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New Nuclear Reactors For The UK: Is This Really A Good Idea?
Posted by Chris Vernon on January 4, 2008 - 10:19am in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Alternative energy
Tags: eroei, nuclear, united kingdom, uranium [list all tags]
...not when you take into account the uranium-peak, the energy return on energy invested in the nuclear life-cycle, and the prospect of much of the legacy of nuclear waste being abandoned for ever.This is a guest article by Dr. David Fleming. Fleming is the Founder Director of the Lean Economy Connection, and an independent writer in the fields of energy, environment, economics, society and culture. The article is based on Fleming’s recent 56-page booklet, The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy, which expands and references the arguments presented. The booklet is available to download here: The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy |  |
“New nuclear power stations potentially have a role to play in tackling climate change and improving energy security. Having concluded the full public consultation we will announce our final decision early in the New Year.”And he added that the planning process would be “streamlined”, which means that it will not be held up by long public enquiries. This appears to be something the Government is determined will happen quickly.
Bloomberg
There are, however, some questions to be raised about this plan. ~The first question is, where will the uranium needed to fuel the new reactors will come from? My own research, The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy, concludes that, as early as 2013, there will be substantial shortages of uranium worldwide.
At present, annual demand for uranium is running at about 65,000 tonnes. Some 25,000 tonnes of this comes from sources other than mining, and it will be largely exhausted by 2013. 10,000 tonnes is derived from military uranium, the highly-enriched uranium used in Russia’s stockpile of nuclear weapons left over from the Cold War. Russia’s contract to supply the United States with fuel from this source ends in 2013, and it will not be renewed. Indeed, by that time, Russia’s store of military uranium will itself be running low.
Most of the remaining 15,000 tonnes comes from “secondary supplies” – that is, from stockpiles of uranium which were built up when supplies were abundant and comparatively cheap in the 1970s. This, source, too, is getting low, and by the middle of the next decade it will be doing little or nothing to fill the gap between demand and the annual 40,000 tonnes of mined uranium supply.
The supply of mined uranium is stuck at that level, and it now looks likely to decline. Of the dozen nations which are significant sources of uranium, only Kazakhstan shows a useful rate of growth – enough for the time being to compensate for a general decline among the smaller producers. But the industry’s hopes of being able to increase its uranium output depend now on two big developments: Cigar Lake in Canada and Olympic Dam in Australia.
Neither of them are looking happy at the moment. Cigar Lake has flooded. The owners are working on the problem, and in principle this could involve freezing the rock around the uranium workings. But clearly this would be an extremely energy-intensive programme and there are doubts whether it will happen. Olympic Dam is at present an underground mine, and the plan is to expand it to opencast, but there is a fundamental problem: the average ore grade is 0.029 percent, on the margin of what is even theoretically capable of yielding net energy.
Whether this is in fact rich enough to give a net energy return is disputable, and as a contribution to the debate, The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy suggests that the usual measure of energy return on energy invested (EREI) needs some refinement. On the one hand, there is the theoretical energy return on energy invested (TREI) – which means that you can get net energy from the process under ideal laboratory or prototype conditions, assuming there are no other problems. On the other hand, there is the practical return on energy invested (PREI), which takes the real world into account.
In the case of Olympic Dam, the real world is present, big time: the process of producing uranium oxide requires water – but Olympic Dam is in an area of deep drought. It will require imports of diesel with an energy content not far short of the energy ultimately derived from the uranium. There is some 350 metres of rock overburden to be removed before the ore is reached. If the project does go ahead, this will be because the ore also contains copper, gold and silver, but even this presents problems, because the copper is contaminated with uranium which has to be removed. For a practical return on energy invested (PREI), and in a mine with no secondary products such as gold, a mining company would probably require an ore-quality of 0.1 percent uranium or better. And bear in mind that if the return on energy invested in uranium mining turns negative, the carbon emissions associated with using it are higher than the emissions that would be released if the gas and diesel employed in the process were simply used to generate electricity directly.
In short, both Cigar Lake and Olympic Dam have yet to show that they have a contribution to make. Even if they did go ahead according to plan, total output by the middle of the next decade would still be some 15,000 tonnes short of demand. If it is decided not to go ahead with them, the world’s uranium production will be launched on a downward trajectory in line with post-peak oil. We are already hearing the protests characteristic at this stage in the depletion process, that “rising prices will stimulate exploration and bring rich new supplies onto the market”. But you can’t run a nuclear reactor on rhetoric.
A cautious view would say “Let’s wait and see”. A useful view would make an informed estimate of the most likely outcomes, and correct it in the light of events. It is a reasonable estimate that, by 2015, the worldwide availability of uranium from all sources will be lower than it is at present. Meanwhile, reactors are being built in China and Russia, both of whom have heavyweight influence in the uranium market. All this means that if the UK Government goes ahead with the construction of, say, four nuclear reactors, ready to go online after 2015, the probability is that they will remain unused. They will be mothballed “until the temporary shortage of uranium has been resolved” – and then they will be quietly left to rot. A possible variant of this is that they will indeed be started up; however, the energy pay-back time for a new nuclear reactor is around seven years (or more, depending in part on the ore grade) so – even if they actually went on line in 2015 – they would not begin to make a net energy contribution until 2022. On current evidence, there is no reasonable prospect of the sustained flow of uranium that would be needed to make this possible.
Meanwhile, the construction projects will have diverted money and policy emphasis away from the fundamentals of energy conservation, structural reform and renewables, and we will be deep into the post-oil peak period without an energy strategy in place. The UK’s energy policy, (in common with that of many other nations), will have been reduced to fiasco.
The energy-cost of waste-disposal
Nuclear energy, as everyone knows, produces a lot of waste. Some of it is extremely radioactive and has to be stored for up to 100 years in ponds, separated by boron panels to stop it going critical, and cooled by electrically-driven water pumps to stop it catching fire. It also has to be guarded to protect it from being stolen or attacked. And it has to be kept out of the path of rising sea levels. All this is known, though it is sometimes forgotten.What is not so widely recognised is that the final disposal of waste will require a lot of energy. This begins to become clear when you think about what has to be done to keep high-level wastes safe for the thousands for years in which they must lie undisturbed. Containers have to be built from steel, lead and electrolytic copper; vast repositories have to be dug and lined with clay; much of the work needs to be done by robots; retired fuel-rods have to be kept cool and safe for a century or so before the final disposal programme begins. Then there is the energy-cost of dismantling and burying the old reactors, doing the best that can done to rehabilitate the disused uranium mines to some semblance of sustainability and safety, and dealing with the stocks of leaking depleted uranium hexafluoride gas. (It is “depleted” in the sense that it has been used as a source of the uranium-235 needed by reactors, but some uranium-235 and all the uranium-238 remains).
So far, there is no sign that we have even begun to think through the implications of the legacy of nuclear waste at present being stored around the planet, and the energy-cost of dealing with it. On the contrary, the only nuclear-waste-related programme that has so far been consistently and (on some criteria) successfully implemented is the use of DU to increase the density of the new generation of armaments. For evidence of the medical consequences and mutations arising from this, and the work of Dr Siegwart-Horst Günther in investigating it, see http://www.criticalconcern.com/depleted_uranium.htm and the Frieder Wagner film Deadly Dust. Action to decontaminate areas where it was used in Iraq and, to a lesser extent, in Kosovo, will never amount to more than mitigation, but it is part of the nuclear clear-up programme, and it is urgent that it should be done before the radioactive dust is blown through Central Europe and beyond. An international recognition that DU qualifies as a prohibited weapon under the Geneva and Hague Conventions, would be at least a first step towards focusing on the disturbing potential of the planet’s nuclear legacy. A second step would be to take action with respect to the many thousands of tonnes of depleted uranium hexafluoride gas, now in storage all over the planet in containers originally designed to be “temporary”.
To deal with the total legacy of waste left by a nuclear reactor through its whole life-cycle requires energy equivalent to about 25 percent of the gross energy supplied by the reactor to the grid. That is a working estimate, which will vary with time and place; the numbers depend critically on the standard of waste management that is adopted – it could of course be done to leaky cowboy standards for less. But that 25 percent – derived from Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen’s work at http://www.stormsmith.nl/, gives us an outline for thinking about it. And note that it is based on like-for-like energy: the unit of account is high-quality energy, the energy that nuclear reactors generate and fed to the grid. In fact, much of the work of clearing the waste would be diesel – which, for each joule it contains, yields roughly one third of a joule of work (mechanical energy and electricity). So, at current efficiency levels, for every joule of energy needed to clean up the nuclear industry’s waste, diesel containing roughly three times that amount of energy is needed.
Now, the nuclear energy industry is just coming up to its sixtieth birthday (1950-2010). That means that there is about 60 years-worth of accumulated waste – the “legacy” – to get rid of. 25 percent of that equals 15 years of nuclear electricity production.
And according to some estimates – very optimistic but at least convenient – there are some sixty years of uranium left (at current rates of production). That would mean another 15 years of nuclear electricity production needed just to get rid of the waste that will be produced in the future.
Moreover, the nuclear industry needs a lot of front-end energy too – all the energy used to mine and mill the fuel, build the reactor, etc. That, too, comes to around 25 percent of the nuclear energy produced for the grid.
So, what would this mean for a nuclear industry that really did have the prospect of another sixty years supply of uranium? Subtract (15+15+15) years from the total of 60 years, and we are left with a net flow of nuclear electricity lasting for another 15 years. By 2025, on these assumptions, the nuclear industry will have reached the point at which it must use the whole of its net electricity output (i.e. net of front-end energy costs) to deal with its wastes. If (before 2025) it has not made a substantial start on the waste-disposal programme, and if (after 2025) it does not direct the whole of its net output into the task of waste disposal, it will never be able to dispose of its own wastes using its own energy (or energy equal to its own output from another source). On the assumptions set out here, therefore, the nuclear industry will, in 2025, become energy-bankrupt.
Now, what if there were substantially less – or substantially more – than 60 years supply of uranium left? Some estimates are set out in the table. Suppose, for instance, there were only 30 years supply left (i.e. 2010-2040). That gives us a turning point to energy- bankruptcy in 2010. If there were a mere 10 years supply left (2010-2020), the year of energy-bankruptcy would be 2000.
