Prediction: Coal has fallen. Nuclear is next then Oil.

[3mp_kwh]

The tsunami of CO2 that follows a nuke closure usually wipes out any area wind/solar. Fortunately the actual numbers are starting to arrive. Close Vermont Yankee, and the state with arguably the best solar incentives, MA (SREC gravy beats CA), saw its levels rise. Carbon emissions rising at New England power plants - The Boston Globe Close Pilgrim and you can make a "Clean" argument on "waste", but CO2 is not your priority. Sorry. Neither is cost, when 40-65mm in repairs and 40mm in annual subsidy is cheaper than 4-8 billion for 1-2GW of offshore wind.

In areas not as aggressive as those merely marking time when they close nuclear plants, its a big gain in CO2 (Google Fort Calhoun, NE). In Illinois, the CO2 from two plant closures will get so bad that NRDC and Sierra Club are stepping in and changing internal position on policy support for existing nuclear. Much welcome sanity (last week's WSJ article, working with IL legislature/Exelon). Pollux, this is big. Tell your SO It puts Greenpiece and UCS on different sides with NRDC and Sierra Club. I'd guess Ceres will follow soon enough. Everybody has so far been turning a blind eye to "natural gas replaces nuclear". The Clean Power Plan only went from 2.0Gt, now, to ~1.6-1.8Gt CO2 US elec sector emissions, in 2030. It is time to get more serious, and stop doing natural gas favors.

Wind and solar's displacement of CO2 emissions, practically speaking, are a slow moving side-show compared to nuke closures since 2013. We can muse over 100sq mile solar blue-squares all we want. This is what's happening "on the ground".

 

[Lloyd]

California is closing it last nuclear power plant by 2025.

California closing last nuclear plant after 3 decades

 

[Jeff N]

Just in:

California closing last nuclear plant after 3 decades

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A utility company and environmental groups have reached an agreement that will close California's last nuclear power plant, ending the state's nuclear power era

 

[SageBrush]

The tsunami of CO2 that follows a nuke closure usually wipes out any area wind/solar. Fortunately the actual numbers are starting to arrive. Close Vermont Yankee, and the state with arguably the best solar incentives, MA (SREC gravy beats CA), saw its levels rise. Carbon emissions rising at New England power plants - The Boston Globe Close Pilgrim and you can make a "Clean" argument on "waste", but CO2 is not your priority. Sorry. Neither is cost, when 40-65mm in repairs and 40mm in annual subsidy is cheaper than 4-8 billion for 1-2GW of offshore wind.

In areas not as aggressive as those merely marking time when they close nuclear plants, its a big gain in CO2 (Google Fort Calhoun, NE). In Illinois, the CO2 from two plant closures will get so bad that NRDC and Sierra Club are stepping in and changing internal position on policy support for existing nuclear. Much welcome sanity (last week's WSJ article, working with IL legislature/Exelon). Pollux, this is big. Tell your SO It puts Greenpiece and UCS on different sides with NRDC and Sierra Club. I'd guess Ceres will follow soon enough. Everybody has so far been turning a blind eye to "natural gas replaces nuclear". The Clean Power Plan only went from 2.0Gt, now, to ~1.6-1.8Gt CO2 US elec sector emissions, in 2030. It is time to get more serious, and stop doing natural gas favors.

Wind and solar's displacement of CO2 emissions, practically speaking, are a slow moving side-show compared to nuke closures since 2013. We can muse over 100sq mile solar blue-squares all we want. This is what's happening "on the ground".

The nuclear plant you want to keep was commissioned in 1972, and has had a series of incidents leading to shutdowns the last few years. It's nominal life was scheduled for shut-down in 2012. Band-aids may be 'cheap,' but do not in any way equate the risks of keeping that plant going with PV or solar.

Pilgrim generates around 5 TWh a year. On-shore wind (chosen because it is not a nascent technology and has more mature costs) would require ~ 1.7 GW to generate a similar amount of energy, would cost around 2B and be good for ~ 25 years, thus 80M a year.

I'll tell you the major flaw in your reasoning and ignore the other attempts at spin: nuclear is rapidly increasing in price while PV and wind are dropping as volume increases. This is true even before we chat about the government provided insurance and lack of safe disposal for the spent rods.

