https://www.pv-magazine.com/2019/04/18/there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-zero-or-near-zero-emission-nuclear-power-plant/
“There is no such thing as a zero or near-zero-emission nuclear power plant”
Stanford professor Mark Z Jacobson has said new nuclear plants may cost
up to 7.4 times more than wind and solar facilities, with construction
times longer by up to 15 years. Such a delay, he said, may see an huge
amount of extra carbon emissions from fossil fuel power sources. His
verdict comes as China this month set new guaranteed tariffs for nuclear
power.
April 18, 2019
Emiliano Bellini
Claiming nuclear power plants emit zero or near-zero CO² is a false
assumption refuted by objective data, according to the Evaluation of
Nuclear Power as a Proposed Solution to Global Warming, Air Pollution
and Energy Security paper written by Stanford professor of civil and
environmental engineering, Mark Zachary Jacobson.
In the study Jacobson – who is also director of the Californian
university’s Atmosphere/Energy program – highlights the risk of
overestimating nuclear’s ability to reduce global warming and air
pollution, as well as its claims about ensuring energy security.
The professor said construction times for new nuclear plants range from
10 to 19 years. “An examination of some recent nuclear plant
developments confirms that this range is not only reasonable but an
underestimate in at least one case,” he wrote. The paper cites the
Olkiluoto 3 reactor in Finland, the Hinkley Point nuclear plan in the UK
and Vogtle 3 and 4 reactors in Georgia, among others, as examples of
projects for which planning began in the past decade and whose entry
into commercial operation is still far from complete.
With new nuclear projects taking so long – and utility scale solar or
wind schemes requiring 2-5 years to begin commercial operations –
nuclear effectively emits a hundred years’ worth of 64-102g of CO² per
kilowatt-hour of plant capacity just from grid emissions during the wait
for projects to come online or be refurbished, compared to wind or solar
farms.
Jacobson added, a further 2-4 years of plant downtime will have to be
factored in to take account of the refurbishment required to ensure
nuclear facilities run for their expected 40-year lifetime. “Overall,
emissions from new nuclear are 78-178g [of] CO²/kWh, not close to zero,”
he wrote. “Even existing plants emit, due to the continuous mining and
refining of uranium needed for the plant.”
The professor also highlighted the well-known risks associated with
nuclear power such as weapons proliferation, reactor meltdown,
radioactive waste, mining-related cancers and land despoilment.
China and its nuclear plans
According to Jacobson, the lengthy delays to realizing China’s nuclear
plant investment have effectively been responsible for a 1.3% rise in
carbon emissions in the nation between 2016 and 2017, rather than the
3.4% fall claimed by the authorities.
According to the Stanford paper, the capital cost of new nuclear ranges
from $6,500-12,250/kW, whereas a new wind turbine ranges from
$1,150-1,550/kW. “Dividing the high (and low) capital cost of nuclear
per kW by the low (and high) capital cost of wind per kW and multiplying
the result by 14 GW gives a range of 58.7-149 GW nameplate capacity of
wind that could have been installed and running prior to 2017,” the
report stated.
Despite the big difference in costs, China’s National Development and
Reform Commission set new guaranteed minimum on-grid electricity tariffs
for third-generation nuclear power stations this month. According to
Reuters, the Taishan project in Guangdong province was set at RMB0.435
($0.0649) per kWh, while prices for the Sanmen project in Zhejiang
province and the Haiyang plant in Shandong province were set at
RMB0.4203 and RMB0.4151 per kWh, respectively.
In a statement provided to pv magazine at the time, Mycle Schneider – a
French consultant specializing in nuclear energy – said the new fixed
tariffs are in the same range as previous nuclear subsidies. “That is
rather surprising as these units were significantly more expensive than
the previous reactors and they are years behind schedule and massively
over budget,” he said. “[It is] hard to believe that they will be making
any money. 435 Yuan [RMB] per megawatt-hour – around 65 U.S. dollars or
58 euro – is about half of the strike price agreed for Hinkley Point C.”
Schneider added PV and wind costs have come down so much China is
investing much more in renewables than nuclear. “The bottom line is that
it is likely that China will restart nuclear building at some point –
the last commercial unit started building in December 2016 – but that
the pace will be significantly lower than anticipated, leaving the
biggest chunk of new electricity generating capacity to renewables, just
like anywhere else but on a bigger scale,” he added. As of July 1, China
had 41 operating reactors with a total net capacity of 38 GW.
In the 2018 edition of the Nuclear Industry Status Report, Schneider
revealed nuclear power capacity grew globally by only 1% in 2017 while
solar and wind capacity rose 35% and 17%, respectively. The report also
recognized solar and wind were the cheapest grid-connected sources of
energy. Investments in new nuclear plants, on the other hand, were
driven by public support and by nuclear weapon states, according to the
paper.
