Two of the UK’s main public bodies overseeing public spending have now criticised the government’s deal with EDF to support a new nuclear power plant, showing how Britain (and the United States today?) failed to heed the falling cost of renewables, writes energy finance consultant Gerard Wynn. According to Wynn, the findings should be a warning for other countries planning to build new nuclear power plants. They also raise the question why the UK government has failed to heed similar advice over the past several years. Courtesy Energy and Carbon blog.
The UK Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) concludes, in a major new report for the House of Commons that was released on 22 November, that “the economics of nuclear power in the UK have deteriorated” since the decision in 2008 to embark on a new fleet of nuclear power plants, and the decision to proceed with the first new plant, Hinkley Point C (HPC), in 2012.
The HPC project was finally given the green light by the present Prime Minister Teresa May just last year.
The fact is that new nuclear power is at odds with some of the main global trends in power generation today
“Estimated construction costs have increased while alternative low-carbon technologies have become cheaper,” the PAC panel said of the HPC project, which is being built by a consortium in which the French state-owned utility, EDF, has a majority stake. “Over the life of the contract, consumers are left footing the bill and the poorest consumers will be hit hardest.”
Risky and expensive
The PAC report follows a finding by the UK’s National Audit Office(NAO) in June, that HPC was “a risky and expensive project with uncertain strategic and economic benefits”. Both the NAO and PAC have called on the UK government to prepare a Plan B against the risk that EDF ultimately abandons HPC, or demands more cash, given the track record of delays and cost-overruns at similar projects.
The fact is that new nuclear power is at odds with some of the main global trends in power generation today: cheaper renewables (wind and solar), digitalisation (solar, smart grids and demand-side response, not spinning turbines), decentralisation (distributed generation, rather than huge, centralised power plants) and flexibility (where nuclear performs worst, even behind coal).
Delay and/ or cost overruns are real risks at any massive infrastructure project. In the case of HPC, they are entirely certain, given the track record of EDF projects for similar power plants
The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) published a report in October arguing that the main lesson from Hinkley Point C is that a major UK new-build nuclear programme now looks untenable, unless developers halve their return expectations. Instead, the government should re-double its efforts to drive alternatives, as outlined in its recently published “Clean Growth Strategy”, including investment in renewables, interconnection, demand response, storage, electric vehicles and energy efficiency.
We also warned that the government should avoid extending a loan guarantee to EDF, as allowed under the HPC deal. If EDF exercised such an option, and then walked away, the government would be boxed into a corner, and potentially an expensive bailout.
In this respect, the PAC report was at odds with our IEEFA briefing, by suggesting that the UK government should consider taking equity stakes in future new-build nuclear projects, to cut the cost of capital. In such an event, if the project failed, the government would then be forced to choose between the lesser of two losses: either to write off its investment, or throw more money to keep it afloat.
Delay and/ or cost overruns are real risks at any massive infrastructure project. In the case of HPC, they are entirely certain, given the track record of EDF projects for similar power plants in China, Finland and France. EDF has already hiked its estimated HPC build cost, by £1.5 billion, to £19.6 billion, this July, less than a year after the final go-ahead.
Further misgivings
There are further lessons from very recent failures in the United States, which the PAC didn’t observe on Wednesday, which give cause for further misgivings.
IEEFA’s briefing last month showed multiple parallels between HPC and the recently failed U.S. nuclear power project at SCANA Corporation’s VC Summer (now shelved), and the last-remaining, struggling, new-build U.S. nuclear power project, at Southern Company’s Vogtle.
Those parallels between U.S. and European new-build nuclear projects included: they all use untested technologies; they have all seen construction delays (of five to nine years so far); they have all seen cost-overruns (of 79% to 250% to date); these delays have caused huge financial distress to the technology vendors Westinghouse-Toshiba and Areva; and internal doubts were voiced by those closest to the projects (including the resignation of EDF Finance Director Thomas Piquemal).