So with all respect due: Nuclear is moronic

 

[nwdiver]

In areas not as aggressive as those merely marking time when they close nuclear plants, its a big gain in CO2 (Google Fort Calhoun, NE). In Illinois, the CO2 from two plant closures will get so bad that NRDC and Sierra Club are stepping in and changing internal position on policy support for existing nuclear. Much welcome sanity (last week's WSJ article, working with IL legislature/Exelon). Pollux, this is big. Tell your SO It puts Greenpiece and UCS on different sides with NRDC and Sierra Club. I'd guess Ceres will follow soon enough. Everybody has so far been turning a blind eye to "natural gas replaces nuclear". The Clean Power Plan only went from 2.0Gt, now, to ~1.6-1.8Gt CO2 US elec sector emissions, in 2030. It is time to get more serious, and stop doing natural gas favors.

The blame lies squarely on the shoulders of nuclear operators. I work in the nuclear industry... to be blunt it's infested with AGW denying, fossil fuel addled hypocrites. When Exelon got out bid by Natural Gas the NEI lashed out at Wind and Solar.... Why? This is Karma pure and simple. Go visit a nuclear facility and count the EVs... then count the morons that commute in a truck... it's pathetic.

We need cheap and dynamic load following plants to support the growth of wind and solar... only natural gas fits this description. Solar and Wind are growing rapidly and we will need gas less and less. At current growth rates wind and solar will generate more annually than nuclear in <5 years.

It would be nice to keep these plants around longer but if they can barely survive with a CF of 90% there's no way they could cope with solar forcing curtailment at noon and wind forcing curtailment at night. We have ~100 nuclear plants in the US and ~400 worldwide. I expect that number to be reduced by ~90% in the next 15 years.

 

[Pollux]

@neroden - Wow! Thanks for all the good info!! Sad, though.

Thank you.

Alan

Nope. Furthermore, the companies involved have been arranging to extract money from the decommissioning funds for other purposes. This is done during the NRC-approved "SAFSTOR" period of letting the reactor rot for 60 years before decommissioning it. Safety advocates disapprove of SAFSTOR.

Yes, it's certainly possible for it to exceed what's in the trust fund, particularly if the nuclear power company has been extracting money from the trust fund, or if the company invests the trust fund badly. (They have an incentive to invest it recklessly because they get any extra which is left over.) In that case, the company is supposed to be on the hook... but by then they will probably have declared bankruptcy or otherwise disappeared. The result will be that state and federal taxpayers are on the hook.

If the decommissoning fund is (a) overseen by a reputable third party, not the nuclear power company which has a conflict of interest, and (b) decommissioning is started immediately upon closure, then the decommissioning funds will almost certainly have enough money to decommission most of the plants. (Plants with a history of leaks such as Nine Mile Point 1 or meltdowns such as Three Mile Island may be much more expensive.)


Nope. The low-level waste has to be disposed of "contemporaneously" so it's accounted for. But the spent fuel rods... well, the federal government promised some time ago that the government would take care of all of them, so the nuclear power companies are holding the government to that promise and refusing to pay for them.

That alone -- the fact that the federal government is responsible for dealing with all the spent fuel rods and has no plan to do so -- should cause the federal government to stop authorizing the refuelling of nuclear power plants. But the NRC is a corrupt lapdog of the industry.

The best thing to do with the existing stuff is dry cask storage, above ground, with a roof. This is what the Scottish government decided to to with their legacy nuclear waste.

It's not a good idea to generate more of this waste, though. The casks alone probably use more valuable minerals than an electric car, and cost about $1 million each. It's a horrible waste of minerals.

 

[Pollux]

The tsunami of CO2 that follows a nuke closure usually wipes out any area wind/solar. Fortunately the actual numbers are starting to arrive. Close Vermont Yankee, and the state with arguably the best solar incentives, MA (SREC gravy beats CA), saw its levels rise. Carbon emissions rising at New England power plants - The Boston Globe Close Pilgrim and you can make a "Clean" argument on "waste", but CO2 is not your priority. Sorry. Neither is cost, when 40-65mm in repairs and 40mm in annual subsidy is cheaper than 4-8 billion for 1-2GW of offshore wind.

In areas not as aggressive as those merely marking time when they close nuclear plants, its a big gain in CO2 (Google Fort Calhoun, NE). In Illinois, the CO2 from two plant closures will get so bad that NRDC and Sierra Club are stepping in and changing internal position on policy support for existing nuclear. Much welcome sanity (last week's WSJ article, working with IL legislature/Exelon). Pollux, this is big. Tell your SO It puts Greenpiece and UCS on different sides with NRDC and Sierra Club. I'd guess Ceres will follow soon enough. Everybody has so far been turning a blind eye to "natural gas replaces nuclear". The Clean Power Plan only went from 2.0Gt, now, to ~1.6-1.8Gt CO2 US elec sector emissions, in 2030. It is time to get more serious, and stop doing natural gas favors.

