Carolina and Georgia will be harmed. They are going to have to pay for the cost of these nuclear boondoggles for decades through higher electricity costs.
States that have made the wise choice of renewables are enjoying cheaper electricity.
We’ve got to get rid of fossil fuels, but there’s a right way and a wrong way. US CO2 emissions (BP 2017 database) peaked around 2005 and are now down about 13%. That’s not fast enough but progress is accelerating.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
The USA runs on natural gas (a polluting fossil fuel) and a very little (excluding hydro) on renewables. Amongst the cleanest places on earth is Ontario Canada and France. Real data is in the proof, just look at this map in real-time. https://www.electricitymap.org
Progress, the math has already proven that 100% WWS is not possible. http://www.pnas.org/content/114/26/6722.full
Have a nice day, the clock is ticking, and with the GREENS sabotaging any progress, it’s possibly to late.
Bob Wallace says
Oh, Clack. What a cluck.
Those guys proved exactly nothing. They waved their hands around for a while and made proclamations.
They even misunderstood what Jacobson was saying. He was saying that we could run on only wind, solar and storage if necessary. Musk has run the numbers to show that we could run on only solar and storage.
Neither of them suggest that we should restrict our inputs. If you look at The Solutions Project that Jacobson headed you’ll see a mix of on and offshore wind, PV and thermal solar, hydro, geothermal, biofuels, and tidal. Each location has a ‘best mix’ calculation.
France does have a low CO2 emission level when it comes to electricity. That’s accidental. France did not install nuclear in order to control carbon emissions but to protect itself from OPEC.
Now France has started the walk away from nuclear. It’s just too damned expensive.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
France has started to walk away from nuclear. Its only politics, nothing is iron clad. New Nuclear – The UK is heading the right way, so is Finland, Russia, China, India, Turkey, the UAE and other East European Countries, others will follow. Russian the 4th largest producer of Electricity has zero commercial wind and solar. Musk sells snake oil, he runs a technically bankrupt business, clocking up $billions in accrued losses. Funny, a disparate or is it desperate mix of on and offshore wind, PV and thermal solar, hydro, geothermal, bio-fuels, and tidal. When will this happen, never, it will be to late. Hydro cannot scale as needed 100% WWS is unfeasible. [last comment censored, no personal attacks please] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XYb7SEy4nY&t=2s
Helmut Frik says
In UK it looks like only Hinkley Point will be built. Westinhouse will not build anything on the proposed sites, and as it seems Hitachi also will not build anything. So only sizewell is in the game somehow. UAE has decided not to expand nuclear, and to go for renewables. Russia has just started to tender wind, and Rosatom is interested to build up a wind branch. China expands wind and solar many many times faster than nuclear, it’s obvious the cheaper solution. But some people prefere to ignore reality, and to hope for technologies of which not even prototypes exist.
Bob Wallace says
The odds of Hinkley Point being completed are shrinking. The rapidly falling cost of offshore wind is making it less likely that this very expensive addition to the UK grid will become a reality.
I know the nuclear advocates really don’t want to hear stuff like this but anyone watching the discussion happening within the UK government sees the turmoil.
The UK National Audit Office has criticised the cost and pointed out that costs could easily rise as is so common with reactors.
—
Russia is beginning to install large scale solar.
“An auction in 2013 awarded contracts for 399 MW of solar, and one in 2014 an additional 505 MW.[31] A third auction in 2015 awarded 280 MW of solar.” (Wiki)
Russia is seeking bids for 520 MW of PV in 2017.
In 2016 Russia generated 100 GWh of electricity with utility solar. Not a large amount but greater than zero.
Nigel West says
‘The odds of Hinkley Point being completed are shrinking.’
Wrong. EDF has a generous CFD and the financing is backed by France and China, unlike Westinghouse/Toshiba. The odds are 99% certain that HPC commissions. Why would the UK Government pull the plug on HPC when it would have to face paying billions in compensation, and the UK needs more clean energy? The die is cast and the decision will not be reversed. Offshore wind power plus gas fired back-up is not a good alternative. Would result in higher emissions and the UK would need to import more gas.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
Anyone watching the Chinese backing of Hinkley Point C, with this it will be completed. Furthermore, it will be very likely that in the UK, Chinese reactors will be constructed. Their overnight construction cost is US$2.5 billion, with a proven construction time of 5 years.