Editor’s Note
Gerard Wynn is an energy finance consultant at IEEFA. This article first appeared on his blog (co-written with Gerard Reid) Energy and Carbon and is republished here with permission.
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Hans says
A correct title would be:
UK government consciously looked away from lower costs of renewables in Hinkley nuclear deal
Mike Parr says
I think you are being unfair. The UK Tory gov’ (& Tory party) saw Hinkley Pointless as a funding mechanism for the party. The Tory party gets “donations” (bribes? bungs?) from the following sectors: oil n gas (hence fracking), building/construction (hence Pointless) and finance (hence no regulation post- 2008). The other factor in going ahead with Pointless was the decades-long support for nuclear by gov’ depts. This is partly connected to the need to be able to build nuclear submarines (& their reactors) – political viagra – keeping a civilian capability helps in this. Oddly, Energy Post had a very good article on this subject.
Nigel West says
It was Ed Davey (Lib Dem) who pushed the CFD negotiations on HPC to a conclusion. EDF were lobbying Cameron very hard for Government approval which looked far from certain given the rising cost and many Tory’s were ambivalent about the project. Indeed many in DECC/BEIS weren’t keen on new nuclear.
Rolls Royce’s Derby plant builds the UK’s sub. reactors. Retaining this capability is not driver for civil nuke development. If necessary the UK could turn to the US for submarine reactor technology.
HPC is not pointless as firm reliable capacity is needed to replace closing AGRs in the 2020s.
Mike Parr says
your 1st para: tory ambivalence is irrelevant – it was the tories that pushed ahead – after all – the Tory party needed the funds its doners in the construction sector.
your 2nd para. UK civil & mil nuke development is linked. As illustrated by these two Energy Post articles: 1. Nuclear power, weapons and national security September 13, 2017. 2. Hinkley Point C explained – UK’s attachment to nuclear submarines drives bias towards nuclear power October 3, 2016. The Brits could buy Mod’ reactors from the USA – they don’t – dunno why because it would probably be cheaper.
your 3rd para: “firm reliable capacity is needed to replace closing AGRs in the 2020s” re-phrasing:… a mix of demand response, storage and dispatchable capacity is needed” to replace closing AGRs in the 2020s. There, fixed it for you. You only seem to have a (nuclear) hammer and thus for you every problem is nail.
& for a bit of real politik (you know – how the world works) : Yes Prime Minster and the role of UK defense policy (relevant given the nuke subs etc):
Sir Humphrey: Bernard, what is the purpose of our defence policy?
Bernard Woolley: To defend Britain.
Sir Humphrey: No, Bernard. It is to make people *believe* Britain is defended.
Bernard Woolley: The Russians?
Sir Humphrey: Not the Russians, the British! The Russians know it’s not.
(feel free to smile – but this is the reality – & as recent test firings of Trident have shown – the missiles don’t even go where they are programmed to – “hey cap’n we’ve just nuked London” being a real possibility – still looking on the positive side – it would solve the north-south divide – every nuclear “cloud” has a silver lining).
Bob Wallace says
Vogtle, Hinkley Point, and a few more reactors around the world are probably necessary in order to drive a stake through the heart of the nuclear myth.
Lots of people are not able to understand changes as they happen. They have to endure a hard failure in order to get the message. Grids are going to find themselves explaining why they ask so much for their electricity and will have to point at their nuclear mistake. They won’t be likely to repeat that mistake.
In the meantime the price of solar is falling below $0.02/kWh around the world in ‘best places’. That suggests that we should be seeing unsubsidized solar around $0.04/kWh in places with poorer solar insolation and higher labor/land prices. About a third or less than the cost of electricity out of Hinkley Point and Vogtle.
Economic dope slap being delivered to those who have made poor decisions.
Ton Doesburg says
The future amount of electricity needed, will be about there times the present production. Permanent availability will be crucial. So we need a new mix of production units. Another kind of nuclear; decentralised, small thorium powered units of about 50-150 MW. A few stop-start gasfired stations, fueled by industrial natural gas; in total beween 15 and 20% of demand. And the rest solar power, be it hydro, wind or light. And of course, stop the Hinkley project.