YEARS OF NET NUCLEAR ENERGY REMAINING FROM 2010 at current rates of extraction. (Assumed start-date for industry 1950. Assumed present 2010. Numbers in years) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Estimate: years of positive PREI ore remaining | 10 | 30 | 60 | 200 |
| 2. Front-end: process energy (25% remaining years) | 2.5 | 7.5 | 15 | 50 |
| 3. Energy to clear new waste (25% of remaining years) | 2.5 | 7.5 | 15 | 50 |
| 4. Energy to clear old waste (25% of past 60 years) | 15 | 15 | 15 | 15 |
| 5. Total needed for front end plus back end (2+3+4) | 20 | 30 | 45 | 115 |
| 6. Years remaining (1-5) | -10 | 0 | 15 | 85 |
| 7. Year of energy-bankruptcy: all energy produced is needed to dispose of new and old waste: (6+2010) | 2000 | 2010 | 2025 | 2095 |
| Suppose the industry, starting with no waste, has 200 years before its usable ore runs out. During that time, it
generates a gross amount of energy which it feeds into the grid, but at the same time it must (a) provide the energy needed for its own
front-end operation, (b) pay back the energy it used to mine its ore, build its reactors, etc., and (c) clear up its own wastes. As
explained in chapter 3, pp 17-18, each of these amount to about 25 percent of its gross energy output. Therefore that amount – 75 percent
of its gross output, must be subtracted to find the number of years for which the industry can continue before using the whole of its
output to pay back its energy debt and clear up its wastes. There are other ways in which this could be calculated – for instance, using net output (gross output less the front-end energy cost factored in over time); or the back-end work could start sooner. These would tell slightly different stories, but they would be equally valid. The method shown in the table is a reminder that the industry actually supplies less energy (net) than the gross energy that it puts into the grid. At a time of energy scarcity, this is a key consideration. And it tells us how long the industry has left before waste-disposal becomes the reason for its existence. | ||||
Are there other usable sources of uranium?
In the light of this, it would come as a relief even to those of us who see nuclear energy as being part of the energy problem, rather than part of the solution, to think that there were some other sources of uranium to sustain supplies while the nuclear industry devotes its final years to the task of cleaning itself up. Various sources have been considered.For example, there is uranium in granite – about 4 parts per million or 0.0004 percent. The problem here is that it would require so much energy to extract it that the energy used by the nuclear cycle as a whole would amount to around 25 times the energy produced. Seawater also contains some 30 parts per billion, or 0.000003 percent. Here, the energy balance would be better, but the nuclear life-cycle would still use about twice as much energy as it was able to extract and make available to the grid. Phosphate ores are more promising, with uranium concentrations of between 0.007 and 0.23 percent, with an average of around 0.01 percent: the higher-grade ores might give a break-even energy balance in theory, but they still fall a long way short of the cut-off point for a practical return (PREI), which is around 0.1 percent.
And that leaves fast-breeders, based on plutonium-239. The problem here is, first of all, that successful breeding requires three processes: the breeding itself, reprocessing and fuel fabrication. These are fiercely-difficult technologies, awash with radioactive pollutants such as plutonium-241, americium, technetium and other transuranic actinides which have to be separated out (using solvents with a high global warming potential) and then disposed of. Each of the steps has been achieved under test conditions, but sustaining them all three concurrently, safely, on a commercial scale and at a realistic cost is another matter; indeed, there are some doubts as to whether all these criteria can be met at the same time, even in theory. (See The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy, chapter 4).
Secondly, we need to be aware of the limitations of scale here. In the highly-unlikely event of being able to perfect the technology and find sufficient plutonium to start, say, 80 breeders worldwide in 25 years time (2035), then, 40 years later (2075), we would have 160 fast breeders in operation. And that would be our entire fleet of nuclear reactors, for the 440 conventional reactors now in operation – and their successors – will by then be out of fuel.
And thorium? It is an inelegant technology, lumbering through a decay sequence from thorium 232 to thorium-233 to protactinium-233 – and eventually to uranium 233 – along with a swarm of contaminants including the neutron-emitters uranium-232 and thorium-228. Added complications include the long half-life of the protactinium-233 (27 days), so that it lingers around, causing problems in the reactor, and the awkward fact that uranium-233 can be used in nuclear weapons. Then there is the question of what start-up fuel to use: the best one would be uranium-233, but you only get a supply of that at the end of the first cycle. If plutonium-239 is available, it would seem to be more sensible to use it for the fast-breeder programme than to start the even more uncertain thorium cycle. And the problem of scale is even more decisive in the case of the thorium cycle than in the case of fast-breeders. On the best estimate available at present, and pretending for a moment that the technical difficulties are eventually solved, we could look forward in 2075 to a global fleet of perhaps two thorium-based reactors.
How should the remaining years of nuclear energy be used?
Now, that takes us back to the range of depletion forecasts in the table. Opinion will vary, without real prospect of agreement, between the three more realistic turning-points 10, 30 and 60 years hence (2030, 2050 and 2070) beyond which the production of uranium from mines can no longer be sustained at the current rate – and we should bear in mind that actual shortages of uranium will occur well before those dates as the world’s inventories are used up. In my own view, it is sensible to see sustained uranium supplies at current levels lasting for another 10-30 years. This would give us a point of energy-bankruptcy at between 2000 and 2010 – which would mean that the nuclear industry has in effect already passed the point of energy-bankruptcy. On the other hand, critics could rationally argue a case for a production turning-point of 60 years from the present – and that’s fine, but note that this would give us a point of energy bankruptcy in 2025. In other words, unless one is going to take a truly incoherent view and argue that production can be sustained at the current rate for 200 years, it is evident that the end of the life of the nuclear industry as a net source of energy is at hand, and may already have passed. Nuclear energy is not going to be a solution to the coming hydrocarbon-based energy famine. We have a problem.After the turning-point to energy-bankruptcy, there is a spectrum of choices. At one extreme, it will be agreed that the task of disposing of nuclear waste is so important that the other sources of energy – such as oil – must be directed into the mammoth task of dealing with the nuclear industry’s waste-disposal programme.
At the other extreme, the waste will be left to fend for itself for thousands of years to come. It is unlikely that the electricity supply needed to cool the high-level waste and stop it catching fire will be maintained for that time. There will be no maintenance to prevent leaks, no security to prevent theft, no action to remove high-level wastes from their temporary repositories close to sea-level, and nothing to prevent UF6 gas leaking into the atmosphere. So far, no environmental impact assessment of this situation has been made.
In the light of all this, it is clear that the way forward is to discard any pretence that any of the Big Four energy options are going to be available in the future. Nor is it realistic to hope that renewables will fill the energy gap, The only available option is a systems-approach to energy:
-
Step 1. Develop the conservation options and technologies as far as possible and with all speed.
Step 2. Move ahead with root-and-branch structural change in the whole pattern of energy use, based on the “proximity principle”, and following through the implications for transport, industry, food-production, leisure, land-use and settlement patterns. This has to be a bottom-up process, calling (at long last) on the intelligence and inventiveness of the people rather than relying on government regulation.
Step 3. Develop renewables systems and technologies to match the requirements of Steps 1 and 2. These will be to a large extent localised systems under local control and designed for particular local conditions and energy sources. Local self reliance, local responsibility, local monitoring and local intelligence will need to come together in local systems.
And these three steps – the Lean Energy formula – require a framework, guiding the energy descent, providing ample notice for the dramatic structural changes that will be needed, and guaranteeing all energy users a fair entitlement to supplies of energy throughout this long, ambitious, life-changing programme. Such a framework exists in Tradable Energy Quotas (TEQs), www.teqs.net (previously discussed on The Oil Drum here).
Conclusion
In this article, I have explained why nuclear energy will not provide solutions, or even a rational response, to the coming energy famine. The industry should now be required to use its remaining capability as a source of energy to deal with the legacy of waste which will otherwise be left to contaminate the planet in perpetuity. The implications of that legacy of waste being left untended indefinitely should as an overriding priority be scientifically assessed and published. And I leave you with the conclusion that, whatever details may still be missing from this under-researched subject, the nuclear energy is a life-cycle in trouble.The United Kingdom Government might think it is worth taking some of these remarks into account before going ahead with its planned new generation of nuclear reactors.
25% of the entire energy output of a reactor used to manage waste???
You do realise that the Storm-smith work has been entirely discredited?
Yes, there could be some fairly near term issues with Uranium supply, because the price has been unrealistically cheap for a long time. No, we will not run out in the forseeable future.
There is one question I'd really like you to answer - what would it take (in theory) to convince you that this 'Lean energy formula' is not the right way forward?
And what would it take "to convince you" that giant mining companies like BHP Billiton do not make a living out of seeking out expensive sources of uranium and other minerals?
Please take a look at:
The big hole
An even bigger hole
and let us know how to solve this problem.
Do you realise your comment has been entirely discredited? :-p
I expect better from TOD readers than that.
Storm has recently revised his work in response to various critiques.
By all means publish a critique of his current work, and link to it here in a comment.
Storm has recently revised his work in response to various critiques.
No they haven't. They issued a number of content free rebuttals about how their models are better than actual measured reality.
They're frauds.
It's so easy to call someone who says something unpalatable a fraud.
Feel free to publish a detailed rebuttal.
http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/SSRebuttalResp
The university of melbourne study actually measures energy inputs from mines and plants constructed, but hey, if it doesnt match your model, start making crap up I suppose.
Storm and Smith are prima donna liars with an axe to grind.
The Nuclearinfo site was a welcome dissection of the hyperbole of Storm van Leeuwen and Smith (SLS). In particular, it destroyed their claim that nuclear power's EROEI dips below one as ore grades are lowered by showing that SLS's predictive formulae for the energy requirements of uranium extraction overestimate energy use in existing mines by up to two orders of magnitude. With accuracy this suspect I find it suprising that any author would risk their credibility by basing their argument of future uranium scarcity solely on the work of SLS.
I recently discovered an even more detailed critique of their methods by Roberto Dones, a LCA researcher at the Paul Scherrer Institute, in Switzerland:
Critical note on the estimation by Storm van Leeuwen J.W. and Smith P. of the energy uses and corresponding CO2 emissions from the complete nuclear energy chain
Dezakin:
While the sheer scale of their exaggeration makes ad hominem attacks attractive, I find this approach counterproductive in convincing those who quote SLS. Although pointing out that they are solar power proponents who conducted their initial study at the behest of the ideologically anti-nuclear Green parties of the European Parliament is tempting. Just as one could quote David Fleming's belief that:
and ponder why he would question the viability of nuclear power.
Overall, though, I find it far more effective to merely state SLS's assumptions and follow through their logic with frequent comparison to reality. Playing the ball rather than the man really doesn't leave their supporters with much to throw back at you.
Having said all that...there's just something downright untrustworthy about a man with a handlebar moustache.
Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen
rebutting some of this article:
In a comment that I have down below I list two companies (Sparton Resources of Canada and Wildhorse Energy. (5000-15000 tons of uranium per year from European flyash alone.)
http://www.wise-uranium.org/upeur.html#AJKA
Flyash is 160-180 parts per million uranium. 40 times better than granite.
Uranium mining info
http://www.wise-uranium.org/indexu.html#UMMCI
Uranium prices are substantially off of their peak
http://www.uxc.com/review/uxc_Prices.aspx
Only two thorium reactors in 2075 ? There is a project to make thorium fuel rods that can be used in most existing nuclear reactors. This seems likely to succeed in 3 years.
MIT Tecnology Review discusses the efforts to get thorium used in reactors for less waste (unburned fuel)
the Fuji Molten Salt Reactor (which could use thorium) seems to be 8-9 years from completion. The Fuji Molten salt reactor could burn 99.9% of the plutonium, uranium and thorium. So it would handle the waste issue and with profitable energy generation not some made up cost for waste handling.
The Hyperion power generation uranium hydride reactor scheduled for 2012 completion can also use thorium hydride A good hydride reactor design would burn 50% of the fuel instead of current 1-2% reducing fuel demand and leftover waste.
CANDU-type reactors - AECL is researching the thorium fuel cycle application to enhanced CANDU-6 and ACR-1000 reactors. With 5% plutonium (reactor grade) plus thorium high burn-up and low power costs are indicated. CANDU reactors can breed fuel from natural thorium, if uranium is unavailable.
The best way to get rid of the current and future waste is to build better reactors that burn all of the fuel and can generate electricity from existing waste.
The plan to use some expensive method to handle the unburned fuel is like saying if we used dollar bills for a nuclear waste incinerator it would cost a lot of money. Yes that would be expensive and an idiotic plan.
Amen --well said. And thanks for the excellent links.
Harm
Thanks for the comments referencing my post.
It is disappointing that certain data and projects is chosen to be ignored by many of those on the oil drum when it does not fit their pre-determined view. The lack of concern over air pollution deaths and ignoring solutions to flaws surrounding proposed alternatives.
Thanks advancednano ... some good links there.
Tell me, when you say the Thorium cycle "can" breed fuel grade U233 - what is the energy economics of that process ? ... is it a process that should be promoted irrespective of the available Uranium sources ?
Is that CANDU / AECL Thorium cycle really just R&D stage, or is there proven (economically viable) breeder technology from UK's previous "fast breeder" technology ?
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-81620/thorium-processing
When bombarded by thermalized neutrons (usually released by the fission of uranium-235 in a nuclear reactor), thorium-232 is converted to thorium-233. This isotope decays to protactinium-233, which in turn decays to uranium-233.
http://thoriumenergy.blogspot.com/2006/06/latest-developments-on-u-233-s...
If you get a mass of uranium 235 or plutonium or some other source of thermalized neutrons and put it with the thorium then you initiate the reactions which lead to uranium 233.
http://thoriumenergy.blogspot.com is the place to learn more.
Well, does this mean I have to do a complete rebuttal of the work every single time another indentikit green group uses it as a primary reference for another anti-nuclear screed? It's as bad as global warming denialists reusing the same arguments again and again and again..
I expect better from TOD contributors than to be uncritical of their sources.
I think the implied suggestion was that you could write a full and detailed article, then post it here on TOD or elsewhere, then every time the "wrong" ideas come up, you can just link them to your article.
I've done that with a few little issues, it saves me a lot of typing and hassle.
It'd also prevent the arguments from simply being, "I think X"
"X is wrong, and you're stupid if you think so."
"Why?"
"It's so stupid I don't even have to refute it."
"Well then, you poopyhead!"
"No, you poopyhead!"
Not terribly informative or useful.
Peak-Oil, Global Warming, Nuclear-Sustainability ... they all suffer from the same problem.
On the face of it they are "scientific" problems to be addressed "scientifically" - but there are just not enough hours in the day, nor enough good-will amongst the combatants, to construct logically watertight cases either way on every point of contention. (At least not before the resources run out.)
There will be exaggeration, incentives, hyperbole, interests, axe-grinding and good-old-fashioned rhetoric, you name it - so long as the method is (entirely) adversarial.
So, as we find (in the microcosm of this thread) that we have to use more than "science". We have to use "wisdom" and the appearance of handle-bar moustaches. Think about it (the value of good-will) and get used to it, quick.
(Interesting article and thread BTW - I must follow-up some of the secondary source references, in order to contribute.)
It is as bad, and also it is as helpful to government in protecting its future fossil fuel income. It makes sense that the tactics would be the same. Decent people whack the moles, AGW deniers/antinukes pop up previously whacked ones ready for another go.
How shall the car gain nuclear cachet?
Perhaps you can show how man can make machines that do not fail, then apply that to the most excellent history of the non-failure of fission power reactors and the most excellent history of the uranium processing industry.
Well, come on.
Wanna try?
fluffy,
Link to a long argument you or someone else has previously made on a subject.
As a blogger I find I do not to bore my regular readers by repeatedly saying the same thing at length. But that is why HTML has the "a href" tag. You can link to things.
Remember that some people who have never heard about some argument or study will first read you say something about it in a thread that does not necessarily have a link in it to the best arguments on the topic. Well, provide some links. Provide a useful public service to make the readers more informed.
Just saying that people are speaking nonsense is easy and lazy and I occasionally even do it. But resist the temptation. It is far more effective to link to useful information that rebuts what is being said.
Current price is an irrelevancy, to a large degree. The mining companies will be making decisions based on projected future prices.
The real limiting factors are environmental damage and EROEI, as Fleming states.
EROEI a problem? It has been well documented here numerous times that a nuclear power plant has an EROEI in one carefully measured example of 93. That is excellent compared to other power sources,
Whatever its EROEI today, it'll decline in future. This is for the same reasons as oil. You have two oil/uranium reserves - one is hard to get and not very rich, the other is easy to get and rich, which do you exploit first? So the easiest and richest ores have mostly been found, what's left is the harder to exploit stuff.
As it gets harder to get, and the ores drop in richness, the EROEI will drop, until at some point it drops below 1:1.
It's just the same as oil. We even get the same sorts of scams telling us, "oh but this particular really hard and polluting to extract source will give us enough forever! Totally, we wouldn't exagerrate just to get big investments, honest." Tar sands, in situ leaching, oil from chicken carcasses, thorium reactors, same shit, different shovel.
Whatever its EROEI today, it'll decline in future. At some point we're going to have to figure out ways to maintain civilisation without burning anything.
You realize even for light water reactors the ore density for most granites is well enough to be energy positive, and for breeder reactor regimes the energy density of any piece of average crust is several times that of coal.
The first is obviously untrue simply because different technologies have different energy cost ratios. Centrifuge enrichment is more than 50 times less energy intensive than gasseous diffusion enrichment, or for simple fuel consumption, liquid fluoride breeder regimes are 200 times as fuel efficient as light water reactor regimes. But when the energy cost of mining the fuel is less than 1/500th the energy produced from light water reactors, there isn't an urgency to move to more efficient techniques.
The point where we have to maintain civilization without burning nuclear fuel because of fuel exhaustion is very simply beyond the scope of argument. If you burn all the recoverable uranium and thorium in breeder reactors, thats 1 ton per GW/year. When theres 160 trillion tons of it in the crust and the solar flux is on the order of 10^16 watts, it would take some 16 million years to burn it all at a rate that doesnt start to literally melt the planet. The long term scalability bottleneck for nuclear power isn't fuel avaliability, its heat rejection...
I'm stunned by your level of optimism about nuclear power. It exceeds that even of BHP Billiton, various atomic energy promoters, and so on.
When your optimism is even greater than the people who stand to make literally billions of dollars from it, I think it's time to question just how much you really do know.
Liquid fluoride breeders? 1/500th? 1t per GWyr? 160 Tt recoverable? Apparently the laws of physics and chemistry are different in your universe. I hope you enjoy yourself there.
You're concerned about the energy cost of mining the Fuel right? After all, the other energy costs in nuclear power dont change with ore depletion, but the energy cost for fuel does.
http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeEnergyLifecycleOfNuclear_Power
The Rossing mine produced 3037 tonnes of Uranium in 2004, which is sufficient for 15 GigaWatt-years of electricity with current reactors. The energy used to mine and mill this Uranium was about 3% of a GigaWatt-year. Thus the energy produced is about 500 times more than the energy required to operate the mine. The ore grade from the rossing mine is lower than most other comercial ore grades at 300 ppm.
This is measured energy cost of existing mine operations. I can't be optimistic about the past!
We can make a rather simple assumption that energy cost is inversely proportional to the ore grade:
http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/UraniuamDistribution
The resource base from shales and phosphates on down with an energy payback ratio of 16-32 on the cost of mining the fuel in modern light water reactor regimes alone is 1 trillion tons of uranium, some 250000 years worth of fuel if you were running 20000 1GW reactors.
There may be other factors against large rampup of nuclear power, but fuel avaliability isn't one of them.
But if you must, teach me physics and chemistry, I'm eager to learn.
So, you're assuming all the other energy costs are magically constant? Not at all tainted by the cost of (nuclear) electricity? Or any other energy cost escalators (like fossil fuel depletion, etc)?
Hmmm, I think not.
Of course they're constant! The energy cost of manufacturing cement or refining steel or most of all enriching uranium is static. It takes 50MW to run a centrifuge enrichment plant weather you're getting the uranium from 20% ore or 20ppm ore. The only thing that costs more in terms of energy is the ore extraction.
So the energy costs of providing the energy aren't to be considered.
That is cheating!
Okay work it out for me. Say your mine consumes .03 GW/years to produces some 3037 tonnes of uranium at 300ppm. The energy return here is about 500.
Say you mine out all of this and are reduced to using ores at 150ppm requiring .06 GW/years for a similar amount of fuel, the energy return here is about 250. This doesn't cause the energy cost of the enrichment plant to double, or of the steel plant or the concrete plant.
I didn't say it would double, but as we move to more energy-expensive energy, there is an inflationary effect. Is it really that difficult to understand?
Okay, so you want to run the sigma all the way down the line to the beginning of time?
EnergyCost = DynamicCost + DynamicCost*energycost yesterday(...)
+ FixedCost + FixedCost*energycost yesterday(...)
This turns into an accountants paradise where you can prove left is purple and you paid your taxes up to 2373.
If the numbers dont add up the way you like, start including the energy budget of the accountants and hairdressers for the engineers that worked on the car that the plant operator used to drive to work.