==========================================================================
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2019/01/31/debunking-the-low-cost-nuclear-myth/?utm_source=Bibblio
Debunking the low-cost nuclear myth
An article published in the FT this week was right to point out that
pricing new energy capacity involves more than just comparing strike
prices, but if you are in the business of calculating real costs, do it
properly. For nuclear in particular, that’s a case of ‘in for a penny,
in for (several) pounds’.
January 31, 2019
Max Hall, pv magazine editor
As environmental groups the world over agonize about whether to dance
with the devil and embrace the undoubted low-carbon claims of nuclear
power generation – at least as a bridging solution to a
renewable-powered world – familiar arguments in favor of nuclear are
once again emerging.
An article by Jonathan Ford in U.K. business newspaper the Financial
Times yesterday appeared to outline the persuasive economic case for new
nuclear.
The author argued, contrasting figures about the huge cost of building
new nuclear facilities with the low energy strike price that can be
generated by renewable energy projects is misleading.
Ford considered the hypothetical need to provide 1 GW of energy, with
nuclear and offshore wind as the competing options. The writer started
by pointing out a nuclear reactor generates energy at around 90%
efficiency, twice the level achieved by offshore wind – and way beyond
what PV can boast, but let’s stick to the hypothetical scenario for now.
That means, said Ford, approximately twice as much generation capacity
needs to be constructed for the renewable project.
Why did Toshiba and Hitachi give up?
Nuclear of course, has no intermittency concerns – or at least, we had
all better pray it doesn’t – so the imagined offshore wind plant project
also needs to factor in an hugely expensive, near-1 GW of battery
storage too, to be ready for periods of low wind.
That would still leave the renewables project cheaper to construct than
the nuclear option – for want of a better phrase – an outcome that
somewhat undermines the writer’s economic claims for the latter.
However, Ford then delivers his coup de grace, the fact nuclear reactors
last at least twice as long as renewables projects. Which means, of
course, the money spent on the hypothetical wind power installation has
to be doubled, finally making it notably more expensive than a new reactor.
Which begs the question, why did Toshiba and Hitachi run for the hills
when they contemplated the costs of bringing Britain’s next generation
of nuclear plants to fruition, as Ford readily acknowledged at the top
of his article.
As an exercise in persuading readers to dig below the headlines, the
piece is a partial success. Simply comparing the strike price – in
online auction site terminology the ‘Buy it Now’ guaranteed purchase
price – of two energy sources is oversimplistic.
Who cleans up the mess?
However the writer is guilty, as so many before him have been, of
ignoring the elephant in the room with nuclear. If an offshore wind farm
– or a PV project, for that matter – fails, the cost is borne largely by
commercial insurance providers through a policy the developer holds.
It’s certainly true that the cost of such an event is not entirely
contained, as there will be a minimal knock-on effect on future
insurance premiums.
What nuclear proponents consistently fail to mention is the economic
cost when a nuclear reactor fails. It is impossible to purchase a
corporate insurance policy that will comprehensively guarantee to cover
the costs incurred in the event of a reactor meltdown, or other failure
that releases significant amounts of radiation into the environment. Who
foots the bill? You and I, as taxpayers, via the government – often
governments –affected.
Factor in the costs of a clean-up after a catastrophe such as Chernobyl
or Fukushima, and there is no energy source that even comes close to the
financial costs of nuclear, and that is not to consider the measures
needed to deal safely with nuclear waste.
It may be unrealistic to argue the world will be able to run entirely on
renewables without a single penny being spent on nuclear generation from
today onwards, especially if we also want to keep other fossil fuels in
the ground. Nuclear is a low carbon option and, it could be argued, may
be a necessary evil until every roof in the world has solar on it – but
don’t try and persuade us it is a cost-competitive option.
And when Mr Ford implies that the long life of nuclear facilities means
they can be left to run and run at minimal cost, it is tempting to
wonder which option he would prefer living downwind of – a 60-year-old
nuclear facility or a wind or PV installation of the same vintage.
[I'll take issue with 2 of the points attributed to Mr. Ford by the
author of this article.
1) Nuclear plants do not have anything like 90% efficiency. It's more
like 2% efficiency, which is why they have huge cooling capacities
(cooling towers, large bodies of water). Perhaps the term they are
seeking is capacity factor, and fission reactors typically have about an
80% capacity factor over their rated life. By comparison, current wind
turbines which are well-sited can manage 40% plus capacity factor, which
is an improvement over a decade ago.
2) Nuclear fission reactors seem to have an operating life of 20-25
years before a major rebuild or refurbishment is required - despite
continuing boasts by the industry of 40-year life. Conversely,
photovoltaic panels may be supplied with a 25-year warranty, which is
different beast from a design life. As for wind turbines, the
Tvindkraft wind turbine has been operating for over 40 years now.
https://www.tvindkraft.dk/en/history/why-the-windmill-was-built.html]
=====================================
To subscribe, unsubscribe, turn vacation mode on or off,
or carry out other user-actions for this list, visit
https://www.freelists.org/list/keiths-list