Bob Wallace says
Three times? Normal demand is dropping most places as we find more ways to become efficient. Electricity consumption in the UK has dropped 11.3% since 2010. Electrification of transportation shouldn’t even double demand.
What reasoning creates a 3x demand growth?
Thorium is fuel. Even if thorium was free it wouldn’t fix nuclear’s cost problem. Uranium accounts for less than $0.01/kWh of nuclear’s cost. Nuclear’s problem is capital and financing costs.
And smaller does not make nuclear cheaper. Smaller makes nuclear more expensive.
There’s a mythological small reactor that would squirt out of some non-existent factory and be cheap. But the people pushing that fantasy do not understand what it takes to create a factory and the volume that has to flow through to cover the startup costs. Were that factory to be built the first products would be much more expensive per MWh than a large, efficient reactor and large reactors are too expensive to consider.
I give you Hinkley Point as evidence.
In the US wind and solar are now about one-third the cost of Hinkley Point and their prices are continuing to drop. We have solutions. Let’s quit wasting time on long shot, low probability ideas, leave previous century dreams behind, and get on with decarbonizing our grids.
Ton Doesburg says
CO2 is about all energy. Heating, transport, industrial ovens and what have you, all to be operated with electricity. So, present electricity consumption (about 30%) is a figure without meaning as far as a sustainable future is concerned. I see you have never been in charge of a large energy cy. Nowadays a family in The Netherlands is 20 minutes a year without power. They would like to keep it that way. A small amount of nuclear provides the reliability wind and solar cannot provide. Ever heard of night and day?
Bob Wallace says
“Don’t you renewable energy guys know that the Sun goes down at night?”
“Gosh, no. I never noticed that.
Thanks for pointing it out.
I guess we will have to build reactors and pay 3x more for our electricity.
How could we ever have been so stupid to not notice that the Sun goes away at sundown?”
Nuclear reactors go offline without notification frequently.
Sometimes two or three go offline at the same time.
We design grids to deal with the specific behavior of the inputs and demand.
Nigel West says
“Sometimes two or three (reactors) go offline at the same time..” Wrong, that is complete irresponsible spin. Clearly you’ve never been involved with transmission and generation companies – I have.
Nuclear is predictable, clean and the UK reactor fleet churns out around 7GW very reliably. (See column 2 green shaded area of graphs – http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/)
There is no point of comparison with renewables and their intermittency problem, other than antis attempting to blur matters. Even those with little understanding of energy matters understand that wind and solar are not reliable enough. Firm dispatchable capacity is needed. More Grid interconnection would not solve renewables intermittency either, nor does the UK want to rely on Europe’s good will to keep the lights on in the dark winter months.
There is no question that electrification of transport and heating will drive UK electricity demand higher.
Bob Wallace says
Both SONGs reactors (San Diego) reactors suddenly went offline at the same time due to a technician’s error in Arizona which created a power surge causing the two reactors to engage in an emergency shutdown. It took a few days to bring them online.
Both reactors at North Anna (Virginia) shut down due to an earthquake in the area.
In the UK three reactors went down at the same time for a reason I’m not remembering at the moment.
Then right across the Channel you current have several reactors offline in France.
And should we mention Japan’s situation?
So, please do not tell me that two or three (reactors) can not go offline at the same time. The facts are staring you right in your face.
Nigel West says
Those are exceptional events as you well know. The chance of unplanned reactor outages at peak times is around 5% so for a fleet only about 5% spare capacity is needed. Meanwhile wind power fleets almost shut down every day and solar is guaranteed to shut down totally.requiring near 100% back-up, like in Germany to cover their renewables fleet. Bob, you know all this yet your argue otherwise which is not smart.
Reactor maintenance is scheduled to occur outside of peak demand periods. Wind can’t be scheduled to operate when system demand is high.