Kiashu:
You have often asserted that the pro-nuclear side is populated by companies like BHP Billiton, but do you realize just how many large, established energy companies have a lot of skin in the game on the side of opposition to nuclear power?
Companies like Peabody Coal, Chesapeake Energy, Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, BP, Ashland Coal, ADM, GE, Siemens, and Aramoco all sell products that compete directly with nuclear fission power. In total, they make far more money than do the suppliers of nuclear fuels and nuclear power plants.
The world's current fleet of 440 nuclear power plants produce the energy equivalent of 12 million barrels of oil per day. Just imagine for a moment how different yesterday's headlines would be in an alternative reality where the developed world did not stop building nuclear power plants in the 1990s and instead continued on the building rate that had been established in the 1970s and 1980s. I figure that the contribution from nuclear power would be more like 50-60 million barrels of oil per day, and that the price of oil would be more like $20 per barrel than $100 per barrel. The difference in profits for coal, oil and gas companies is more than enough to make me suspect that they understand very well that opposition to nuclear power helps their bottom line.
As good investors, I would imagine that they have enjoyed the ROI that they have received on their well documented payments to anti-nuclear organizations like Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists, and Rocky Mountain Institute. (The lists of donors can sometimes be found on either the donor or the receiver web sites and are also matters of public record in some cases.)
Apply some critical thinking and realize that there is lots of money at stake on both sides of the issue. Then start doing some detailed research and visit facilities from both the nuclear and fossil industries. After doing that, I think your views might begin to change.
Rod Adams
Editor, Atomic Insights
Founder and CEO, Adams Atomic Engines, Inc.
(not bragging, just disclosing my affiliation)
I'm quite aware that while the pro-nuclear side is populated by those who stand to gain from nuclear power financially, the anti-nuclear side is also populated by those who stand to lose from it financially.
But that does not make both sides equally prejudiced. After all, many large mining companies like BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto mine both uranium and fossil fuels.
Had we built more nuclear power stations, the use of oil would be very little affected; nuclear power generates electricity, while oil is used for transport, chemicals and plastics. Globally, very little oil is used for electric power generation. It's false to say that X number of power stations are equal to Y barrels of oil, because electric power is used for some things, and oil for others, and currently the overlap's not very large in proportion.
That's why I wouldn't say, "oh, if only we'd all built wind turbines in the 1970s, think of how much oil we could have saved!" That in itself would save us very little oil at all.
The promotion of nuclear may have had a significant contribution to the use of coal, however. But while that would help our fossil fuel depletion problem, it wouldn't help our climate change problem. The reason the world saw a slight cooling in the 1960-70 period was that many factories and power stations put aerosols into the air - basically, soot. The soot blocked some sunlight, contributing to cooling. But we decided we didn't like things like London's "pea soup fog" killing several thousand people on winter, so we insisted on reducing particulate emissions - less soot. More nuclear and less coal power would have meant no 1950-70 cooling period, and we'd be another part of a degree towards that 2C threshold of catastrophic climate change.
We'd also be a lot closer to uranium depletion.
I assure you, I've done detailed research of these issues, about as much as one can do without taking an actual academic qualification in the thing. Living in Australia, I've been unable to visit a commercial nuclear reactor, but I have visited our research reactor. For this reason, in Western countries I'm fairly confident about day-to-day safety of nuclear power generation. But I am not confident about long-term safety in the West, or day-to-day safety in the Third World. After all, if we're promoting nuclear energy as a replacement for fossil fuels, we're promoting nuclear energy not just for the US and Australia and France, but for Ghana and PNG and Kenya and Vietnam. I'm not at all confident in them.
But as I keep saying, we don't have to mention safety at all, really. The key point is that uranium, like fossil fuels, is a finite resource; whereas solar, geothermal, wind and tidal are effectively infinite. It's simply stupid to tap into a finite resource when we can tap into an infinite one.
How can you possibly have done detailed research on these issues and make the ridiculously obviously wrong statement that we would be 'A lot closer' to uranium depletion. Its trivially easy to illustrate how wrong that is.
This is silly. These are all finite. In fact, the ultimate production capacity of geothermal power is demonstrably lower than the production capacity of nuclear, and they all stretch out millinea.
But I am not confident about long-term safety in the West, or day-to-day safety in the Third World.
*clap*
*clap*
Now, come on you pro-nuke people! Step up and respond to this issue of failure!
Building more nuclear powerplants in industrialized countries makes them more stable, especially in an era of energy scarcity.
Kiashu:
Apparently your research was not quite as extensive as you thought. While it is true that there is little oil used in the US for electrical power generation today, that is a relatively new phenomenon. Oil has little market share in electricity in developed countries because it was displaced by nuclear power plants. In the early part of the 1970s, for example, oil held a 17% market share in the US electricity market. Nuclear power was close to zero at that time.
As oil left the electricity market, nuclear power increased its market share. It is pretty easy to draw the graphs from the Energy Information Agency web site Table 8.2a Electricity Net Generation: Total (All Sectors), 1949-2006 - http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb0802a.html.
I have not found a similar link for the French experience, but I have read many histories that indicated that they were burning a lot of oil in their power plants before they made the decision to build nuclear plants. Taiwan, Japan, Mexico, and the UK all had similar experiences of replacing oil with nuclear and then having nuclear displace some other generation sources and supply part of the overall growth in the market.
My own personal experience with nuclear power plants is as a US naval officer - I can tell you without any possibility of contradiction that every single naval reactor is pushing a ship that would otherwise be burning oil. It has been at least 80 years since any country built a coal fired ship for their navy.
How can you be so certain of uranium depletion when you live in a country that has imposed a "three mines policy" that limited exploration and development of your vast land area to three already developed mines and you still supply about 25% of the world's uranium needs. Uranium is a fairly common metal with a concentration in the earth's crust that is about as high as tin.
With regard to your arrogant comments about using nuclear power in less developed countries, I can tell you that it is not really that hard to train people to do that job. By the time I was 27 years old, I was in charge of the engineering department on a submarine. We had about 40 nuclear trained people on the boat, most of them considered me to be old. Sure, establishing a cadre of well trained and experienced nukes is not an overnight task, but it certainly doable within a couple of decades, especially if the reactor systems are designed using the KISS principle.
Here is a paper that I wrote on the topic a couple of years after I founded AAE.
http://www.atomicengines.com/distributed.html
Rod Adams
Founder and CEO, Adams Atomic Engines, Inc.
Hi Dezakin, You said ...
This is a line I wanted to follow ... seemed a crucial item missing from the article. I have only general knowledge on this ... could you suggest some reading to back that up ?
Thanks
Just arithmetic.
A fluid fuel thorium breeder reactor produces about 1GW/year electric per ton of thorium.
A coal power plant that produces about 1GW/year consumes maybe some 3 million tons of coal.
Average crust concentration of uranium is some 1-3ppm and thorium some 12ppm... lets round down to 10ppm for fissile material for the average crust.
.00001 * 3,000,000 tons... You get 30 tons of uranium and thorium from the same amount of rock you have as the coal used to power a coal power plant. Average crust has 30 times the energy density of coal.
The article is not missing a conclusion about granites' usability as net-energy-yielding ores: it says they cannot be such ores, yielding only 4 percent as much energy as the extraction would take.
It does not go into any detail, so you might want to stay tuned and see if Fleming gets around to responding to my request for elaboration.
How shall the car gain nuclear cachet?
This was an unready posting that I inadvertently sent in.
I hit Edit thinking one of the Edit options might be Delete,
but I don't see such an option.
The article is not missing a conclusion about granites' usability as net-energy-yielding ores: it says they cannot be such ores, yielding only 4 percent as much energy as the extraction would take.
It does not go into any detail, so you might want to stay tuned and see if Fleming gets around to responding to my request for elaboration.
How shall the car gain nuclear cachet?
Dezakin & GRLCowan ... Ah, sorry it was not the energy density of the raw material aspect that I was questioning ...
I can see that might be plausible - even if the numbers are contentious, and of course the whole energy economics of the extraction and refinement processes does indeed come into play too.
What I picked up on in your quote Dezakin, was your reference to ...
... that seemed to be missing from the debate so far as I had noticed ... Seems very important if we are talking about potentially scarce raw material that we can "breed" new fuel ... what are the actual feasibilities / numbers for such regimes in commercial powerplants ?
Breeder regimes are generally missing from the debate because one side claims them to be entirely unnecissary given the vast quantities of uranium extractable from ore bodies (1 trillion tons at 10-20 ppm would last light water reactors millinea) while the other claims breeder regimes are impossible because they've never been commercialized.
In my view, breeder regimes might be commercialized if they have demonstrable cost advantages beyond mere fuel economy.
The most viable candidate I feel is the liquid fluoride thorium breeder pioneered by ORNL and prototyped as a small multi-megawatt reactor, as it has several cost advantages, namely low pressure, high thermodynamic efficiency, proliferation resistance (due to U232 contamination) and completely eliminating the need for fuel fabrication and enrichment. Most importantly it wouldn't require the massive pressure vessels light water reactors require, eliminating a serious supply chain bottleneck and thus have potentially much lower capital costs.
That it would require 1/200th the fuel, thorium (which is 3 times as abundant as uranium) and the waste stream is 1/1000th that of a light water reactor are nice for public relations, but I feel unimportant for competitiveness of the reactor regime.
More information on such reactors are avaliable at Kirk Sorensen's excellent website:
http://thoriumenergy.blogspot.com/
So, you build the test reactors, operate them for a decade to find any long term problem, build larger scale prototypes, operate them for 20 years or more to make sure the design is going to be cost-effective and not problematic, apply for regulatory approval, and then try build hundreds of them in a hurry, only to find that other resource shortages are hampering your construction efforts.
Thorium can't make more than a token contribution till at least 2050.
Perhaps, but this should end the line of argument that nuclear should not be pursued because there will be no fuel in 50 years if the fact that there are thousands of years of available Uranium does not.
Best Case scenario, I could see a majority of new start nukes being designed for thorium (or Th U mix) in thirty years. Add 4 to 7 years for completion.
A uranium supply crunch would be required to motivate this change. A "crunch" need not be permanent & depletion related, but could be due to several other factors.
Alan
Thanks Dezakin, great summary response. (More reference data in advancednano's response too)
If I may summarise ... sources of fuel are so abundant ... that the specific place of breeder regimes, in low-grade and waste processing technologies in general, is not a significant factor in the energy economics lifecycle.
