Nuclear power

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

I totally agree with you! It confuses me as well. Lots of people in fact think not only we "should eliminate all other forms of electricity production" but that we can do so and still have a reliable and affordable
grid.

Reliable would not be a problem with renewables. Affordability is the only problem.

 

[Jeff Miller]

Reliable would not be a problem with renewables. Affordability is the only problem.

I agree with that, as long as by renewables you mean renewables + storage.

 

[nwdiver]

I agree with that, as long as by renewables you mean renewables + storage.

I'm fairly certain that anyone plugging a 100% renewable future realizes that you need at least as much storage capacity as you have generation... probably a bit more. Once economies of scale get the cost of storage down to <$0.04/kWh it's game over for nuclear/coal/nat gas.

It's not like this is going to happen overnight... there will probably be a phase where a significant percentage to installed solar PV is curtailed due to lack of demand/storage until the cost of storage becomes cost-effective.

Solar deployment surged 41% last year because it's become cheaper than grid power. What's going to drive nuclear development? Climate Change? Most utilities aren't that altruistic. The main driving force for nuclear now is diversification of fuel... which by definition means we're not very likely to see >30% nuclear; especially after Japan showed the world how painful over-reliance on nuclear can be if you're suddenly forced to shutter EVERY plant in your country.

 

[Robert.Boston]

How can you say that with a straight face when it's cheaper than coal and nuclear - and by substantial margins? Sure, it's 1c/kWh more expensive than natural gas (right now), but simply because it's not the cheapest (but cheaper than two major contributors of electricity to the grid including "too cheap to meter" nuclear) you are now making the leap in saying it hasn't reached grid parity?

Because no competitive power producer in the US would build a new coal-fired or nuclear power station. Natural gas is the technology to beat for new installations, and solar doesn't quite, even in the areas with the best insolation.

The other issue is one that has been raised repeatedly in this discussion: that you can't directly compare a MW of installed solar with a MW of installed gas-fired turbines. The MW of gas-fired turbines doesn't require any additional grid investments; to the contrary, it provides valuable grid-support services. A MW of solar, however, requires additional grid services--load-following regulation, reserves, voltage support, and planning installed reserves. In some cases, those services are abundant and cheap, but as more and more solar is installed, the necessary balancing capacity becomes scarcer and higher-valued. If we had a really good, low-cost storage technology, all would be well. But we don't, at least not yet.

 

[macpacheco]

No LFTR reactors working yet, but there is also a very interesting 5-year Th-MOX test in Norway that began last year, which creates fuel rods for conventional nuclear reactors using a 90/10% Th/PuO mix, improving stability and using two current "waste" elements in place of uranium.

LFTR reactors aren't going to happen in less than 10 years unless govt steps in and provide funding.
On one side govt is funding fusion research without any serious dates, but LFTR that is a way shorter and surely viable tech, big no no.
There's a Canadian project terrestrian energy called a DMSR, a mix of Thorium+Uranium reactor focused on not needing the reprocessing facilities of LFTR, essentially a reactor that will be mostly fueled once and then just getting a little top off every year with operations for 20 years. Initial fueling mostly Thorium, annual refueling enriched U-235.
The other huge problem is the US NRC isn't interested in creating a regulatory framework for molten salt reactors (everything today is just for water cooled reactors), but the Canadian regulatory authority is flexible and willing to to performance based analysis, so terrestrial energy is expecting to have the first reactor operating in 8 years. Interestingly the first application will be providing steam for oil sands extraction, offsetting natural gas burning for making steam.

 

[VolkerP]

Please excuse another "renewable island post" -
Another Canary island, El Hierro, is in final stages of testing 100% renewable energy supply. They combine wind power with pumped storage, where the upper basin was built inside a volcano's crater :scared:
google translate: El Hierro, the first self-sufficient island by renewable energy
Now it's not 700 people like in La Graciosa, but 11.000 that will enjoy 100% renewable energy supply starting in June 2014.

 

[Robert.Boston]

Nice article, Volker. It does underscore the importance of storage in a fully-renewable scenario, at least in most places. Iceland is probably the largest place that is (very nearly) completely renewable. In 2012 (latest available), generation at public power plants was 17,548.8 GWh, of which only 2.8 GWh (0.016%) was fossil (fuel-oil). Iceland benefits from having geothermal and hydro, both of which are dispatchable. There is no wind generation in Iceland. It's interesting to see that 71% of the electric generation went to the aluminum industry there--a chemical engineer friend of mine refers to aluminum as "frozen electricity."