Bob Wallace says
“Those are exceptional events as you well know. ”
Yes, they are exceptional. But they are real. And grids must be designed to survive a sudden loss of supply or crash.
Renewables do not present the problem of large central plants because rather than “two reactors” the input is from thousands of wind turbines and solar panels. Massive numbers of those turbines and panels will not suddenly stop generating.
—
Yes, the Sun sets at night. But that is predictable as is the slowing of wind.
Hans says
Sounds like a true Scotsman.
Helmut Frik says
Ever heared of grids? Also neccesary to balance failing nuclear plants. It’s just a question of design, to make wind and solar reliable sources.
Nigel West says
“It’s just a question of design, to make wind and solar reliable sources.”
What failing nuclear plants are you taIking about? Old nukes are not failing plants.
It’s far more than just (grid) design. Economics and feasibility are just as important. The Suedlink in Germany to bring wind power down to S. Germany is a big environmental issue and at the huge cost of $20bn just for one route. Your huge grid idea would cost trillions of Euros (not including wind/solar generation costs) and has serious feasibility problems in Europe. Limited capacity cables would be needed, e.g. for sections crossing water to the UK and sensitive areas. Many GWs would need to be wheeled around Europe and that would not be feasible with current technology using 800kV UHVDC links that can’t use cables and can’t be meshed.
Bob Wallace says
” Old nukes are not failing plants.”
Check with France which has seen the cost of maintaining their nuclear reactors increase to the point at which France has some of the highest wholesale electricity costs in the EU.
Helmut Frik says
Cables are available today up to 700kV, and there is no technical cause why they can not be built with 800kV od 1100 kV when there is a market demand. And since VSC-systems are modular, also in Voltage, 800kV Systems in this technology are also around: http://www.rxpe.co.uk/corporate/news/800kv-5gw-vsc-hvdc-valve/
And failing nuclear power stations are simply failing nuclear power stations. Someone has to have a spinning reserve replacing that failing power station from one second to the next. For this you need a large and strong grid, or you have to accept that from time to time there is a huger blackout, like the nothern power station sent south Australia several times into the darkness.
So there are gradual differences, but no systematic differences.
Nigel West says
Helmut, 800kV UHVDC switched, meshed cable systems do not exist. Only as R&D projects. Grid operators would be very cautious over deploying such technology too, being about double the operating voltage of commissioned systems. Your link is to a VSC converter valve which is not an 800kV circuit breaker?
Okay, I now understand what you meant by failing nukes. You meant faults that cause nukes to trip. Yes of course nukes trip, but for new nuclear the unplanned fault rate is around 5% so grid operators know there is a 95% probability they will be generating when needed at times of peak demand leading to much much lower back-up needs than intermittents.
You do know this I think, as unlike other posters here you are not trying to spin a story that nukes are somehow as intermittent as renewables?
I think you also appreciate that much more extensive and costly to build grids would be needed to handle high levels of intermittents than for grids with mainly firm generation capacity?
Bob Wallace says
“the unplanned fault rate is around 5% so grid operators know there is a 95% probability they will be generating when needed at times of peak demand leading to much much lower back-up needs than intermittents”
I’ve never suggested in any way or manner that renewables do not need backup/fill-in.
I’ve never seen anyone suggest that. Ever.
Ever.
What I do commonly see – quite often see – is nuclear advocates who talk about the wind not blowing all the time, the Sun setting and renewables needing costly backup/fill-in. But they fail to mention that nuclear reactors also need backup.
An unplanned fault rate of 5%. A 5% chance that during this afternoon’s peak each reactor will disappear before or during peak demand.
Gotta back that up. 5% chance you’ll need that backup.
And that means at 0.25% chance that two reactors will drop out unexpectedly. If two reactors make up a significant amount of your supply you can’t afford to not be ready to replace them – pretty much immediately.
If there are events (grid surges, earthquakes, hurricanes) that can cause all or more than one or two reactors to shut down then you’ve got to be ready to replace them all or go into blackout.
That backup is a cost. Add it in, or at least recognize it, when you talk about the cost of nuclear on the grid.
