The environment thread

[StrangeSox]

Balta, all cost estimates I can find for wind and solar put it several multiples above nuclear. More in the range of .25-.30/ kWh versus .08-.10 for nukes.

[StrangeSox]

Jim Hansen to Obama:

Some discussion about nuclear power is needed. Fourth generation nuclear power has the potential to provide safe base-load electric power with negligible CO2 emissions.

 

There is about a million times more energy available in the nucleus, compared with the chemical energy of molecules exploited in fossil fuel burning. In today’s nuclear (fission) reactors neutrons cause a nucleus to fission, releasing energy as well as additional neutrons that sustain the reaction. The additional neutrons are ‘born’ with a great deal of energy and are called ‘fast’ neutrons. Further reactions are more likely if these neutrons are slowed by collisions with non-absorbing materials, thus becoming ‘thermal’ or slow neutrons.

 

All nuclear plants in the United States today are Light Water Reactors (LWRs), using ordinary water (as opposed to ‘heavy water’) to slow the neutrons and cool the reactor. Uranium is the fuel in all of these power plants. One basic problem with this approach is that more than 99% of the uranium fuel ends up ‘unburned’ (not fissioned). In addition to ‘throwing away’ most of the potential energy, the long-lived nuclear wastes (plutonium, americium, curium, etc.) require geologic isolation in repositories such as Yucca Mountain.

 

There are two compelling alternatives to address these issues, both of which will be needed in the future. The first is to build reactors that keep the neutrons ‘fast’ during the fission reactions. These fast reactors can completely burn the uranium. Moreover, they can burn existing long-lived nuclear waste, producing a small volume of waste with half-life of only sever decades, thus largely solving the nuclear waste problem. The other compelling alternative is to use thorium as the fuel in thermal reactors. Thorium can be used in ways that practically eliminate buildup of long-lived nuclear waste.

 

The United States chose the LWR development path in the 1950s for civilian nuclear power because research and development had already been done by the Navy, and it thus presented the shortest time-to-market of reactor concepts then under consideration. Little emphasis was given to the issues of nuclear waste. The situation today is very different. If nuclear energy is to be used widely to replace coal, in the United States and/or the developing world, issues of waste, safety, and proliferation become paramount.

 

Nuclear power plants being built today, or in advanced stages of planning, in the United States, Europe, China and other places, are just improved LWRs. They have simplified operations and added safety features, but they are still fundamentally the same type, produce copious nuclear waste, and continue to be costly. It seems likely that they will only permit nuclear power to continue to play a role comparable to that which it plays now.

 

Both fast and thorium reactors were discussed at our 3 November workshop. The Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) concept was developed at the Argonne National Laboratory and it has been built and tested at the Idaho National Laboratory. IFR keeps neutrons “fast” by using liquid sodium metal as a coolant instead of water. It also makes fuel processing easier by using a metallic solid fuel form. IFR can burn existing nuclear waste, making electrical power in the process. All fuel reprocessing is done within the reactor facility (hence the name “integral”) and many enhanced safety features are included and have been tested, such as the ability to shutdown safely under even severe accident scenarios.

 

The Liquid-Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) is a thorium reactor concept that uses a chemically-stable fluoride salt for the medium in which nuclear reactions take place. This fuel form yields flexibility of operation and eliminates the need to fabricate fuel elements. This feature solves most concerns that have prevented thorium from being used in solid fueled reactors. The fluid fuel in LFTR is also easy to process and to separate useful fission products, both stable and radioactive. LFTR also has the potential to destroy existing nuclear waste, albeit with less efficiency than in a fast reactor such as IFR.

 

Both IFR and LFTR operate at low pressure and high temperatures, unlike today’s LWR’s. Operation at low pressures alleviates much of the accident risk with LWR. Higher temperatures enable more of the reactor heat to be converted to electricity (40% in IFR, 50% in LFTR vs 35% in LWR). Both IFR and LFTR have the potential to be air-cooled and to use waste heat for desalinating water.

 

Both IFR and LFTR are 100-300 times more fuel efficient than LWRs. In addition to solving the nuclear waste problem, they can operate for several centuries using only uranium and thorium that has already been mined. Thus they eliminate the criticism that mining for nuclear fuel will use fossil fuels and add to the greenhouse effect.