On Russia, President Putin (big on natural gas) is playing the lip-service game on wind & solar. Auctions of some 4 years ago on wiki. Today August 2017 they have 15 MW electricity from wind generation. Overall, the Russian energy policy is focused on nuclear and thermal power from natural gas. You may see some more wind when Enel enters Russian renewable sector with 291 MW of wind energy by 2021. Enel Russia is a power generation company, controlled by Enel, which operates four thermal power plants in the Russian Federation with a total installed capacity of around 9.5 GW. Wind & Solar is not a big deal in Russia.
Russia’s Energy Strategy http://www.energystrategy.ru/projects/energystrategy.htm
Nigel West says
The tech. is fine, just commercial matters need sorting.
In the Uk more in the game than you wish to admit actually. Sizewell – 3.2GW AND Bradwell 1.1GW. Also round 3GW at Moorside and similar at Wylfa.
Will be needed to ensure switching to EVs only in the UK by 2040 uses clean nuke power rather than pushing up emissions burning more gas in CCGTs.
Germany’s emissions based on renewables/coal/gas will never be as low as France and the UK based predominantly on nuclear.
Helmut Frik says
Mooreside with Westinghouse will obviously not come. Thoshoba [i.E. Toshiba, please check your spelling sometimes, thanks, editor] will not build any power station any more, just work as subcontractor, and engie as last partner has left the project.
Same story different company(Hitachi) in Wylfa, Hitachi will not build and finance, and no other partner is in sight, so the project will be closed in a few months in Hitachi proceeds as promised.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
Hitachi is committed to Wylfa says plant’s developer late last June.
Kepco confirms talks with Toshiba over UK nuclear — but only with its own reactors. However a change in reactor design would also derail the 2025 start date by two years. Not a big deal.
Furthermore, A delegation from State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation (SNPTC), based in Beijing, has meat with representatives from NuGen, and the UK’s Nuclear Industry Association (NIA).
The two projects are not off the table yet, will they find financiers, time will tell.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
China – the four AP1000 reactors being constructed in China, will be online in 2019. Their own program on advanced Gen III + Nuclear Reactors is just running fine. Furthermore, China with its demonstration Gen IV 2x250MWt Reactor completed, has already confirmed that it is well underway with its program to construct some 400 Generation IV HTR-PM Nuclear Reactors to replace it’s Modern Super Critical Coal Plants. The TRISCO fuel manufacturing facility was completed in 2014. Furthermore, China has confirmed to construct four Generation III + Hualong One Reactors annually from 2020.
Russia – The Russian BR-800 is a Gen IV Nuclear Fast Breeder Reactor that reached full power production in August, 2016. This reactor is the final step to the commercial plutonium cycle breeder. As a world first, the Russian Rosatom Gen-III + VVER-1200/392M has gone into commercial operation. Russia has confirmed to be building such a large reactor every second year.
Helmut Frik says
And npne pf the projects you mention makes exonomic sense today.
looks like PV installations in china will exceede last years installation, maybe signifiantly.
Wind is going strong, too
For nuclear nubers look much worse
Hendrikus Degenaar says
Who said again that the UAE has decided not to expand nuclear. UAE has competed the construction of its first reactor and the other 3 are progressing as planned. This nuclear capacity completes their plan for secure firm baseload power.
The UAE plans to increase its power generation capacity by around 21 GW by 2030 through various projects. These projects, both planned and under development, will comprised of 27% nuclear, 25% coal-fired, and 23% gas-fired. Solar capacity is expected to contribute 25% of the total additional generation capacity. These plans include a 2.4 GW Dewa clean-coal facility.
Nuclear power is ‘vital’ to meet Middle East’s water demand. Costly desalination systems could be transformed by nuclear power. The UAE already desalinates huge volumes of water, with 96 per cent of its domestic consumption provided by the 70 desalination plants in the country. With South Korea’s nuclear industry active in the UAE, it would be more than likely to succeed with its SMART reactor specifically designed for this task.
Robert Hargraves says
Here’s a comparison of Jacobson’s dreamy 100$ water/wind/solar scenario, versus liquid fission using ThorCon’s hybrid thorium/uranium molten salt reactor design, with shipyard mass production. https://atomicinsights.com/clean-doable-liquid-fission-lf-energy-roadmap-%E2%80%A8powering-world/
Bob Wallace says
I have no idea why some people have wrapped themselves up so tightly in the nuclear myth that they can’t see what is happening right in front of their eyes.