Helmut Frik says
The circuit brakers are modular too. Just that they were not needed so far. There is a big difference between you telling “not possible / not exisitng” and the real world saying “not needed yet.
with the 5% rate you can calculate how big and how strong your grid needs to be, and how many backup pwer it needs to get the level of reliability you want. Exactly the same with renewables, just the numbers in detail are different.
But you keep pretending that the same mathemathics and design priciples which are used to design a grid with huclear power suddenly stop working when renewable power comes ito play.
Nuclear is intermittend because sometimes it stops producing in significant amounts without notice. renewables are variable, so the output varys over time. Only for offshore and similar systems connected with just one or two cables, the name “intermittend” would fit, too.
And the grid size needed for renewables in europ was already calculated be entsoe in the ehighways 2050 designs. It does not cost significant amounts compared to a high nuclear share scenario, where the power stations would cost a fortune in comparison.
Hans says
Suedlink would also have been necessary for the new coal power plants planned for the north of Germany. These coal power plants were not built because of the success of renewables.
Hans says
I wonder where you got your number for the cost of Suedlink. The German press speaks of 10 bln € which is ~ 12 bln $ at the current exchange rate.
Nigel West says
Tennet has roughly estimated the 800km 4GW Suedlink at Euros 15bn. The cost has risen due to the need for cable sections to deal with environmental issues.
http://www.powerengineeringint.com/articles/2016/10/german-power-link-to-treble-in-cost-to-16-7bn.html
The European Supergrid proposal to support a largely renewables based system assumes dispersing renewables around Europe at distances such that we are lead to believe intermittency is largely resolved – a controversial idea. The distances between load centres and renewables would exceed 1500km, requiring overlaying and bypassing existing AC transmission systems with a high capacity long distance HVDC transmission system.
If we take UK peak demand of around 50GW and assume a North Sea wind fleet of a similar size, 50GW of complementary wind capacity would be needed elsewhere in Europe >1500km distant.
50GW of transmission capacity to the UK would need 12*4GW capacity links. For redundancy, assume some 15 links, each 1500km in length. Apply the Suedlink cost of 15bn Euros/800km for a 4GW capacity link. That would cost Euros 450bn! On top of paying off the EU, that would be unaffordable for the UK. The renewables build cost too would increase that sum.
Hans says
Something must have gotten scrambled in translation. The German Press consistently speaks of 10 bln €”
http://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/schleswig-holstein/Wichtiger-Tag-fuer-Stromtrasse-Suedlink,suedlink240.html
https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article158407192/Deutsche-Strom-Autobahn-wird-gigantisch-gross-und-teuer.html
The cost is also quite high because the whole thing will be put underground because of irrational fear of overhead cables, and because of political games of the Bavaria party CSU. Especially in the case of DC the fears for radiation from the overhead cables make no sense at all.
For the rest I find your back-of-the-envelope calculation a bit simplistic, because it ignores combing wind with solar, local storage, biomass, international storage and demand side management.
Nigel West says
Yes, low carbon generation in the UK that is not intermittent would reduce the transmission import capacity needed. But solar in the UK at 12% CF would not be much help during winter dark periods in northern Europe.
On pumped hydro storage, the UK has 30GWh at present. That could be increased to 100GWh, possibly 400GWh. Would not last more than 1/2 day though. The UK has windless dunkelflaute periods too, lasting >5 days to cope with.
I am not sure what you mean by international storage? Storage external to the UK would need import transmission links.
UK biomass capacity is 2GW and unlikely to increase much. DSR should help and studies suggest the UK has potential for about 6GW of within day demand shifting. Not so helpful though when intermittents are down for days during the winter. EVs will be DSR loads, but EV load will cause UK peak demand to increase beyond 50GW.
I agree, the measures you suggest would reduce the import capacity needed, but to a limited extent.
Bob Wallace says
Your pump-up hydro storage potential guess is extremely off the mark.