 

The Obama campaign, properly in my opinion, opposed the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository. Indeed, there is a far more effective way to use the $25 billion collected from utilities over the past 40 years to deal with waste disposal. This fund should be used to develop fast reactors that eat nuclear waste and thorium reactors to prevent the creation of new long-lived nuclear waste. By law the federal government must take responsibility for existing spent nuclear fuel, so inaction is not an option. Accelerated development of fast and thorium reactors will allow the US to fulfill its obligations to dispose of the nuclear waste, and open up a source of carbon-free energy that can last centuries, even millennia.

 

The common presumption that 4th generation nuclear power will not be ready until 2030 is based on assumption of ‘business-as-usual”. Given high priority, this technology could be ready for deployment in the 2015-2020 time frame, thus contributing to the phase-out of coal plants. Even if the United States finds that it can satisfy its electrical energy needs via efficiency and renewable energies, 4th generation nuclear power is probably essential for China and India to achieve clear skies with carbon-free power.

[Balta1701]

Balta, all cost estimates I can find for wind and solar put it several multiples above nuclear. More in the range of .25-.30/ kWh versus .08-.10 for nukes.

You'll notice first that you've flipped units. Second, that Moody's analysis actually winds up with the same number you give there, $.25 or so/kwh, as the resultant cost. Why is that number so much higher than the one you give? Because nuclear plants have this nasty habit of having their costs overrun the initial value quoted by as much as a factor of 2-3. You see that in the Florida plants, in the San Antonio Plants, etc. They quote the low price to get people interested and maybe secure a loan where the Federal Government will eat most of the cost whether they get built or not, like what the President has just proposed. Then, as the project leaves the planning phase...boom.Here's Time Magazine talking about this issue last summer:

Anyway, many of the new plants will never be built, and shouldn't be built, because of a second problem: Once again, nuclear power is turning out to be way more expensive than originally advertised. The plants are cheap to operate, but unbelievably costly to build; estimates for new plants have doubled and even tripled over the last year or two. One recent study priced new nuclear generation at 25-30 cents per kilowatt-hour; new wind power comes in around 7 cents, about the same as coal, and investments designed to reduce electricity consumption through more efficient appliances, lighting or buildings cost about 1 to 3 cents per kilowatt-hour saved. This is why nobody on Wall Street or Main Street or any private-sector street will make real investments in new nuclear generation; U.S. utilities rely on ratepayers and taxpayers, while France and China rely exclusively on public funds. A Warren Buffett-owned company was involved in an Idaho project, but scrapped it once costs began to escalate.

[southsider2k5]

You'll notice first that you've flipped units. Second, that Moody's analysis actually winds up with the same number you give there, $.25 or so/kwh, as the resultant cost. Why is that number so much higher than the one you give? Because nuclear plants have this nasty habit of having their costs overrun the initial value quoted by as much as a factor of 2-3. You see that in the Florida plants, in the San Antonio Plants, etc. They quote the low price to get people interested and maybe secure a loan where the Federal Government will eat most of the cost whether they get built or not, like what the President has just proposed. Then, as the project leaves the planning phase...boom.Here's Time Magazine talking about this issue last summer:

 

Maybe if they called it stimulus spending?

[Balta1701]

Maybe if they called it stimulus spending?

It wouldn't be the worst stimulus in the world, but in this case, you need 2 things to happen. First, you need to actually get the plant built - the way the "please the right wing" guarantees may work, if you were a financier, you could cash out successfully even if the plant never was built (note - either way, a Wall Street firm gets rich. This is not an accidental flaw). Second...you'd have to have the plant built within the next year or two. (You start them now and you probably finish by 2016 or so.).

 

We'd be better off buying a load of windmills and solar panels, IMO. Or, paying people to bury dollar bills in big holes, either way.