Wind and solar's displacement of CO2 emissions, practically speaking, are a slow moving side-show compared to nuke closures since 2013. We can muse over 100sq mile solar blue-squares all we want. This is what's happening "on the ground".

Hey, @3mp_kwh,

I hear you. It's why I'm asking questions. You can bet Jessica and I have been talking about this. In short, and with my very primitive, un-nuanced, and pathetically ill-informed outlook, I'm thinking (a) gotta keep up the pressure on getting a carbon fee implemented SOMEWHERE in the USA, with possible ramifications on nukes, and (b) maybe the simplest way with the nukes at this point is an honest subsidy for existing plants to keep them open. Closure being bad (a) for CO2, (b) arguably for baseload planning and (cx) kicking off what I'm hearing is a lame-ass decommissioning cycle that isn't honest about trust fund raiding behavior, SAFSTOR and other built-in kick-the-can-down-the-road problems. I'm not hearing anything that persuades me yet that building new nukes is economically feasible in the face of current natural gas onslaught plus ever-declining solar cost plus other renewables -- feels like trying to fight the tides.

Am I thinking about this problem in a useful way? Would you correct me?

Thanks,
Alan

 

[Pollux]

The blame lies squarely on the shoulders of nuclear operators. I work in the nuclear industry... to be blunt it's infested with AGW denying, fossil fuel addled hypocrites. When Exelon got out bid by Natural Gas the NEI lashed out at Wind and Solar.... Why? This is Karma pure and simple. Go visit a nuclear facility and count the EVs... then count the morons that commute in a truck... it's pathetic.

We need cheap and dynamic load following plants to support the growth of wind and solar... only natural gas fits this description. Solar and Wind are growing rapidly and we will need gas less and less. At current growth rates wind and solar will generate more annually than nuclear in <5 years.

It would be nice to keep these plants around longer but if they can barely survive with a CF of 90% there's no way they could cope with solar forcing curtailment at noon and wind forcing curtailment at night. We have ~100 nuclear plants in the US and ~400 worldwide. I expect that number to be reduced by ~90% in the next 15 years.

What say you to @3mp_kwh's point re CO2 bump following plant closures in MA & elsewhere?

Thanks,
Alan

 

[neroden]

California is closing it last nuclear power plant by 2025.

California closing last nuclear plant after 3 decades

Oh, thank goodness. Diablo Canyon is in an especially bad location on a fault line next to the coast; there's another fault line they didn't know about running even closer; it wasn't built according to spec, so it's anyone's guess how it would react in an earthquake. Other than that, it's one of the better designs...

It's going to be important to remove the spent fuel and move it to a more secure location.

Thankfully California is installing solar and wind and batteries, and advancing energy efficiency, fast enough to easily compensate for the closure. Unfortunately California is well ahead of the rest of the country on all of these counts.

 

[neroden]

Norway is building a GW wind farm for 1.1 B Euros, estimated to produce 3.4 Twh a year.
If my arithmetic is right, that works out to a production cost of around 1.2 Euro penny per kWh lifetime.

Damn

Yow. That is a record low.

 

[RubberToe]

I'm thinking (a) gotta keep up the pressure on getting a carbon fee implemented SOMEWHERE in the USA...

Yes On Initiative 732

 

[nwdiver]

What say you to @3mp_kwh's point re CO2 bump following plant closures in MA & elsewhere?

Thanks,
Alan

It's easy to focus on how much solar/wind we have without acknowledging how incredibly fast it's growing. Every 2.5 years installed solar doubles. Diablo Canyon will be operating until 2024. Solar and Wind are expected to grow >8 fold by then. Solar output in California is currently ~8GW with peak demand ~40GW... Diablo Canyon will be experiencing significant curtailment events by the time it's retired... that's no way to operate a nuclear plant and undoubtedly played into PG&E decision.