Helmut Frik says
UK needs something like 1 TWh per day, or 40GW in average, so the maximum needed transmission capacity would be round 40GW. Minus some GW of Biomass, and a minimum of solar power and wind. So the projects underway + tennets Doggerbank project would about provide that capacity. The remaining 10GW can be provided for roughly 6-10 peak hours by pump-storage, as the translation from german would be….. 🙂
Nigel West says
On UK pumped hydro storage, I quoted figures from feasibility work done by the UK Government’s former Chief Scientific advisor Prof. David Mackay.
BTW the correct term is pumped storage hydro, not ‘pump-up’. Your views and knowledge of UK energy matters from across the pond appear even less credible when you talk about ‘pump-up’.
Bob Wallace says
You call it pumped up.
We call it pump-up.
Prof. David Mackay made incorrect statements about wind. And then he died.
Helmut Frik says
The mayor flaw of nigels calculation is, that the same grid extensions do no tjust balance out the variations of renuables for UK, but for the whole area it strtches, so about whole Europe. So the same costs are spread over about a 10 times higher population. That’s how grids work.
Ian Hore-Lacy says
The UK Energy White Paper about 2004 would be in line with the sentiments above. Then someone noticed that most UK demand was for disptachable, reliable supply that could not be supplied from wind and solar, so the policy changed.
It really doesnt matter how cheap wind and solar kWh are – they simply don’t do the job on the whole in meeting relentless demand. Of course open cycle gas can provide back-up, but that needs to be costed in, both short- and long-term. How certain are UK gas prices ten, and 20 years ahead? And where is that gas coming from?
Bob Wallace says
Energy from wind turbines and solar panels can be stored using a variety of methodologies. That stored energy is just as dispatchable as natural gas generation.
In fact, some storage methodologies are superior to natural gas in that they come online fast, almost instantaneously, as opposed to 10 to 15 minutes for a gas turbine. (And natural gas cannot be part of our final grid design unless used in very, very small amounts.)
You don’t specifically say but I assume you are advocating for nuclear energy.
Are you aware that nuclear reactors go offline with no prior notice? In order to keep the grid from crashing it is necessary to have backup generation on hand. Generally we use spinning reserve, we run other generators at less than their optimal output.
Are you aware that nuclear reactors can demand match in only a crude fashion? Some other technology has to do the fine grain load matching that allows a usable grid.
It’s not just “Build some reactors and Bob’s your uncle”. Backup generation and storage are required for nuclear.
“It really doesnt matter how cheap wind and solar kWh are”
It actually does matter. Tremendously.
To make a wise decision as to how we replace our fossil fuel grids with low carbon energy we have to look at the total cost of the options.
1) Do the math for wind/solar plus backup and storage.
2) Do the math for nuclear plus backup and storage.
3) Compare.
Nigel West says
“Backup generation and storage are required for nuclear.”
Technically wrong again. PWR plants can load follow – they do in France. Older nukes with written down capital costs do not need to run baseload to be economic.
Nuclear doesn’t need storage either as their unplanned outage rate is >90% during periods of peak demand. Whereas renewables would require massive completely unfeasible amounts of storage to be reliable, and epic amounts of transmission capacity to wheel electricity from coast to coast. Unaffordable even for the US. Also proven to be unfeasible for the UK too and uneconomic.
Bob Wallace says
Nuclear can’t load follow with the precision needed to match rapid changes in demand.
And I was not talking about planned outages but abrupt, unplanned shutdowns.
Here’s how things have been running in the US lately.
The nuclear power plant near Richland began supplying the regional power grid Saturday afternoon after being shut down for nearly 13 days.
Energy Northwest’s Columbia Generating Station was shut down by operators Aug. 20 when an air removal valve in the plant’s turbine building closed, causing a loss of vacuum pressure in the system that turns steam back into water for reuse at the plant.
As part of the shutdown, a supporting cooling system was turned on. Because of recent maintenance work on the supporting system, small amounts of iron entered the reactor water circulation system.