[StrangeSox]

You'll notice first that you've flipped units. Second, that Moody's analysis actually winds up with the same number you give there, $.25 or so/kwh, as the resultant cost. Why is that number so much higher than the one you give? Because nuclear plants have this nasty habit of having their costs overrun the initial value quoted by as much as a factor of 2-3. You see that in the Florida plants, in the San Antonio Plants, etc. They quote the low price to get people interested and maybe secure a loan where the Federal Government will eat most of the cost whether they get built or not, like what the President has just proposed. Then, as the project leaves the planning phase...boom.Here's Time Magazine talking about this issue last summer:

 

You're focusing solely on installed kW cost. Nuclear power generation and costs over the 50 or 60 year plant life becomes cheap when you amortize the extremely large upfront capital costs. Day-to-day plant operations are much cheaper. Everything I've seen on wind, again, puts it at two to three times as much as nuclear or coal. And let's not pretend wind energy capital costs are cheap, either. Just pulling some quick numbers, the new Twin Groves wind farm in Illinois has 398 MW of capacity for $700M, or $1758/ kW installed. Now add in the cost of whatever backup system you choose because you simply cannot rely on wind energy plus whatever additional infrastructure you need to transport the power from the regions its usable (usually not very populated areas) and you have comparable capital costs with nuclear.

 

Also, don't snip that article short:

And why are costs spiraling out of control again? Yes, the global credit crunch has increased the cost of borrowing, and oil spikes have increased the costs of materials. But ironically—tragically, really—the main problem has been the 30-year hibernation of the nuclear construction industry, the legacy of the incompetence that led to TMI. The specialized workforce of nuclear engineers, welders and other reactor-builders has withered, which means higher labor costs and more delays. Our nuclear industrial base has atrophied as well; for example, the world's only steelworks capable of forging containment vessels is now a Japanese monopoly, forcing utilities onto a three-year waiting list to pay exorbitant prices.

 

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,...l#ixzz0eTRpusFK

 

In other words, if we start building them again, we will increase demand and the workforce will also increase.

 

Don't focus so heavily on the one Moodys study about potential credit problems due to unforseen construction cost increases, either.

 

http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/

 

Nuclear came out at 6.6 c/kWh, not 25 c/kWh.

Edited February 3, 2010 by StrangeSox

[Balta1701]

In other words, if we start building them again, we will increase demand and the workforce will also increase.

 

Don't focus so heavily on the one Moodys study about potential credit problems due to unforseen construction cost increases, either.

Thekey flaw in that logic is; you assume that no one else in the world has been building reactors/maintaining the necessary skills and equipment. This is not true with nuclear, however, it is true with solar. It is true that nuclear consntruction worldwide is quite slow, but this is again because of the continual cost overruns on the projects that have been undertaken.

http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/

 

Nuclear came out at 6.6 c/kWh, not 25 c/kWh.

They updated the MIT study a year ago and produced a cost estimate of $.084/kwh (a rate of cost increase equal to that of fossil fuels over the same period, and there was that massive fossil fuel price spike at the same time). However, that was again based on a base construction cost of $4000/KW, which as I've discussed repeatedly, the evidence says over and over that this is the price they quote until you actually get close to an agreement to build the plant, where it has this nasty habit of doubling or more from there. From that report:

The 2003 report found that “In deregulated markets, nuclear power is not now

cost competitive with coal and natural gas. However, plausible reductions by

industry in capital cost, operation and maintenance costs and construction

time could reduce the gap. Carbon emission credits, if enacted by government,

can give nuclear power a cost advantage.” The situation remains the same

today. While the U.S. nuclear industry has continued to demonstrate improved

operating performance, there remains significant uncertainty about the capital

costs, and the cost of its financing, which are the main components of the cost of

electricity from new nuclear plants.

 

Since 2003 construction costs for all types of large-scale engineered projects

have escalated dramatically. The estimated cost of constructing a nuclear power

plant has increased at a rate of 15% per year heading into the current economic

downturn. This is based both on the cost of actual builds in Japan and Korea

and on the projected cost of new plants planned for in the United States.

Capital costs for both coal and natural gas have increased as well, although not

by as much.

 

...