 

[neroden]

Because no competitive power producer in the US would build a new coal-fired or nuclear power station. Natural gas is the technology to beat for new installations, and solar doesn't quite, even in the areas with the best insolation.

I believe Xcel in Colorado decided that the new-solar proposals they got were cheaper than the new-natural-gas proposals they got. It was noted as a big deal at the time.

“This is the first time that we’ve seen, purely on a price basis, that the solar projects made the cut — without considering carbon costs or the need to comply with a renewable energy standard — strictly on an economic basis,” Eves said.

Xcel Energy hopes to triple Colorado solar, add wind power - Denver Business Journal

And of course, in the extremely specialized market of Hawaii (where all fossil fuels must be imported by ship), solar is cheaper than anything.

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But solar can only be part of the overall solution for a near-zero-carbon grid unless there is a major breakthrough in storage.

Yes, only part -- but it could be the vast majority.

How much electricity is used at night, anyway? Really? More importantly, *how much will be used in the future*? The LED lighting revolution is going to massively reduce the entire worldwide lighting load. Proper investments in insulation should reduce heating loads a lot, and nighttime cooling loads are minimal except in the very hottest states. What does that leave -- computers? Not a big deal except for industrial-scale server operations. Electric cars, I guess? Maybe there will be a campaign to preferentially charge them in the daytime.

I think there may be much less nighttime electric load than most people are predicting. That will mean that people's estimates of how many batteries would be needed, how much pumped-storage hydro would be needed, etc. may be too high by a factor of 10.

- - - Updated - - -

Not so sure. Do you understand there are regions of the USA grid right now that can't add a single extra wind turbine online, even if that turbine was FREE ? Cost is only one dimension of the problem. Grid stability is another that can't be solved by just making wind turbines and solar panels cheaper.

The grid stability problem is solved. Papers should be out this year explaining the solution. Yes, it'll cost some money to implement.

 

[Robert.Boston]

I believe Xcel in Colorado decided that the new-solar proposals they got were cheaper than the new-natural-gas proposals they got. It was noted as a big deal at the time.

Xcel Energy hopes to triple Colorado solar, add wind power - Denver Business Journal

Those proposals naturally included the reduction in cost from federal and state subsidies for solar, so I still don't think it's apples-to-apples. Of course, one could reasonably note that natural gas producers are not paying a carbon tax, artificially lowering their costs, too.

How much electricity is used at night, anyway? Really? More importantly, *how much will be used in the future*? The LED lighting revolution is going to massively reduce the entire worldwide lighting load. Proper investments in insulation should reduce heating loads a lot, and nighttime cooling loads are minimal except in the very hottest states. What does that leave -- computers? Not a big deal except for industrial-scale server operations. Electric cars, I guess? Maybe there will be a campaign to preferentially charge them in the daytime.

I think there may be much less nighttime electric load than most people are predicting. That will mean that people's estimates of how many batteries would be needed, how much pumped-storage hydro would be needed, etc. may be too high by a factor of 10.

I think you're being very optimistic about the night-time load once the majority of heating is with electricity instead of natural gas, oil, or biomass. I know you've superinsulated your house, but there's two hundred years of housing stock out there, and few homeowners will spend the effort and money to really drive down their heating load. We can hope that code requirements get tighter, but even that's a hard sell.

Of course, costs of wind and ocean energy are also falling, so we'll have those resources in the mix going forward, too. Ocean energy, in particular, is much more predictable and reliable in many parts of the world than either wind or solar. There's a good reason the State of Oregon is making such a strong push on ocean energy.

 

[rolosrevenge]

How much electricity is used at night, anyway? Really? More importantly, *how much will be used in the future*? The LED lighting revolution is going to massively reduce the entire worldwide lighting load. Proper investments in insulation should reduce heating loads a lot, and nighttime cooling loads are minimal except in the very hottest states. What does that leave -- computers? Not a big deal except for industrial-scale server operations. Electric cars, I guess? Maybe there will be a campaign to preferentially charge them in the daytime.

Studies have shown that for significant penetrations of EVs, the nighttime load will be higher than the current daytime load. Trying to shift all of that charging to the day time could cause serious network constraints.