Edit : Re-reading the original article in the light of your comments and advancednano's ... I see these breeder cycles and use of low-grade / low-grade processing / re-processing sources are in fact addressed ...
The question boils down to ...
The energy economics of the breeder / reprocessing cycles themselves, on proven commercial scales ?
The additional radiation lifecycle complications of the new mix of contaminant isotopes created during these cycles ?
Kiashu, you said ...
That is almost certainly true, but it makes a big difference to our strategies and options to address the issues, if the predicted decline below the demand curve is 10, 100, 1000, 1000000 years.
Certainly it's a big difference whether the decline is in 10 or 10,000 years. However, because uranium processing isn't as simple as "dig it up, chuck it in the burner" (as with coal), it's more likely that decline will be sooner rather than later. There are many places in the processing chain where it could hit a bottleneck. For example, all current mining is done with diesel and petrol-powered vehicles and diggers. We don't get 50 tonne electric diggers, nor is it clear that we could. Current reactor designs require the rods to be clad in zirconium, which must be cleaned of hafnium impurities, a very energy-intensive process; the stuff can be recycled, but that generates more radioactive waste, and is again very energy-intensive. And so on and so forth.
The uranium industry itself tends to give estimates of 30-100 years supply of uranium at current consumption; if nuclear power became a major contributor to our global electricity, obviously that supply wouldn't last as long. The further you get from guys in the mine digging the stuff up, the more optimistic the estimates get about longevity. So the miner will tell you 10 years, the mine manager 30 years, the company CEO 50 years, the national industry leader 100 years, the university professor 1,000 years, and some random dweeb on the internet 10,000 years.
I think that prudent public policy must err on the "realistic pessimistic" side, going to the middle in order of magnitude terms. So if someone says "10 years" and someone else "1,000 years", we should assume it's 100 years. Likewise, if some wind turbine maker tells us he can get a 40% load factor, and some NIMBY group says 10%, then 20% seems about right.
The thing is that if our public policy is pessimistic and things turn out better, we're no worse off; if it's optimistic and things turn out worse, then we're toast. So you know, people say, "oh but we're working on that technology, and when it's ready, everything will be sweet and easy." Whether it's thorium reactors or chlorophyll electricity generators, or hydrogen-powered flying cars, I say, "that's nice - get back to us when it's working smoothly."
One thing that's missing in these discussions is a serious look at NIMBYism. I believe in democracy, so I say, "okay, you don't want this in your backyard, fair enough - that's your choice. Well, do you want electricity at all? Yes? Okay, then - what do you want in your backyard?" Why should a particular form of power generation be forced on any community? Why not let them choose? "oh but they won't make rational choices!" What, you mean like when they choose an elected leader? I believe in democracy. Let the people choose. Let's have democratic power sharing.
If the people want nuclear power, they should have it. If they don't, they shouldn't. Let the people decide.
Yet we have been worse off with pessimistic nuclear policy for the last several decades. Hundreds of thousands of extra deaths each year because of air pollution when Europe and North America could have followed the lead of France and gotten rid of coal.
Allowing the choice of coal lets 30-50% of the air pollution from a country like China to get blown over to other countries. It is like global second hand smoke.
If the coal waste stream was contained (in dry casks) then it would not be anyone elses problem, but coal's waste stream is not contained. Instead there are billions of tons of particulates, tens of millions of tons of SOx, Nox and particulates. Thousands of tons of mercury and arsenic etc... Thousands of tons of uranium and thorium.
where are your references for the nuclear industry's statement on supply ?
I get nuclear industry statements of
http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/cnf_sectionG.htm#uranium_supply
http://www.uic.com.au/nip75.htm
Most Uranium mining involves insitu leaching. Laying pipe into the ground and using acid to flush out Uranium. No big 50 ton diggers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-situ_leaching
Also in regards to 50 ton diggers or equipment. If you needed it and for some reason were short on oil you could use biodiesel for the heavy gear and use electric for lighter machines.
Your opinion does not correlate with actual deaths due to bad policy or with actual facts from quoted sources.
I think you're being unfair here. I'm not saying, "nuclear is bad, therefore we should use coal". I'm saying, "coal and nuclear are bad, therefore we should use renewables." Had I been Dictator of the World in 1955 or whenever Hubbert popped up, I would not have banned nuclear but promoted coal, rather I would have sought research in renewable energy.
As I've said the further you get from the miner at the face, the more optimistic the pronouncements on supply. But let's consider your quote. It's 200 years' supply at the current consumption rate. 16% the world's electricity is currently produced by nuclear reactors, so if we replaced all the coal-fired, etc, we'd need five times as many reactors again, and we'd have 200/5 = 40 years' supply. People promoting nuclear commonly disparage renewable, saying it could provide "only" 20% of total electricity supply, so let's assume 20% renewable + 80% nuclear, which means four times as many reactors again, and 50 years' supply.
Then let's consider that world demand for electricity is increasing. We find here that in 2005 the world had a total energy consumption of 15,500GW, or 2,325W of total energy use per person, and generally speaking the rise in demand since 1980 has been consistent, at 2% annually.
But of the 15,500GW, only 2,000GW is electrical energy today. And we find that this has had an average rise since 1980 of 2.79%.
So assuming that we could build all our 20% renewable and 80% nuclear reactors overnight, given a 2.79% increase in demand annually, our 50 years' supply doesn't last us from 2008 to 2058, but in fact gets used up by 2038. As any mortagee knows, compound interest fucks you.
Notice that they speak of deposits which are or aren't "economical" to mine. As with oil, coal and gas, we have to consider not cash but energy. If it takes you 2 barrels of oil-equivalent in energy to drill up 1 barrel of oil, you usually won't bother, it's easier just to burn the original oil itself. Many deposits of uranium in the world have a negative EROEI already, they've only been mined because their primary purpose was for nuclear weapons (eg in South Africa and Pakistan and Iran), or because though the diesel and so on used had more energy than the uranium, the diesel etc were cheaper in dollar terms. If I can buy 1bbl of oil for $100 and use it to get 0.5bbl of oil-equivalent in uranium worth $200, I'll do it. As anyone who's ever been poor and looked for the best calorie and protein value for their money knows, not all energy costs the same in dollars.
We don't care about dollar cost here. There is no question that whatever some resource costs, someone will pay the price. We care about EROEI. It's easy to count up the number of tonnes around, not always so easy to get them.
Phosphate deposits, I've not seen studies on their EROEIs. Of course a distinction would have to be made between phosphates mined solely for the uranium, and those mined for phosphate, with uranium as a waste byproduct.
In situ leaching uses large amounts of energy in creating the chemicals used for it. It also in many places offers a significant hazard to aquifers; around the world we suffer from aquifer depletion, it seems silly to risk poisoning the water we do have.
The uranium in seawater, the current technology isn't very good. Typical concentrations are 3.3mg/m3 of seawater; a 100% efficient process would require passing 303,000m3 - 303,000 tonnes - of seawater to extract 1kg of uranium. The adsorption plates would be substantial in size, on the order of several hectares, using a lot of resources, and require strong pumps - pumps requiring electricity.
The best technology even in prototype for extracting uranium from seawater used adsorption plates of 7-15m2 which were able to get on average 2g of uranium oxide over 60 days. 2g/11m2 means we'd require 5,500m2 to get 1kg in 60 days, or 330,000m2 to get 1kg/day. With 1km2 we could get 3.3kg/day. Current world uranium use is 78,458 tonnes U3O8 annually, or 215 tonnes daily, which would require 65,137km2.
If the nuclear power were ramped up from 16 to 80% of world electricity generation capacity, then we'd need 325,685km2 of adsorption sheets.
Of course, with fossil fuel depletion, more transport would have to become electrically-powered; remember only 2TW of our 15.5TW energy use is electrical, we can expect that proportion to increase as fossil fuels deplete. And again there's that annual 2.79% electricity demand increase, even with the current cheap fossil fuels.
325,685km2 of adsorption sheets to get uranium from seawater to provide 80% of our current electricity generation. When solar power proponents propose areas of even a tenth this size, they're mocked for being wildly ambitious. Exactly why 10,000km2 of solar cells is supposed to be crazy and impossible and too expensive to even contemplate, but 325,000km2 of uranium adsorption sheets is quite alright, is a mystery to me.
We see here with uranium a similar situation as with oil, coal and natural gas. What's important isn't the total amount, but how fast we can get at it. Uranium from seawater seems to be something like tar sands - sure, you can get the stuff out, but it's a lot of hassle, and very slow compared to the conventional means. That slowness is the key thing. Suppose we had a source of oil that could give us 1Mbbl/day for 1,000 years - it's not much help when demand is 85Mbbl/day. Well, same with uranium. So maybe a few tonnes of uranium, or even a few thousand tonnes, will be got from seawater. It seems very unlikely, but let's suppose it happens - well, it won't help the world overall much.
It may be argued that with research this or that nuclear energy technology will improve. But it can equally be argued that this or that solar or wind or geothermal or wave or tidal technology will improve, and pro-nuclear or pro-fossil fuel advocates do not commonly accept that.
With all energy generation and use, we must consider what is available and working today. We can't plan for the future based on what might work someday.
You honestly believe that? Are you entirely unfamiliar with the Rossing mine data? The ore grade is 300ppm, lower than most historic ores, and the measured energy used was .03 GW/years for one year to produce over 3000 tons of uranium which burned in light water reactors would produced over 15 GW/years.
Cite which uranium deposits have higher energy costs to mine than they yield in fuel, cause I'm betting you're just making crap up.
Rossing Mine info:
http://www.rossing-com.info/index.htm <-- Rossing Mine Hompage (Highly recommended)
http://www.wise-uranium.org/umoproe.html <-- Rossing Mine Issues (Highly recommended)
Google Maps View of Mine -- Low res in primary mine area, high detail tailings shown at south end
Factoids: (From above links)
BTW, http://www.wise-uranium.org looks to be a superb resource to anyone interested in uranium projects.
But we can't build overnight so why start with a fairy tale assumption. Just so you can say that if we miraculously changed the situation in consumption of uranium than production of uranium would not adjust properly ? How about that wind power takes ten times as much concrete and steel per MW as nuclear ?
Almost all poisoned water is unrelated to nuclear mining. China has dead rivers and polluted lakes from oil and coal use and other industrial processes. Your statements seem to assume that only problems from nuclear count that problems from other sources do not matter and are not considered.
You look at some the EIA statistics. I am saying nuclear is 10,000 times better than coal and the WORLD WAS and IS primarily using coal for electricity. According to the statistics of reality. You say it is unfair. Are people dieing now or not from air pollution from our current energy sources ?