The amounts were at parts per billion, said Energy Northwest spokesman Mike Paoli.
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/article171110032.html
9/1/17
The 33-year-old reactor at V.C. Summer Nuclear Station, about 30 miles north of Columbia, is safe and stable while teams assess repairs. There was a minor issue with the main transformer, and the plant’s safety systems responded exactly as designed said Rhonda O’Banion, spokeswoman for SCANA, parent company of South Carolina Electric & Gas.
The reactor automatically shut down Monday morning, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
There is no estimation for when it will be back online, said SCANA spokesman Patrick Flynn.
http://www.power-eng.com/articles/2017/09/summer-reactor-deactivated-for-non-nuclear-issue.html
Turkey Point and St. Lucie reactors shutting down as Hurrican Irma approaches. Fed requirement.
BRIDGMAN, Mich. – A nuclear power plant in southwestern Michigan says a coolant water safety valve opened unexpectedly after one of its reactors was shut down for refueling and maintenance.
Indiana Michigan Power says Cook Nuclear Plant’s Unit 1 reactor was shut down early Wednesday as planned, but less than an hour afterward a valve that’s part of its reactor coolant supply system opened. Fluid went into a collection tank.
No injuries were reported. The plant notified the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and activated its emergency plan until about 8 a.m
https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/valve-opens-unexpectedly-during-nuclear-reactor-shutdown_
Beaver Valley went offline due to an electrical problem first week of November?
http://www.timesonline.com/news/20171114/reactor-at-beaver-valley-comes-back-online-after-unexpected-shutdown
And one of the Indian Point reactors was offline for six days about the same time while a generator was repaired.
http://www.lohud.com/story/news/2017/11/10/indian-point-reactor-back-up-and-running-after-six-day-shutdown/853270001/
And Grand Gulf was shut down at the same time due to fluctuating power output and an apparent lack of knowledge of staff about how to deal with the problem.
http://allthingsnuclear.org/dlochbaum/grand-gulf-three-nuclear-safety-miscues
Columbia off for 13 days in September due to a vacuum leak.
Summer going down in September due to a transformer problem.
Cook 1 down in September due to a valve malfunction
That’s six unexpected/unplanned shutdowns in less than three months. Out of about 100 reactors it’s a ~6% failure rate in less than a quarter.
Nigel West says
Again, those are cherry picked reactor events across the US that are exceptional and few and far between compared to renewables intermittency which occurs daily. Look at the statistics, not one off events. New reactors have unplanned outage rates of around 5%.
“Nuclear can’t load follow with the precision needed to match rapid changes in demand.”
Wrong again, aggregate system demand does not change rapidly – for the UK see column 1 grey shaded area on the ‘Daily Demand Profile’.
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
Bob Wallace says
“those are cherry picked reactor events across the US that are exceptional ”
No, there is nothing “picked” outside of setting an alert for “nuclear reactors shutdown” and copying what pops up for a period of time.
A few years back Power Engineering used to list nuclear and coal plant outages, scheduled and unscheduled. I copied the nuclear outages for a few months until they ceased making that information public.
I’ll list that data for you. Since the data was getting old I decided that I would – objectively – collect fresh data.
Many nuclear advocates simply are uninformed as to how large a reliability problem there is with nuclear energy.
Here’s a sample of reactor outages from a few years back…
12/01/13
Hope Creek due to to high moisture in main turbine. Happened twice
12/09/13
Arkansas Nuclear One Unit 2 transformer fire
12/11/13
Arkansas’ Nuclear One electrical explosion in the switchyard
12/14/13
Exelon plant shut down for emergency repairs
1/6/14
Unit 1 at the Beaver Valley nuclear main transformer differential trip caused the reactor to shut down
1/6/14
Unit 3 at the Indian Point shutdown reason not released
1/9/14
Pilgrim loss of a 345 kV power line
1/10/14
Fort Calhoun buildup of ice in water intake
New York plant tripped off due to problems with water system
Nigel West says
The US incorrectly reverses the day and month when stating dates compared to Europe which is confusing!