The cost of nuclear energy has never decreased.
The cost of wind, solar and storage is plummeting.
There are more reactors closing than being built.
Installation of wind and solar is soaring.
[last comment censored, no personal derogatory remarks are allowed on this forum!]
Nigel West says
I’ve no idea why some people have wrapped themselves up so tightly in the renewables myth that they can’t see that renewables will only ever be a side show in terms of world energy consumption.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
Thanks Robert, FYI – I am pretty well informed on the advantages of advanced Gen-IV Nuclear Reactors. The ThorCon project holds a great promise. We can also look at the already proven Russian Gen-IV BU-800 Fast Breeder Reactor, connected to the electricity grid in February 2016. This reactor is the final step to the commercial plutonium cycle breeder. Current reactors have ERoEI’s of around 50 to 75. Now lets look at ERoISOC = Large quantities of high quality energy appears to contribute to social well-being. An ERoEI of around 2000 is a property shared by all GEN IV reactors which convert U-238 and Th-232 into fissile fuel. When looking at an ERoEI of 2000 and compare it with Solar ERoEI of 7 and wind ERoEI of 18 it would mean that huge amounts of Earth’s resources will have to be consumed to obtain the equivalent of what GEN IV Breeder Reactors can produce.
Furthermore, present nuclear reactors have emissions of 12 g(CO2e)/kWh. With GEN IV Breeders burning U-238 and Th-232, the emissions drastically drop. For example if we have the U-235 and are burning it and only producing 12 g(CO2e)/kWh then burning the U-238 will produce no more emissions because the U-238 has already been mined and milled when we extracted the U-235. Hence energy output will go up by a factor of 138 with no increase in emissions. Resulting in emissions of around 0.3 g(CO2e)/kWh.
With Nuclear at 0.3 g(CO2e)/kWh vs 100 g(CO2e)/kWh for renewable energy (including the needed backup by fossil fuels) emissions. Emissions from Thorium Reactors should be similar. Which will be more effective in reducing emissions?
Here is another analyses that finds faults with the Jacobson et al. http://www.pnas.org/content/114/26/6722.full
Bob Wallace says
Waving around numbers such as ERoEI, CF, energy density and stuff like that is simply a distraction.
It’s all about the money, honey. When/if nuclear can demonstrate that it can produce affordable electricity then utilities will take another look at it.
We live in a very competitive world. Countries cannot lower their competitiveness by unnecessarily making their cost of production higher.
Helmut Frik says
When costs ar higher it ia also to be expected that EROI is lower for nucjear than fpr solar especially sinde material consumption and even more energy consumption pf PV manuafacturing is dropping drastically – with technology on the market, not prototypes or Theroretical desingns in computer files. If we go to prototype level – which thorcon did not reach as base for assumptions, we could assume mass manufacturing of 30-40% efficient Solar cells with same material consumption as present ones, resulting in the cost of 2g/Wp systems of 2025 again being halved, to something around 10ct/Wp. If we would go to theoretical designs as base fo our energy systems like the nuclear fanboys are proposing here, we’d rely on designs like the 50MW Wind turbines of sandia labs. Or to lithium-ailr accumulators which provide several kWh/kg with insignificant costs. Nobody serious favoring renewables is doing this, so why should we wait till some nuclear pipedreams come closer to reality(if they ever do?)
Bob Wallace says
Energy is simply one cost input.. Part of the total cost of producing electricity. it’s possible that a specific technology could have excellent energy return on energy used to produce it but if other costs are high then it may be a technology that is priced out of the market.
Energy, materials, labor, interest, fuel, maintenance, and other assorted costs all have to be covered and when added up they drive the cost of the electricity produced.
It makes no sense to make our energy choices based on any one single input.
Helmut Frik says
The difference is that the equipent jacomsen “uses” can be bought on the market with known prices while molten salt reators not even exist as prototype, so costs in serial production are so far just pipe dreams.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
Russian Rosatom Gen-IV BN-800 Fast Breeder Reactor 789 MWe, construction cost $2.5 billion, construction time 5 years. Already up and running.