You can say "coal and nuclear are bad but that is what is being used". It is not the ethics of a fairy tale time travel scenario. The equivalent fairy tale is if you are at the battle of Moscow in WW2 and millions are being killed around you and you suggest, you know if I had been in charge forty years ago I would have killed the young Hitler and Stalin and this would not have happened. The Russian soldiers would have looked at you and said "how does that stop us from getting killed now ?".
Air pollution from energy usage (indoor and outdoor) is killing 4.5-6 million people per year now. (World Health Organization stats). 300,000+ Europeans. 30,000+ in the UK, 60,000+ in the USA. This is the urgent problem to be fixed and it is a big one. The numbers are more than from almost any war and are more than WW2 and WW1 when you factor in that is goes on for more years without let up.
But renewables likes solar and wind. Solar in 2006 was 1/30th of 1%. Wind and solar are less than 1%. If we were to start running out of cheap Uranium in 2038 then
1. we should have started to make a lot of the more efficient reactors that I have been pointing out
2. we will have bought more time for solar and wind to scale up to something useful
3. We would have saved tens of millions of lives
Analogy, if coal and diesel were a physical army. They are lining people up and shooting them 10,000 to 15,000 every day. If you start getting a hundred away every day by building or increasing the power from each GW of nuclear plants then why would you say let us wait 20-40 years longer until we can scale up solar and wind.
World EIA base projection of electricity supplies. Half of the world electricity is coming from coal. Less electricity generation from any other non-coal source means more goes to coal.
International energy usage base forecast (coal is increasing). The renewables is mainly hydroelectric power.
Here is a summary of various studies of EROI for different energy sources
However, with nuclear power I have already indicated that there are nuclear plants that use 40-100 times less uranium or thorium to generate the power. So we can reduce the amount of that material from 75,000 tons for the same power to 750-1500 tons. Also for uranium from seawater.
Link to polyethylene production.
http://www.unipack.ru/eng/exhibition_page/1/2007/2/
You can divert 1% of the polyethylene for 10 years when you decide to scale up the seawater extraction. Then you can make a little over 1 of the 10,000/ton year processes each year. In ten years you have 100,000/ton year. The world capacity of polyethylene production increased up to 70 million tons per year, the polyethylene output in 2005 amounted to 65 million per year.
http://npc.sarov.ru/english/digest/132004/appendix8.html
The quantity of recovered uranium becomes 120 kg per 1 ton of adsorbent for the case of 20 reuses.
850,000 tons of adsorbent = 100,000 tons of uranium. (1.5% of the annual supply of polyethylene).
The energy costs would be like fishing trawlers. Dumping netting into the ocean for 60 days and pulling up uranium instead of fish. That sounds like too much trouble we could not get that to work after we run out of conventional cheap uranium and we run our of uranium from any lower grade deposits and we probably can't make better reactors given 20-50 years, so we should continue to let people die from air pollution until pretty solar panels and windmills are going in the tens of millions.
Uranium from seawater and from phosphates and from flyash. We don't really need those to be primetime for decades. We have decades to figure out how to make them better and cheaper. Of course if we can get them working now we should. Just like we should make the better reactors so we are not forced to hurry later. Just like we should drive more fuel efficient and cleaner cars or mass transit or telecommute even if we discover another 5 Anwars.
We can't plan for the future by ignoring the deaths and problems that we face today.
Did air pollution kill 300,000+ Europeans in 2007. Will that number die in 2008. How about 2009. With my plan we start curbing it sooner than a solar or wind only.
Did air pollution kill 4.5-6 million people in th world.
So I still have never seen an acknowledgement by the solar or wind only crowd about the time criticality of replacing coal and diesel in regards to air pollution deaths.
I have again clearly presented the case on air pollution and the current and continuing and growing use of coal. Again no one has denied the air pollution deaths or that coal and oil are causing the deaths. I have also seen no acknowledgement that air pollution deaths are a current and pressing problem from the non-nuclear side.
The only response is
"I do not favor coal use so the fact that is being used for 50% of electrical power supply now and is along with oil and other fossil fuels killing 4.5-6 million people per year is not a problem that my energy proposals need to address."
"I can bury my head in the sand on fossil fuel deaths because I do not support the cause of the deaths."
"An analogy in regards to ignoring air pollution deaths, I did not actively support the Nazis in WW2, I could have supported a 30 year plan to stop Nazi expansion and then a 50 year plan to roll them back using pristine methods instead of a D-day campaign and follow up offensive. The deaths under Nazis occupation could not be attributed to my support so the deaths could be ignored."
The non-nuclear side likes to quote the too cheap to meter statement but ignores past failed predictions for solar, renewables and conseravation.
This details Amory Lovins decades of failed predictions on renewables, conservation and the death of nuclear power.
http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=676
http://www.tysknews.com/Depts/Environment/myth.htm
How long for actual committed solar or wind or geothermal or conservation projects to provide all the new power increase. 100 new GW in the USA each year or 400GW new in the world ?
How long and how realistic to displace all of the coal (50% of current electricity) without using nuclear power ? Address the 1/30th of 1% for solar power in 2006 and the less than 1% for wind and solar. Is the high growth rate of solar and wind power so certain that we should bet millions of lives on the certainty [remember the failed Lovins predictions, are we going to gamble millions of lives each year that solar and wind will displace coal this time? Why is this the right gamble ? ]?
Are those who are against nuclear committed to retiring coal and oil first ? If not then why not ? Coal and oil kill more people now and will kill more people.
Actually, many people have pointed out that nuclear is much slower than wind. You are make strawmen here.
Chris
Please show your data and projections in regards to wind and address the points about air pollution.
None of the analysis about wind versus nuclear power takes into account the potential of the MIT 50% power uprate (donut shaped fuel) or of the Freedomcar thermoelectrics.
None of the analysis about wind versus nuclear consider the EIA analysis of what if the climate change bill passes.
I have looked at the wind industries projections versus nuclear.
http://advancednano.blogspot.com/2007/08/nuclear-power-uprates.html
American wind association projections
The American Wind Energy Association hopes to get 6% of the US electricity generated by wind by 2020. This is less than 1/3 what the nuclear power is now. 12 new reactors and 10GW of power uprates (by 2020) to existing reactors would add 240 billion kwh by 2020. The conservative EIA climate change bill forecast shows up to 1200 billion kwh of new nuclear oper by 2030. This does not include the MIT donut shaped fuel or the thermoelectric efficiency boost which I believe can happen by 2020.
The AWEA growth case which would involve more government policy commitment and coordinated building of grid infrastructure would be about double to about 240 billion kwh. Where is the legislation for the grid buildout needed for the AWEA high growth case ?
So even if the AWEA high growth case is hit and the nuclear power is stay the existing course. Why would you disregard 1040 billion kwh of non-coal electricity ? AWEA is not projecting the replacement of the nuclear or the coal.
My "strawman" is 4.5-6 million dead people every year. You have no data or links or plan heading for legislative approval and make dismissals without addressing my primary issue of air pollution deaths.
Again you are assuming that the high growth of wind power will be sustained. The AWEA does not make that assumption in its business as usual case.
I addressed every non-nuclear statement and question with data and links. The non-nuclear side has not stepped up with the proof and dodges the issue of actual coal pollution deaths.
I especially do not see how anyone can claim solar and wind only replaces coal faster than solar + wind + nuclear. And replacing coal would save a lot of lives (in the USA, UK, europe, and the world).
If I have a strawman then prove it. So far you have bupkus.
You are conflating power uprates with new nukes.
There is no controversy for safe and effective power uprates of existing power plants! I have earlier supported doing all safe and feasible power uprates yesterday, (although I doubt that your magic 50% doughnuts are practical though).
The issue is new nukes. First you assign unrealistic power factors to them (they do NOT typically do 90+% until after a decade of service) and your twelve new nukes in twelve years will be back end loaded (and teh upper limit).
You should separate new nukes from uprates in your analysis instead of adding them togather.
And the AWEA does not have the most optimistic case for wind (as your case is at the outer limits of realistic for nuke). So you are comparing the, say, 90% case for wind to the 99.5% case for nuke and then add uprates to show whatever.
Yes nukes are PART of the solution. The slower (other than uprates) and secondary part of the solution. We should build nine new nukes by 2018 and 12 by 2020/21. And we can, and should, build more wind than the conservative AWEA hopes for.
I hope that your projected uprates are valid, but I seriously doubt it. Reactors are much more than nuclear fission heat and there are many other limiting factors than how much heat they can generate.
Best Hopes,
Alan
If the AWEA is the 90% case for wind [on the high end] and that still will not be enough to supply all of the new power let alone starting to make a dent into coal then that also supports the case of make as much nuclear power and wind power and solar power until coal is replaced.
I argue for focused effort on the technologies that if successfully developed will have the most impact. No on has said that they cannot be done eventually, so why not put more effort into them to develop them sooner.
Also, no one has made a 90% certain case [10% case in your parlance] where solar and wind can replace 2000 billion kwh of coal in any reasonable time. Meanwhile no one has made any case that nuclear power has or will kill as many as air pollution.
4.5-6 million dead per year from Air pollution. No one in the go slow nuclear or the non-nuclear group has addressed this with a certain plan. There is only hoping for year after year for 79% growth for solar and wind. Win the optimistic energy lotto and beat coal.
Even if nuclear does not turn out as well as I am proposing (sometimes predicting but mainly proposing), I still support solar and wind at whatever rate they can be developed. But everything is to take down coal and hasten the saving of lives lost to air pollution.
Alan we have had the debate before about how fast nuclear can be developed but you and the others have not addressed the certainty of air pollution deaths and that it clearly needs everything (nuclear, solar, wind, geothermal) to turn the corner on it and beat it.
As for mixing uprates and new power plants, those are the two main ways that nuclear power will be increased. The only reason you want to split them is because you support power uprates in principle but are more cautious about new power plants. I do not have that same judgement.
What is about the 50% donut shaped fuel that is impractical ? Something about increased surface area that is too complicated to be implemented ?
I think no-nukers should clearly state and choose their position on air pollution
1. Yes, too many people are dying from air pollution and I agree now that nuclear power will help reduce those deaths
2. No, air pollution deaths are unfair and do not match my world view. So by not supporting fossil fuels I can continue to ignore deaths
3. I dispute the World Health Organization statistics and feel the actual numbers are X and cite my references
4. No, I recognize the air pollution deaths but do not care about those deaths. Only death from nuclear bombs and nuclear power plants count. I refuse to investigate or prove the linkage between nuclear power plant fuel cycles and nuclear bombs. They both have the word nuclear and that is enough.