Anyway, quoting a list of outages does not prove there is a hidden reliability problem with nuclear power. It’s no more unreliable than gas or coal plants.
Those outages you list above took place over a year and were not concurrent. So just one large nuke or a conventional plant would be needed as back-up.
Why don’t you list the times and periods when the CA wind fleet is becalmed? Answer, the list would be too long to post……….
Bob Wallace says
Nigel, that is some massive, massive denial.
The reliability issue of nuclear is not hidden. It’s right there in front of your face. Reactor shutdowns are reported in the newspapers and online.
Yes, coal and gas plants fail, too. What does that mean? If other plants break then nuclear plants are 100% reliable?
Of course they aren’t. Data is right on this page for you to see.
Also on this page – instances of two or three reactors going offline at the same instance. Be ready to jump in with replacement electricity or watch the grid crash.
And, please, don’t pull that juvenile “the wind doesn’t blow all the time, the Sun sets” stuff. That is totally irrelevant to the problem of needing to back up reactors.
Hans says
France depends heavily on their hydro power plants to do the short term load following.
Ian Hore-Lacy says
I think everybody knows all that. It’s a question of quantities and costs while maintaining reliability.
That’s why UK policy has changed from asserting that renewables would do the job (c2004) to “cannot do without substantial nuclear” – while curbing CO2 emissions.
Bob Wallace says
As renewable prices fall and the strike price for Hinkley Point continues to rise I suppose Britain will need to invent some sort of new mathematics.
Say a new number set where 10 is smaller than 2.
Nigel West says
The answer will be lower cost modular nuclear plants, not the expensive EPR. Unless EDF is able to be build the EPR-NM modular design at lower cost and quicker than HPC.
Offshore wind has a role to play too in the UK for dispatchable loads like EV and electric heating.
A sensible energy policy is not based on picking winners and excluding others based on prejudice.
Bob Wallace says
Have you really thought through the economic issues of manufacturing small modular plants?
First one has to build a factor and automate much of the process. That design, construction, and tooling will cost a lot of money.
Unless hundreds (perhaps thousands) of these SMRs can be pre-sold then the startup costs will have to largely be covered by the first few dozen units. Investors will want to recover their investment.
If you don’t automate then you will just be building more reactors by hand and losing the advantage of very large reactors being less expensive per MW than small reactors.
Are there hundreds of customers who will sign firm contracts for SMRs so that the first several manufactured will be low priced enough to sell?
Best to think about the potential market before you believe that SMRs have a future.
And. Get the cost of nuclear down 50% or more? Cutting the cost of a mature industry by moving to a more expensive product form?
Nigel West says
“…internal doubts were voiced by those closest to the projects (including the resignation of EDF Finance Director Thomas Piquemal).”
Piquemal’s resignation was driven by concern that EDF’s balance sheet would be over stretched financially (since been addressed) building HPC, not EPR technology issues or that costs would balloon.
“Delay and/ or cost overruns are real risks at any massive infrastructure project. In the case of HPC, they are entirely certain, given the track record of EDF projects for similar power plants in China, Finland and France.”
It is certain that EDF is on the hook for any cost overruns with HPC. To that end HPC costs were tendered and lessons applied from earlier EPR projects. So significant delays or cost overruns are not expected for HPC.
BTW, 4 EPRs are about to commission so the technology will not be untested by the time HPC enters the commissioning phase.
Also, it’s the job of the UK Government’s Public Accounts Comm. to be critical of the Government and highlight where better decisions could have been made. Rarely do they issue a clean bill of health.
Ian Hore-Lacy says
Pouring money into plants which are very resource intensive per kWh (concrete, various metals) and only produce those kWh occasionally doesnt seem a very smart policy for a country with substantial continuous demand.
Bob Wallace says
The way you put it, it doesn’t.
But if you take off your blinders so that you can see the big picture then you start to understand why wind and solar are booming and nuclear fading away.
It’s final cost. Very simple. Total cost.