The track record for the construction costs of nuclear plants completed in the

U.S. during the 1980s and early 1990s was poor. Actual costs were far higher

than had been projected. Construction schedules experienced long delays,

which, together with increases in interest rates at the time, resulted in high

financing charges. New regulatory requirements also contributed to the cost

increases, and in some instances, the public controversy over nuclear power

contributed to some of the construction delays and cost overruns. However,

while the plants in Korea and Japan continue to be built on schedule, some of the

recent construction cost and schedule experience, such as with the plant under

construction in Finland, has not been encouraging

For a pro-nuclear report, that's surprisingly strong "This isn't working well" language. There may not have been agreement, but if you read the words they wrote, someone, probably a couple of people in fact, on that panel are as pessimistic as me.

[Balta1701]

A clarification. I'm not on paper opposed to new nuclear development, I just don't think its cost-effective. Similarly, I'm not opposed to coal with CCS, I just don't think its cost-effective. It's possible that there may be a major change (i.e. something similar to what Hansen refers to that you cite) in the next set of reactors that could push construction costs back the other way. I'm not in favor of banning all funding for nuclear development or anything like that (although I don't want a single new plant constructed anywhere until there is a long-term storage plan for the waste).

 

I think of nuclear like I think of ethanol right now. It only exists because of a combination of previous efforts decades ago, sometimes for other reasons (i.e. bomb-building, corn subsidies) but it is not cost-effective right now and it will take a major leap forwards to make it cost-effective. There's nothing wrong with maintaining a research program on it and trying to work out the kinks, or putting together alternate ideas. But these loan guarantees are pretty much as valuable to me as the gigantic subsidies for corn-based-ethanol; they distort the market heavily at large taxpayer expense without significant, long-term gains. Maybe that changes quickly; if you could suddenly convert every ethanol plant to running switchgrass, that would do it. If you could suddenly cut the cost of new nuclear by 2/3, that would do it.

[Y2HH]

Just deliver my power as efficiently, cheaply and cleanly as possible. That's all.

Edited February 3, 2010 by Y2HH

[kapkomet]

Just deliver my power as efficiently, cheaply and cleanly as possible. That's all.

 

 

Unless it disrupts UTOPIA. Then, screw off, while I live in UTOPIA.

[Balta1701]

It may be years before I can say again how I agree with Senator Lindsey Graham, so I may as well take the chance.

"It's the 'kick the can down the road' approach," said Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. "It's putting off to another Congress what really needs to be done comprehensively. I don't think you'll ever have energy independence the way I want until you start dealing with carbon pollution and pricing carbon. The two are interconnected."

 

Senate moderates from both parties -- including Agriculture Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), and Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) -- are pushing Obama to accept an energy-only approach without putting a price on carbon emissions the way the House-passed bill (H.R. 2454 (pdf)) does.

 

...

"If the approach is to try to pass some half-assed energy bill and say that's moving the ball down the road, forget it with me," Graham said, adding that the energy-only proposal does not do enough to promote nuclear power and it ignores revenue sharing for states that agree to offshore oil and gas exploration.

[southsider2k5]

This is from my own backyard, in a little town that is still in our school system, but outside of our city limits in Porter County.

 

This statement is from the PINES group. As a reminder, the EPA will be in town Tuesday the 9th at the Pines Baptist Church on Highway 20 at 6:30pm.

 

Radioactive Materials and Yard 520 Landfill Risk Assessment

 

All coal contains naturally occurring radioactive materials. These are not destroyed nor altered by coal's transformation to flyash. As a result, flyash in Yard 520 in the Town of Pines contains radioactive materials.

 

Data collected for the Yard 520 cleanup enforced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) shows flyash radium measurements exceeding the radioactive soil cleanup criteria commonly used by USEPA’s Region 5 office. However, Yard 520 soil radiation data lack most of the essential radionuclides to do a full risk assessment.

 

Although risk from Yard 520 has focused on chemical contaminants in drinking water, no data on radiation levels in home drinking water has been located in Yard 520 data. Radium and uranium are regulated by USEPA drinking water regulations. USEPA should have collected data directly from homes to determine if this added to the chemical hazards. If monitor well data is substituted for direct measurements of home drinking water for the risk assessment, it will never be clear that these risks are the true risks.