5. Donut shaped fuel is impossible and any other technology to improve nuclear power is impossible or dangerous because I do not like it and do not trust nuclear, but solar and wind will grow at the highest year over year growth figure that was ever achieved anywhere. And that year over year growth will continue forever or get even faster. Plus energy storage to convert solar and wind into base power will also happen as will energy grid buildout and that wind uses ten times the steel and concrete for the same MW as nuclear does not matter. The steel and concrete and infrastructure just magically happens for wind, the only time that counts is the actual onsite assembly. Therefore wind is faster, put together by mom and pop General Electric and other wind companies who never have any turbine or parts or supply constraints.
6. Here is the time and dates and reasons and legislations why a non-nuclear path to replacing coal is the safer and more certain plan for stopping the deaths from air pollution. Here are the references. Here are conservative dates for replacing all added power and here is the date for replacing coal entirely.
You overlooked the largest, quickest, most economic and most environmentally benign methods of reducing coal use, conservation and efficiency.
How much coal is burned to keep cats and dogs comfortable in the summer, home alone ? How much for the luxury of "instant on" TVs, etc. How much insulation (including temporary like my Reflectix window covers) ? And on and on.
What is about the 50% donut shaped fuel that is impractical ?
Following the chain through, I have concerns about micro and macro thermal transfer and "hot spots" when the flux is increased by 50%. I also wonder about hydraulics of increasing water flow by 50% (I assume that will be required if temps are not to rise above design levels). Piping will see some interesting issues with higher flow rates (per old school memory, some resistance factors increase at the 5th power of the flow).
The steam generators and pressure relief valves are not designed for higher pressures/flow rates. The steam turbine is not designed for a 50% uprate and neither is the generator. Perhaps a slide rule designed turbine/generator set has enough conservative engineering to allow for a 50% uprate with narrow margin precise computational engineering, but that is a case by case issue.
I can accept and support a dozen new nukes (including finishing Watts Bar 2) by 2021 (probably 2022 or 2023 with the delays endemic to new nukes) and whatever uprates that the NRC approves. This appears to now be in motion after decades of delay due to the faults of the nuke construction industry.
You have never discussed in detail that the multi-decade pause in new nukes is due to the faults of the nuke building industry. You appear, in my eyes, to advocate a repeat with a head long rush to nuke.
I remember far too clearly the day that TVA killed the nuke building industry. A $24 billion write-off, shutting down 4 operating nukes and abandoning construction on almost a dozen new nukes and stopping repairs on one nuke ! WHOOPS, starting 5 new nukes and finishing one with $11 billion wasted was another nail. Smaller nails appeared in a dozen projects with multi-year delays and massive cost overruns, with Zimmer having a special place (scrapping a 99% complete new nuke).
How much less coal would have burned if these funded and under construction nukes had been finished and were still operating ?
The faults were internal to the nuke building industry and not it's critics.
This experience colors my caution with a Rush to Nuke !
The almost unique quality requirements of nukes put an upper limit on how quickly that they can be built. No such constraint exists for wind turbines (quite frankly, society is willing to accept the increased workplace deaths that would come from a Wind Rush).
Alan
I have pointed out the predictions that Amory Lovins has been making since the 1970s about conservation. He has been beating that drum and promise for almost 40 years and yet energy usage has increased and renewables are still tiny and nuclear power increased. Do conservation sounds good in theory but has not delivered in practice. any efficiency gains have been swamped by overall increased demand. Again I look to the reality of what has happened as opposed to a what people hope to happen or what they fear to happen without basis. Show me where conservation has shutdown one coal plant. So the hope is that this time the predictions on conservation will be right when they have been wrong for 4 decades and where there is no examples anywhere else in the world. I can point to 80% nuclear power success in France and 50% in Belgium and +40% in Japan etc... Show me the model country for powerdown and conservation and coal shutdown.
Nuclear power has tripled since 1980
Look at what MIT/Westinghouse are actually trying to do as opposed to guessing. The peak hotspot operating temperature can go down while efficiency is increased.
You will see from the references and quotes below - More power and more safety through better technology. No rush to nukes or lack of safety is being promoted but actually working and researchnig the problems intelligently as opposed to guessing and assuming things can't work based on a title. I have discussed the multi-decade pause. Excessive knee jerk regulation, high interest rates for a time, and cheap natural gas (coal was already built and it was mainly natural gas that was added) and lack of energy policy vision and energy policy short sightedness.
Economics, the realities of intermittent wind, supply chains and energy grids limit the practical buildup of wind to the levels needed to displace coal.
The MIT fuel thin walled donuts with pellets inside and using nanoparticles in the fluid.
In a three-year project completed recently for the U.S. Department of Energy, Hejzlar and Kazimi teamed up with Westinghouse and other companies to look at how to make a fuel for one kind of reactor, the pressurized water reactor (PWR), 30 percent more efficient while maintaining or improving safety magins. [the pilot study]
They changed the shape of the fuel from solid cylinders to hollow tubes. This added surface area that allows water to flow inside and outside the pellets, increasing heat transfer.
The new fuel turned out even better than Hejzlar dared hope. It proved to be easy to manufacture and capable of boosting the power output of PWR plants by 50 percent.
The next step is to commercialize the fuel concept, which will include testing a limited number of rods filled with the new pellets in an operating reactor and examining the results to ensure the safety and performance of the new fuel.
Nanoparticle Spiked water
PWR Transition to a Higher Power Core Using Annular Fuel
http://mit.edu/canes/publications/abstracts/nfc/nfc-095.html
A lot of other work on improving nuclear reactor efficiency and performance.
http://mit.edu/canes/publications/programs/nfc.html
Annular fuel special issue of AMerican Nuclear Society 2007
http://www.ans.org/pubs/journals/nt/vv-160
Show me where conservation has shutdown one coal plant.
Show me where nuclear power has shut down one coal power plant.
Coal plants 30+ years old are scrapped all the time every where. Conservation affects the size and number of the replacements (as does nuke, wind, solar, etc.) *FAR* more important that the "scrapping" (a straw man IMO) is the MWh produced.
OTOH, I remember my surprise at France building a brand new coal fired electricity plant in the late 1980s for a "diversity of fuel sources" and for load following (something nukes are almost useless for). I think they built another one after that.
As you will note from the graph, France has an irreducible amount of direct coal/natural gas use, no matter how many nukes she builds.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/France/Electricity.html
And this graph understates the true case, since France sells excess nuke power to other nations late at night for give-away prices and then buys peak power back at many times the price. France could not operate so many nukes were it not for this trade. That is, the United States + Canada could never get to 80% nuke like France since we cannot play the same game on the same scale with Mexico.
Austin Texas has saved (not built) 64 MW in 2007 and 57 MW in 2006. ttp://www.austinenergy.com/About%20Us/Newsroom/Press%20Releases/2007/conservationPrograms.htm
200 MW in the last 4 years. *FAR* faster than a nuke can be built !! And MUCH better for the environment.
So you are taking a very poor policy choice to discount conservation as a potentially effective force, at least equal to new nukes and probably greater. Certainly faster.
Alan
What would the electricity that came from nuclear have come from if nuclear was not there ? Roll it back to 1970 and it is clear that a portion of coal growth was displaced by nuclear. Your data going back to 1980 already has a lot of French nuclear power. Just because the last little bits did not go away is not an indication that the bulk of it was not displaced.
The government of Ontario is clearly stating and implementing a plan whereby the bulk of the displacement of all of their coal plants is with nuclear power.
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=9c361a9d-6b17-4a0a-86c5-4...
The government has stated that new nuclear will provide most of the power in the energy plan. Conservation and renewables play a supporting role. Too much wind is not cost effective
Thirty times more nuclear power than wind (when converted to kwh).
Twice as much as conservation.
btw: how about acknowledgement of the seriousness and time urgency to displace coal. Are no risks worth taking to save 4.5-6 million lives per year world wide from air pollution (60,000 USA, 315,000 europe) ?
Sorry concentration camp people can't risk a d-day invasion, we might lose some lives.
What is the ratio of lives to put at risk to effect an overall positive change ?
The go slow approach or a failed go fast to wind plan means more air pollution deaths. Ontario is putting forth a plan that is more aggressive than pretty much anywhere else and it will still take until 2014. How long would it take without nuclear ?
50% from nuclear already in Ontario. Ontario's coal plants alone is responsible for 668 deaths/year in Ontario.
http://www.opg.com/power/nuclear/
What is happening in Ontario has to done on a larger scale in other countries in Europe and the United States and Asia.
Everything has to be thrown in (Nuclear, conservation, renewables, temporarily natural gas - at least somewhat cleaner than coal and any interim coal pollution limitation efforts during the transition). But Nuclear is a key pillar of the plans for fast and effective displacement of coal. If you are going to go after the coal Godzilla you do not bench your star player who has already limited coal to 50% instead of 70% of electricity in the world.
You miss the point about the tragedy of the started but never completed nuclear plants in the USA.
The TVA fuel mix would be a mirror image of the French fuel mix. There would likely be no coal plants in the Pacific NW, etc. Total nuke MWh generated each year could be about double what it is !
Such are the costs of the last Rush to Nuke.
Thst is why it is a tragedy, and a tragedy you overlook and refuse to put the blame where it properly belongs ! And hence you risk repeating.
And as for your profitability analysis, it is largely invalid.
From memory, used nukes were selling for as little as $300 million a few years ago. Hard to justify new nukes when used ones are so cheap. And those utilities that sold generally took a massive loss, and those that bought such bargains made money. That nuke operating utilities made money in no way shows the economic viability of new nukes. Unless you can build new nukes at $300 to $500 per kW capacity.
Alan
Why do you always go from faulty memory when you can look it up online ?
There were huge bargains in 1999-2001, but recent sale prices have firmed up. Mostly in the $710-874/kw range. However, they have shorter operating life than new plants. The consolidation in the industry means that all the plants are now with strong operators. There are companies that can operate new plants profitably as well. Plus in the South of the USA utilities can adjust electicity rates to compensate for new power plant build (regardless of the type of powerplant). The question is are those rates less than other power sources and are new nukes expected to be more profitable than wind and solar and coal etc... The answer appears to be yes because we already have 11 new nuclear plants in the licensing process and another 21 expected by the end of 2009 in the USA. The companies are spending tens of millions for all of the preliminary work and full time engineers, project managers and accountants are determining that they can make money. I am not risking repeating jack, it is hundreds of companies and tens of thousands of competent people in an multi-billion dollar industry that are working to make it happen. I just say that I believe that they will succeed and that this plan will work and that this plan is ten thousand times better than coal. Just like you are not building electrified rail or causing a project to be rushed or not rushed. Just like those who asked for aids drugs to be accelerated through the approval processes to blunt the epidemic were still depending upon the competence of the doctors and researchers and professionals to perform their day to day competence. There is competent expediency and there is near criminal and non-safety enhancing and pointless delays.