 

[Jeff Miller]

Speaking of Hawaii, the ideal testing ground for an all renewable energy supply if there ever was one, here's an interesting article discussing the challenges that the local utility is facing in trying to maintain a reliable grid as more and more solar comes on line:

Solar Energy and Hawaii | The Energy Collective

 

[Skotty]

Elon Musk likes to talk about reasoning from first principles. I sincerely believe that when you start with basic physics and look at energy production, it becomes obvious that nuclear power is the best known option. By a landslide. Elon himself has listed magnetic confinement fusion as something he would like to work on, if he wasn't already busy with Tesla and SpaceX.

Is it better to collect energy where you can (classic renewables) or create what you need? Is it better to forage for your food or have a farm?

The trick is to make your farm produce as much as possible for as little as possible, and do it in a way that is clean. Can that be done with nuclear power? Nuclear already has a huge advantage over everything else for the enormous amount of energy that can be extracted from tiny inputs of fuel. Can the downsides of waste, proliferation, and safety be mitigated to the extent needed to remain the best option? Already done via newer designs like the IFR. Thorium is also promising.

Once classic renewables advocates give up on the technical debate, it always comes back to a cost debate. This is when you know they've lost the argument. Are renewables cheaper? No. Oh wait, but they will get cheaper, yes? So can nuclear. And why does this become the debate point anyway when making power cheap isn't the primary goal? All we should really care about is making it cheap enough to be viable. It's okay to pay a little more for something that is better.

And why do I keep using the term "classic renewables"? Because I can make a darn good case as to why nuclear is just as renewable as any other source considered renewable. It's kind of a long argument, but I already have it in written form if anyone wants me to post it here.

I'm not against classic renewables. I just get very passionate in the defense of something I think is even better but has been irrationally demonized by a large number of the public. To the detriment of all mankind. The future of society is potentially at stake here and it pains me to see people who care about the future speak out against the very thing that might be needed to help save it.

 

[Jeff Miller]

There seems to be fairly wide, although not universal, agreement on this thread with your pro-nuclear sentiments. I certainly share them, mostly because I have not yet seen a single compelling analysis showing that we can make a rapid, affordable, and complete transition off of fossil fuels without a heavy reliance on nuclear in the intermediate term.

 

[nwdiver]

If this thread is about the future of nuclear power IMO it can be divided into 3 general questions... SHOULD we / CAN we / WILL we....

SHOULD...
If I had a nuclear genie that offered to turn every coal plant into an AP1000 I certainly wouldn't say no... nuclear power is safe, effective, sustainable.... AND VERY expensive.

CAN...
IMO the only real barriers are the financial limitations of the utilities... sadly those are VERY real barriers. Economies of scale might bring the cost of nuclear down... but the nuclear industry's been praying for that miracle for 40+ years and the cost has only gone up.

WILL...
I really doubt it... if a utility needs additional generation they are far more likely to install a combined cycle turbine for $1B than invest $5B in a nuclear power plant. On the flip side if an installer shows up to Mr Smiths house and offers him a solar lease that cuts 10% off his electric bill why would he say no? The interest on the loan for my model S is 2%... if banks can find a way to offer similar terms for a solar install I think we'll really see an energy revolution.

In countries with significant state control of the economy or states that allow utilities to pre-charge customers for the cost of a new plant we'll probably see a few new nuc plants come on-line but it's increasingly obvious that nuclear power and the free market are not friends. Sure, the free market would have strangled solar in it's crib had it been given the chance but it's all grown up now and even without subsidies it will continue to expand.

If you think this story has a happy ending for nuclear power you haven't been paying attention to recent events.

http://www.foe.org/news/news-releases/2014-01-another-vogtle-debacle-cost-overruns-delays-and-construction-woes-at-reactor
http://www.pv-tech.org/news/npd_sol...e_growth_of_49gw_for_solar_pv_industry_in_201
http://www.scientificamerican.com/a...forecasts-a-bright-future-for-cleaner-energy/

 

[Jeff Miller]

There are a couple of reasons why nuclear plants have gotten so much more expensive than they were in the early 70s. One is the unnecessarily (sometimes counterproductively) high regulatory burdens placed on the design and construction of new plants. The nuclear physicist Bernard Cohen discusses this regulatory ratcheting and regulatory turbulence and its effect on construction costs in chapter nine of his book:

COSTS OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS WHAT WENT WRONG?

The second problem is that the construction of nuclear plants are all one-offs. There are no economies of scale. Science writer Matt Ridley discusses this on his blog:

Why nuclear power costs so muchÂ*-Â*Matt Ridley


making the plausible claim that if we constructed smaller modular nuclear plants in factories we could achieve large economies of scale.