Still can’t see much of that wind and solar. Furthermore, where they have lots of it, like in Germany and Denmark, carbon emissions are through the roof, and consumer prices the same. https://www.electricitymap.org/
Helmut Frik says
what is the connection of a natrium cooled reactor running with weapon grade plutonium and a molten salt reactor like thorcon?’
Hendrikus Degenaar says
There is no connection should there be any..? Funny… The BN-800 is an existing Gen-IV medium 789 MWe sodium-cooled reactor with mixed uranium-plutonium oxide fuel, supported by a fuel cycle based upon advanced aqueous processing at a central location serving a number of reactors.
Thorcon is a doable simple molten salt reactor project. The proposed reactor design uses a mixture of sodium fluoride and beryllium fluoride as carrier, with uranium and/or thorium fluoride salt as the fuel charge dissolved in the carrier salt.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
Known and proven overnight construction cost For Gen III + and Gen IV Nuclear Reactors.
Chinese SNPTC Gen-III + CAP1400 Reactor US$2.5 billion, construction time 5 years.
Chinese SNPTC Generation III + ACPR1000 Reactor US$2.5 billion, construction time 5 years.
Chinese CNNC & CGN Gen-III + Hualong One Reactor US$2.5 billion, construction time 5 years.
Russian Rosatom Gen-III + VVER-1200/392M Reactor $4.5 billion, construction time 5 years.
Russian Rosatom Gen-IV BN-800 Fast Breeder Reactor 789 MWe, construction cost $2.5 billion, construction time 5 years.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
Know prices, all with a construction time 5 years.
Gen-III + CAP1400 Reactor 1500 MWe, cost US$2.5bil
Gen-III + ACPR1000 Reactor, cost US$2.5bil
Gen-III + Hualong One Reactor, cost US$2.5bil
Gen-III + VVER-1200/392M Reactor, cost US$4.5 bil
Gen-IV BN-800 Fast Breeder Reactor, cost US$5.4 bil
Gen-III APR1400 Reactor, cost US$5bil
As a reminder, PV-Solar plants need to have a rated power (MWp) of 9.44 larger than NPP’s to produce the same amount of electrical energy. It’s a fact that the consumption of material resources using the PV Solar technology is at least 64 times that of nuclear energy.The EIOER for Nuclear Gen III + Reactors is 105 for PV Solar it’s 2. Wind suffers from the same problems, however it’s slightly better at 18.
Helmut Frik says
I did not know that a year has more than 15000 hours….
Average for worlswide solar is around 1500 full load hours, which also accounts for china,
Hendrikus Degenaar says
Were is the the relevance for world wide solar 1500 full load hours in relation to my earlier comment.???
Bob Wallace says
Remember, the actual cost of electricity is not based on overnight cost. The overnight cost of the Summer reactors did not cause they to be put to sleep, it was the time to construct which kept increasing the financing costs.
And the cost of reactors in China tells us nothing about the cost of the same reactor in the western world. Labor is a major part of the cost of reactors and China pays its labor (including engineers) very little compared to what people make in the west.
Additionally, China builds reactors with government money. I’ve never seen the cost of capital included in the cost of a Chinese reactor. And China is not forthcoming with the actual cost of electricity as far as I can tell.
You can’t make a meaningful comparison of your and your neighbor’s car budget if his folks gave him his car and you’re making payments on your and if his uncle sells him gas at a discount and gives him oil changes for free while you pay full price for all that stuff.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
Yes just a repetition of the same old stuff. China is well on its way to overtake on your guys in the USA. Russia has moved it’s nuclear construction program already into Finland and Eastern Europe. China is lined-up in the UK for the construction of next Nuclear Reactors after Hinkley Point C.
https://energypost.eu/the-woman-who-is-building-a-nuclear-power-plant/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=linkedin&utm_source=socialnetwork
Nigel West says
What’s available in terms of plant/equipment is irrelevant if it’s not feasible. Jacobson’s study includes around 1300GW of hydropower – 10 times US current capacity. “There’s no realistic scenario whereby you can expand the output of the U.S. hydropower system by a factor of 10,” said David Victor, one of the 21 co-authors of the critique of the Jacobson paper.
Bob Wallace says
“. Jacobson’s study includes around 1300GW of hydropower – 10 times US current capacity.”
That is not what Jacobson said.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
The nuclear industry in Ontario contributes over $5 billion annually to the Canadian national economy and supports 50,000 Ontario jobs.