What may not be immediately obvious is the fact that there is no 'nuclear industry' like there is a solar and wind industry... there are only companies that operate nuclear plants. What does this mean? With the exception of Areva and Exelon most companies involved in operating, maintaining and building nuclear plants are far more exposed to coal, oil and gas than nuclear. Flour is the company behind NuScale building modular reactors; most of their business is in oil... do you really think they want a carbon tax? Westinghouse and GE also build and maintain gas turbines... do you really think they want a carbon tax? Duke Energy operates ~7GW of nuclear... but 11GW of coal and gas... do you really think they want a carbon tax? This is why NEI spends more time attacking Wind and Solar than actually lobbying for a carbon tax like AWEA and SEIA.

Yes... nuclear power is very clean energy... but very few people that work in nuclear power actually care. Their goal is maintaining the status quo. ~20% nuclear... and the rest? Who cares. Wind and Solar on the other hand a determined to conquer the world... and they are succeeding.

 

[GSP]

Florida Power & Light is buying coal plants just to close them down. It is a win-win-win. FPL and their customers save money, since FPL can get power for less money than the long-term contracts negotiated years ago for coal power.

Since the new lower cost power is cleaner, it also helps resident's health and reduce CO2.

Florida Power & Light proposes buying and shuttering 330 MW coal plant

GSP

 

[adiggs]

Florida Power & Light is buying coal plants just to close them down. It is a win-win-win. FPL and their customers save money, since FPL can get power for less money than the long-term contracts negotiated years ago for coal power.

Since the new lower cost power is cleaner, it also helps resident's health and reduce CO2.

Florida Power & Light proposes buying and shuttering 330 MW coal plant

GSP

That's awesome!

 

[lklundin]

Norway is building a GW wind farm for 1.1 B Euros, estimated to produce 3.4 Twh a year.
If my arithmetic is right, that works out to a production cost of around 1.2 Euro penny per kWh lifetime.

Damn

With a 1GW capacity the projected annual production of 3.4 TWh is assumes a capacity factor of just below 39% - so no problem on the projected production.

With both Norway's consumption and regulatable hydro-power being way above 1GW, there will be no problem in selling the entire production on Nord Pool Spot, where the price is typically around 3 Eurocent/kWh (in open bidding against all sorts of suppliers, wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, coal, CNG).

So for each invested Euro, they will after an about two-year wait start to get an annual 3 kWh (about 6 to 12 Eurocent) for the lifetime of the farm.

For the production cost, what assumptions have you made regarding financing and the lifetime of the farm?

 

[SageBrush]

With a 1GW capacity the projected annual production of 3.4 TWh is assumes a capacity factor of just below 39% - so no problem on the projected production.

With both Norway's consumption and regulatable hydro-power being way above 1GW, there will be no problem in selling the entire production on Nord Pool Spot, where the price is typically around 3 Eurocent/kWh (in open bidding against all sorts of suppliers, wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, coal, CNG).

So for each invested Euro, they will after an about two-year wait start to get an annual 3 kWh (about 6 to 12 Eurocent) for the lifetime of the farm.

For the production cost, what assumptions have you made regarding financing and the lifetime of the farm?

I think I used 25 years and did not consider financing

 

[SageBrush]

AntronX, care to explain the 'dislike' ?

 

[lklundin]

I think I used 25 years and did not consider financing

Well, that sounds about right, Norway has boatloads of money. (*)

Only 80 years ago (less actually) life up where these farms will be constructed was hard and poor and with no prospect of change.

So it is kind of ironic that the mountains and their windy and rainy climate have now become such an asset.

(*) I am aware that capital cost always applies, if nothing else as opportunity cost.

 

[SageBrush]

Well, that sounds about right, Norway has boatloads of money. (*)

Only 80 years ago (less actually) life up where these farms will be constructed was hard and poor and with no prospect of change.

So it is kind of ironic that the mountains and their windy and rainy climate have now become such an asset.

(*) I am aware that capital cost always applies, if nothing else as opportunity cost.

Your point is spot on. I didn't consider maintenance or repairs either, so calling it 'production cost' is inaccurate. Is there a better term to describe lifetime generation divided by installation cost ?

I like that calculation for it's simplicity and for trending.

Do you know if the local communities benefit from these hydro and wind plants, and how much ?

 

[SageBrush]

Florida Power & Light is buying coal plants just to close them down. It is a win-win-win. FPL and their customers save money, since FPL can get power for less money than the long-term contracts negotiated years ago for coal power.

Since the new lower cost power is cleaner, it also helps resident's health and reduce CO2.

Florida Power & Light proposes buying and shuttering 330 MW coal plant

GSP

Glad to hear another coal plant is closing, but what is the real story behind FPL's actions ? It sure ain't environmental activism. To be blunt, it is money -- but how ?