On the "Will" question, I agree with you. Nuclear is unfortunately not on the radar. Utilities will build gas plants which are better than coal, but that doesn't solve our greenhouse gas problem. If we didn't urgently need to get off fossil fuels that would be fine. As it stands though, we do need to get off and quickly if we want to leave a habitable planet to our descendants. I see solar and wind and maybe ocean as great sources of energy that we should exploit as much as we can, but without affordable and efficient storage, which does not, as far as I know, exist , they won't entirely replace fossil fuels. So what I'm afraid will happen if we continue down the current road is that we'll have a lot more renewables in 20 or 30 years than we have now, but we will still be heavily reliant on gas and coal and oil, and that will be a tragedy.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

I wish Germany hadn't put the brakes on their feed-in tariff. It'd be nice to see what happens when a large country hits 140% solar at mid-day. We'll find out eventually I guess and the adjustments will be made from there. As far as nuclear is concerned....nothing and I mean NOTHING is goign to be happening outside of maybe China for the next while. Renewables are going to systematically destroy all Western utility schemes(Germany's is already dying), so there won't be a company with money(or demand) to build a new nuke plant. In the medium term, there will be way too may better renewable options to turn into a economic bubble. Yay!

I'd love to see one of these thorium plants built. Everyone keeps yapping abut them, but I don't see China or anyone else rushing to build them. Is that because they want the bomb material or something?

 

[nwdiver]

I see solar and wind and maybe ocean as great sources of energy that we should exploit as much as we can, but without affordable and efficient storage, which does not, as far as I know, exist , they won't entirely replace fossil fuels. So what I'm afraid will happen if we continue down the current road is that we'll have a lot more renewables in 20 or 30 years than we have now, but we will still be heavily reliant on gas and coal and oil, and that will be a tragedy.

IMO we are very close to the point that the Free Market can take the reins and get us off fossil fuels for good... we need two things;

1 - Replace Net Metering with a Feed-in-Tariff. There must be a financial incentive for distributed storage / demand response. Net Metering kills that since exporting everything during the day and importing everything at night is no different than balancing your power use as far as your bill is concerned.

2 - Eliminate the vertical monopoly that most utilities benefit from. If Distribution and Generation are split there is no longer a conflict of interest between the local utility and distributed generation. IMO a Distribution monopoly should work and a Generation monopoly should work as usually exists with co-ops but the same company can't control both.

Storage + Solar PV will likely be <$0.10/kWh in most parts of the US by 2020.

 

[Jeff Miller]

IMO we are very close to the point that the Free Market can take the reins and get us off fossil fuels for good...

I wish that were true, but all people I've read who have done a serious analysis say that it's not. Steve Chu, a very bright guy (Nobel Prize for trapping atoms with lasers), the former head of the Department of Energy, and a big supporter of renewables, thinks it will take the rest of this century to achieve that goal. He's evidently hoping the Chinese have a breakthrough with 'clean coal' since no one else is seriously working on it (excellent article by Charles Mann):

Renewables Arent Enough. Clean Coal Is the Future - Wired Science

It's far from obvious to me that 'clean coal' is a better bet than clean nuclear, even with the latter's typical cost overruns. At least nuclear is proven...

That said, serious research into carbon sequestration should be a very, very high priority.

 

[nwdiver]

Chu also said this... " ...in five to 10 years where homeowners could be 80% ‘self-sufficient’ and off-grid with a US$10,000 to US$12,000 solar-plus-battery system."

Much of what he says in regard to CCS is "lip-service" to utilities since he doesn't want to work against them.
http://www.pv-tech.org/news/former_...ed_to_respond_to_disruptive_solar_pl#comments

The cost of Solar PV has fallen so dramatically and it's projected to continue to get so much cheaper PLUS the cost of storage is also falling quickly that it's very difficult to see anything being able to compete.

 

[Jeff Miller]

Much of what he says in regard to CCS is "lip-service" to utilities since he doesn't want to work against them.

What's your source for that claim? The video you linked to suggests (~minute 50) the opposite, as does the fact that Chu is a board member of a company that is trying to develop an affordable (~$15 ton to capture + ~$20 ton to compress and store) carbon capture system.

Let's suppose that the claim of '80% self sufficient for a cost of 10k-12k' for current residential electricity use turns out to be true. Does that solve our worldwide carbon emissions problem, no other actions required?