Ontario Canada, with only an average of 85g(CO2eq/kWh), they record 5 times less on the average of the USA 449g(CO2eq/kWh). Here’s what people are saying about Ontario’s Nuclear Advantage. https://ontariosnuclearadvantage.com/
Hendrikus Degenaar says
I keep hearing that the cost for PV Solar is getting cheaper and cheaper. Is that why TESLA and SolarCity have accrued losses of $billions. Ever-since they have been in business they never made a profit. They are propped up by shareholders. Maybe one day they will have to pull the plug.
First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR), SunPower (NASDAQ:SPWR), and SolarCity (NASDAQ:SCTY) have seen their stocks plunge, and SunEdison filed for bankruptcy. One thing that’s been amazing about watching the solar industry over the past decade, is the number of manufacturers that have gone out of business. One major driver has been costs; they are falling so fast that by the time a plant is completed, the world has changed around a manufacturer (think Solyndra), and their cost structure might be obsolete. One of the biggest, lowest-cost manufacturers is essentially selling product at cost. That’s where solar manufacturing is today.
The problem is that developers both love growth and are in constant need of financing. SunEdison and SolarCity are two great examples of companies who loved growth and invested heavily in expanding their businesses. This meant expanding sales and engineering staffs, which are fixed costs, which then put pressure on keeping more and more projects in the development pipeline.
To fund the growing pipeline of projects, solar developers are in constant need of financing. And if that financing dries up, they can quickly be in trouble. Look at how quickly SunEdison went from a $10 billion market cap to bankrupt, or how quickly SolarCity went from a hot stock to needing a bailout from Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA) suffering from the same problems with it’s EV’s and Lithium-ion batteries, and you’ll see how the collapse of financing affects companies.
Helmut Frik says
Germany in 1920 had 300 independent car manufacturers, today there are 3 or 4. So manufacturing carrs obviously was a complete fail in the years from 1920 to 2017…..
Orders for PV manufacturing eqipment did rise by 328% year on year in Germany in Q1 2017. https://www.pv-magazine.com/2017/07/25/vdma-solar-equipment-orders-increase-328-in-q1/
Hendrikus Degenaar says
Pioneering solar PV manufacturer SolarWorld AG is insolvent and is hunting for investors to save the company from closure. The company has also joined a trade action by bankrupt U.S. manufacturer Suniva that calls for substantial global duties on solar imports. Juergen Stein, president of SolarWorld Americas, said the company made the move after failing to see “serious proposals for settling the overall U.S. solar industry’s trade tensions with China.”
Global duties on solar imports = Higher Prices.
Hendrikus Degenaar says
The Knee-jerk reaction as nuclear hysteria engulfed German society in the early 80’s has resulted in something not much talked about. Germany – home to the much-hailed ‘Energiewende’ green revolution, suffered more premature deaths linked to coal plant pollution than any other EU member state, 3,630 people alone in Germany died from coal-related illnesses in 2013 research by health and environment campaigners have found. Burning coal for power looks set to remain the backbone of Germany’s energy supply for decades yet, an apparent contrast to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ambitions for Europe’s biggest economy to be a role model in tackling climate change. Although well over 20 billion euros are spent each year to boost Germany’s green energy sector, coal still accounts for 40 percent of energy generation, down just 10 points from 2000. “Merkel has no right to criticise the disastrous climate production policy of U.S. President Trump, figures in this country speak for themselves,” said former Green lawmaker Franz-Josef Fell, referring to Overseas Development Institute (ODI) figures showing the extent of public money going to coal. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-coal-election-idUSKBN1AI1HF
Robert Hargraves says
Here’s an current example of a solar power project that costs $7/watt in the sunniest place on earth. http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/08/04/giant-solar-project-tests-sahara-eu-power-export-dream/
Hendrikus Degenaar says
Example, applied for, hopes, there has been talks, 250MW for an estimated €1.6 billion investment. Only works during the day time. Yes, using molten salt to store the energy, can flex generation to meet variable demand. All interesting stuff.
Bob Wallace says
That is a solar thermal plant, not PV. It includes molten solar storage so that it can deliver electricity on demand. And the price seems to include transmission lines to Europe.
Utility PV solar in the US is now under $1/watt. And it still isn’t as cheap per kWh as some new solar farms in the Middle East.