 

The PINES Group in October 2009 walked many roads in the Town of Pines with a radiation meter that showed, where flyash was believed to have been dispersed, radiation levels were at least twice background levels. Statistically, twice background is considered distinctly above normal. As a result, the PINES Group report recommended further investigation and measurement to establish the source and level of risk but USEPA has not followed up.

 

The PINES Group used the experience of a retired Region 5 USEPA Superfund radiation expert and radiation risk assessor to project human health risk from just flyash contaminated soil. USEPA methods and risk coefficients were used. The levels for this one pathway appear to substantially exceed the upper limit of USEPA’ s Superfund acceptable risk range.

 

As Region 5 USEPA conducts its Yard 520 risk assessment and its anticipated cleanup it must recognize radiation as a significant aspect of these actions.

[iamshack]

Just to give you guys an inside perspective, I trade electricity for a living, and I know the costs of a lot of the types of units you guys are discussing here. I'm going to be more vague than I'd like because I can't divulge specifics, but here are the basics.

 

We have a partnership in a very large solar project, and I can tell you it costs around $150-165/mWh, which translates to 15 - 16.5 cents/kWh.

 

Our coal units run anywhere from .02 - .03/kWh.

Our gas units, with a current gas price around $5.25/mmbtu, and depending on their particular capabilities and design, run anywhere from about .03 - .07/kWh.

 

We have several renewable units, mostly which are geothermal, which I don't even price out because they are "must takes," meaning we take the energy regardless of the cost to satisfy state and federal standards.

 

We have several wind projects due to come online shortly, the costs of which I am not aware of as of now. However, as some people have mentioned, in regards to the renewable intermittent resources, you must back them with traditional fossil fuel sources, which means those units must remain online and "hot," meaning they are burning gas or coal.

 

The other costs you have to associate with all these renewable resources are those that are going to have to go into re-designing and re-constructing the electricity grid. The current grid is simply not able to withstand the large shifts and swings intermittent resources will most likely cause.

[StrangeSox]

This is from my own backyard, in a little town that is still in our school system, but outside of our city limits in Porter County.

 

This statement is from the PINES group. As a reminder, the EPA will be in town Tuesday the 9th at the Pines Baptist Church on Highway 20 at 6:30pm.

 

Coal plants put out more radioactive pollution than even our Gen II nuclear plants.

[Balta1701]

Coal plants put out more radioactive pollution than even our Gen II nuclear plants.

(If you don't count the waste material)

[BigSqwert]

World's First Light-Powered Circuit Created

[NorthSideSox72]

World's First Light-Powered Circuit Created

That is some cool stuff.

 

[StrangeSox]

(If you don't count the waste material)

 

(Which you shouldn't, because its contained and not shot into the air, but it gives another argument for building newer plants that generate less waste with much shorter half-lifes and can actually use up a lot of the stored fuel)

[Balta1701]

Thanks to the moderate El Nino this year, last month was the warmest January ever in the satellite recorded temperature records. We're also basically at the temperature level recorded in the monster el nino of 1998, even though this is a moderate El Nino and it didn't peak last time until later in the year.

 

 

Remember all those articles a year or two ago, probably somewhere in this thread, about how global cooling was a serious threat because that really cold december showed that the Earth's temperature was now rapidly declining? Based on that argument, in 5 years the earth is now going to be as warm as Venus.

[Y2HH]

Thanks to the moderate El Nino this year, last month was the warmest January ever in the satellite recorded temperature records. We're also basically at the temperature level recorded in the monster el nino of 1998, even though this is a moderate El Nino and it didn't peak last time until later in the year.

 

 

Remember all those articles a year or two ago, probably somewhere in this thread, about how global cooling was a serious threat because that really cold december showed that the Earth's temperature was now rapidly declining? Based on that argument, in 5 years the earth is now going to be as warm as Venus.

 

I'll be fine, I'm Kevin Costner's friend, and he will know where dry land is.

[Balta1701]

1/4 of the U.S.'s nuclear plants are leaking tritium.

[StrangeSox]

I'm pretty sure Clinton had a leak as well a few years back.

[bmags]

quality jay leno impression

[StrangeSox]

LOL

I actually meant the plant about half way between ISU and UIUC.

Edited February 8, 2010 by StrangeSox

[BigSqwert]

LOL