Wishful thinking: the basis of new nuclear economics
Generation IV reactors are not going to save the nuclear power industry.
by Michael Mariotte
GreenWorld, March 28, 2016
http://safeenergy.org/2016/03/28/wishful-thinking-the-basis-of-new-nuclear/#more-13790
That nuclear power’s miserable economics are pretty much killing the
industry, especially in the western world, is a reality acknowledged by
virtually everyone at this point. After the first burst of reactor
construction from the late 1960s until the early 1980s collapsed under the
weight of multi-billion dollar cost overruns and lengthy schedule delays, a
decade ago the industry argued it had learned and incorporated its lessons
and the result would be a nuclear renaissance.
But before even a single reactor launched by this renaissance has begun
operating (for a "renaissance that began more than a decade ago, this in
itself is a telling point), bloated, untenable costs and delays from Georgia
to Finland have again put the kibosh on the notion of any meaningful nuclear
expansion in the west. And even in China, where transparency in economic
data is literally a foreign concept, there are indications that costs and
schedules for new reactors are not exactly meeting expectations.
Meanwhile, nuclear utilities from Illinois to Sweden argue that new
subsidies--whether in the form of higher rates or tax relief or direct
deposits of taxpayer money to their bank accounts are required to keep
long-ago paid-for but aging and obsolete reactors simply operating. Some of
this is pure greed, of course, with the utilities just wanting more money
and they see an opportunity granted by concern about climate change to get
some, but some of it is real. Some of these older reactors, which supposedly
benefit from all of nuclear’s purported cost advantages in terms of low fuel
costs, operating experience and so on, just can’t compete with newer,
cheaper and cleaner technologies.
While it seems that far too many legislators don’t yet understand all this,
the nuclear industry itself certainly does, and the number one topic in
industry-oriented publications these days is how to turn around its economic
miseries.
I wrote about what the industry, at least in the U.S., wants for its
uneconomic operating reactors--and its sometimes delusional approaches to
achieve those goals, a couple of weeks ago.
But even if it attains the levels of ratepayer/taxpayer subsidies it
wants--and it likely won’t--it’s not enough for the industry to simply
rescue some dinosaurs from their inevitable extinction. Without new
reactors, without expansion, the industry will simply wither away by
mid-century. While that would be better for society, better for ratepayers,
better even for the climate, that, of course is not an industry perspective.
The industry’s typical prescription for its revival revolves around a few
key tenets: Build safer reactors--i.e. Generation IV designs; and/or build
smaller reactors, which may or may not be Generation IV designs; have more
standardization of reactor designs; use modern modular construction
techniques; and so forth. And many industry pundits, at least, have derived
hope from a recent Breakthrough Institute paper which argues that the
industry’s experience in South Korea and elsewhere, including the UK,
Germany and Japan, demonstrates that the pattern of ever-escalating reactor
construction costs is not inevitable.
Like an apartment-dwelling five year old wanting a horse for Christmas, it’s
all just wishful thinking.
So explains, if not in those words, Steve Kidd, a veteran nuclear industry
consultant, in a piece in Nuclear Engineering International yesterday that
serves as a warning to his industry.
Explains Kidd about the Breakthrough paper, "With the exception of South
Korea, these apply only in particular time periods." In other words, the
authors were essentially cherry-picking data to make their case, and it
doesn’t hold up when the total picture is examined.
Kidd goes on to explain, "Full data from the UK was conveniently
unavailable--the cost escalation record of the 14 AGRs was even worse than
the US experience in the 1980s--while the escalating costs of the two EPRs
under construction in Europe and the four AP1000s in the US are also
ignored. Had Chinese data been available, it would almost certainly back up
the South Korean record with little or no cost escalation. This has,
however, been reversed in the latest imported foreign designs in China, and
it will be interesting if the latest larger Korean 1,400MW units can
maintain the favourable cost record of the previous generation of local
1,000MW units."
At best, the Korean experience shows cost escalation is not inevitable
everywhere all the time. That’s a small thread on which to hang a
mega-billion dollar industry.
Kidd also argues that new, safer reactor designs are essential if there is
to be any chance of winning over the public, which he acknowledges is
fearful of nuclear power. But, Kidd points out, "innovation is expensive."
Kidd concludes with his recommendations, written from a UK perspective but
applicable everywhere, but doesn’t sound too optimistic about their
implementation:
"Ultimately, as I have said before, the world must move to a small number of
reactor designs that can be built cheaply in large numbers, using a fully
internationalised supply chain. In normal industries this would come about
by natural wastage of unsuccessful companies being taken over by those who
are thriving and profitable, but this currently seems a forlorn hope in
nuclear. National governments see nuclear as a strategic industry and will
not let jobs wither away to competitors. Selling nuclear reactors to other
countries becomes an arm of foreign policy. This will merely lead to a
continuation of the current situation, where there are too many reactor
designs offered by lots of different companies, all with a small number of
orders and all of which are too expensive. It is doubtful if some of today’s
designs can be built anywhere economically."
In other words, the notion that new nuclear power could potentially be
economically competitive is not entirely absurd, at least in a fantasy world
where everything went exactly as the industry needs. But in the real world,
the idea that nuclear power will become economically competitive with the
safer, cleaner and cheaper energy sources and technologies of the 21st
century is simply wishful thinking.