The tragedy is 4.5 million ot 6 million lives lost to air pollution. $100 billion losses happen every year in world business. (sub prime this year and last year). It is a 60 trillion world economy.
The last "Rush to Nuke" benched himself (or got thrown out of the game for bad behavior).
Look at the roster of the nuclear power plants that were started and never completed and weep. Perhaps $100 billion in today's dollars and many dozens of GW.
We are close to agreement on a dozen new nukes (including finishing Watts Bar 2) by 2020 to 2021/2/3.
Alan
Meanwhile coal Godzilla stays in the game murdering 1+ million people every year. And the fossil fuel air pollution monster 4.5 to 6 million. Again no one from the solar and wind side will put the words together. "The deaths from air pollution are an abomination and the fastest action should be taken against it". At least alanfrombigeasy will say that he thinks that wind can do it faster and is implying that the problem should be fixed, but all of the solar and wind only just run away and ignore the air pollution deaths. Basically "F** those people, I don't care about them, I don't think air pollution will get me. I am just scared of nuclear power. Any risk for me or one person dying from nuclear power is worth 4.5 to 6 million people dying from air pollution every year."
BTW: In previous discussions we have had I have debunked the rush to nuke causing accidents. The accidents that occurred were not because there was a rush to nukes. There was a careless accident with a candle and their was the hodgepodge of designs and certifications which helped cause the cost overruns.
$100 billion is peanuts in the energy infrastructure game.
Costs to the US economy from coal in one year exceed that amount.
http://advancednano.blogspot.com/2007/01/more-against-coal.html
Let us add the $100 billion to say adjusted costs for the 104 reactors. $500 billion + $100 billion for $600 billion to build all of the reactors. But the costs have to be compared to revenues and profits of the operating companies.
Nuclear plant buying companies had superior stock performance
http://www.world-nuclear.org/sym/2004/fig-htm/lacf4a-h.htm
http://www.world-nuclear.org/sym/2004/lacy.htm
Nuclear operating companies (utilities) have long term profitability from nuclear operations.
http://www.constellation.com/portal/site/constellation/menuitem.0a14666d...
http://www.nyse.com/about/listed/lcddata.html?ticker=FE
etc...
the energy costs charged (kwh) are less in many places with nuclear power. So contribution to economy from taxes on profits, jobs, low energy costs, less pollution all work out to swamp any 20-40% cost overrun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xcel_Energy
Xcel customers in Colorado, Minnesota, and New Mexico can purchase wind power through a program known as "Windsource". Customers can elect to pay an extra amount on their monthly utility bills, directing the company to use or purchase more energy from wind farms. This can be done in "blocks" of 100 kilowatt-hours ($2–3 per), or the entire amount of energy can come from wind. As of May 1, 2004, the company had 829 megawatts of generating capacity from wind power spread across five states.
An extra 2-3 cents per kwh. For 30 billion kwh for wind say that would be 600-900 million dollars per year. If this was scaled up to 800 billion kwh to displace nuclear that would be $16 to 24 billion per year.
Germany subsidizes 50 cents euro for wind and solar. For 50 billion kwh that would be 25 billion euro per year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_electric_companies
UN calls for $20 trillion in energy infrastructure spend.
http://enr.construction.com/news/environment/archives/070505.asp
the world energy outlook from 2006
http://books.google.com/books?id=JAcuHqDnI6gC&pg=PA75&lpg=PA75&dq=energy...
Had a reference case of 2005-2030 spend of $20 trillion in 2005 dollars.
http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2007/12/12/a-1-6-trillion-market-in-the-wa...
How much is the US willing to spend to save 60,000 lives per year?
How much is Europe for 315000 lives per year ?
I am not talking about paying for more expensive energy other than $30-50 for a carbon tax or fees and economic cost related to climate change bills (but still subsidizing wind and solar and no new subsidies for nuclear other than what exists now). Just a portion of scientific R&D.
If Ontario wanted to get off coal faster, they would build more wind quicker than new nukes. In fact new nukes are NOT part of the plan to replace coal, just refurbish old nukes. But at least they are moving in the right direction.
Much of the proposed new generation in Ontario nuke is old nuke, rebuilding units at Bruce and Pickering that were retired early (from memory). If the unit outside Portland OR (Trojan ?) had not been disassembled, we could do the same there. Few other options of taking old retired nuke in the USA and putting it back into service (rebuild Zimmer as a nuke plant ? Nuke > coal > nuke).
Nuke alone cannot supply a grid. It is useful only for baseload. Fortunately Ontario has a large hydropower base (and plans to add a bit more) and can trade with Quebec, New York, Michigan, etc. as France does with it's excess nuke.
The plan calls for renewable energy to grow to 12% of the province's power supply from the current 9%, the bulk of that coming from hydroelectric...
The plan also called for increasing gas-generated power from 22% now to 28%
Reading between the lines, refurb old nukes (work already underway for a couple) is a definite go, but new nukes are not expected to be on-line when coal goes away. And new nukes are still a "maybe".
I suspect as ON moves from summer peak to winter peak, and natural gas price rises, they will increase their wind portfolio. They have excellent winter wind and poor summer wind there.
Other political parties may alter the plan.
Alan
I have discussed the multi-decade pause [in new nuclear power plant construction]. Excessive knee jerk regulation, high interest rates for a time, and cheap natural gas (coal was already built and it was mainly natural gas that was added) and lack of energy policy vision and energy policy short sightedness.
Wrong or secondary effects.
The primary cause for the self destruction of the nuke building industry was a series of poorly supervised and planned and engineered nuclear power plants caused by a Rush to Nuke. Starting construction before detailed design work was completed, and then having to stop, tear out work and redo was a classic error repeated time and time again. Poor quality work that had to be scrapped, torn out and replaced was on almost every new nuke of the 1980s (Palo Verde the only exception I can think of). There was a critical shortage of experienced and competent nuke personnel that affected every project (Palo Verde, as a late start, largely avoided this).
The regulation was just fine and should not be changed (except strengthened where needed). This anti-safety regulation bias is where I am most against a Rush for Nuke, and if "regulatory reform" is successful, is sufficient reason to withdraw my support for any new nukes. Better to burn US reg coal (your figures of deaths are mainly 3rd World coal) till replaced by conservation & renewables than build unsafe nukes (which is what weakening regulation amounts to).
High interest rates did not kill Zimmer (99% complete & scrapped/converted to coal) or stop repairs to Browns Ferry I (after a fire) or stop construction for decades at Watts Bar 1 & 2, or scrap a dozen or two half completed plants or cause WHOOPS to start construction of 5 new nukes and finish one.
One can make the argument that high interest stopped new nuke starts for a 3 or 4 year period, but if every nuke started (start defined as real physical work done on-site) in the late 1970s and 1980s had been completed, and no premature retirements, we would have (my SWAG) twice as much nuclear power operating today as we do.
In one sense, there was no need for new nuke starts (certainly a 4 year pause would have little effect), just finish the ones started (and financing is always lined up/planned before starting).
Except for Texas, natural gas is rarely used for base load generation AFAIK (perhaps parts of Louisiana and Oklahoma as well). Nuke can only be used for base load generation. Coal can be used for load following (low capacity factor) or baseload (lots of coal burned).
So natural gas did not directly displace lost nukes, natural gas reduced the need for load following coal fired plants. But these former load following coal fired plants became base load as overall demand increased.
Since you do not understand the past errors of the nuke building industry, you cannot avoid repeating them in the future.
You only linked the abstracts and only one seemed to be concerned with your proposed revolution, increasing capacity of EXISTING nukes by 50% using annular fuel (flow water up the center of the fuel rods).
One sentence that caught my eye in that one paper that did address retrofits It is demonstrated that the highest return on investment is obtained by gradually loading annular fuel in the reactor core such that immediately before shutting the reactor down for the uprate construction...
Ontario experience with rebuilding Pickering and Bruce is that costs skyrocket and schedules slip if the reactor still has high levels of residual radiation (Pickering) but are more reasonable if one waits a dozen years for radiation to drop significantly (still "hot" but not as much) as is the case with Bruce. In either case it is a multi-year shut-down.
See my notes below. I assume that a 50% uprate will require new pumps, significant new piping, heavily modified controls, new steam generators, a new steam turbine and new generator. Plus a new switchyard and transmission lines to handle 50% more power.
First a multi-year struggle to get new transmission line permits to the nuke before shut-down.
After that, it is unlikely to take less than 3 years and 4 years might be a good "real world" estimate of shut down (the paper assumes We show that, by a smart management of the transition, an internal return investment of about 22–27% can be achieved.
I do not assume smart management. So 4 to 5 years off-line to get a 50% uprate. This means 12 to 15 years from starting the rebuild till the uprate produces enough power to offset the down time. Hardly a pre-2020 solution for more nuclear power. A Rush to Wind and massive conservation are better strategies. Not that 50% uprates should not be done, they just are not a solution for the next couple of decades.
.......
The Uranium oxide will be cooler but it is a refractory material and that was NOT my concern at all (perhaps I should have phrased it better). It is water temperatures & phases.
Liquid water is a great conductor, water vapor is a decent insulator. Overheated water inside a thin tube surrounded by 700 C uranium oxide and zirconium could conceivably change phase if pressure dropped for any reason. Then one has no heat transfer inside the rod, just outside. Perhaps that would be enough, I do not know.
And there is no way to extract 50% more power from an existing reactor without increasing water flow or temperature (very small effect with increased pressure). Existing reactors & steam generators cannot handle, IMHO, dramatically higher temperatures or flows. They were just not designed for it. Hydraulic flows within the reactor are another complex subject and the effects are not linear (the friction from eddys as flow increases can increase dramatically, although this is an area where the complexity overwhelmed me personally).
And existing steam turbines and generators are unlikely to accept a 50% uprate. And new transmission lines and switchyard needs to be built to handle 50% more power.
So scrap a third (perhaps a fourth) of the reactor if you want to increase power by 50%.
Alan
Transmissions lines would have to be built for new wind as well. Plus usually wind is stuck out in the ocean. So longer transmission lines have to be laid. But those would be laid before the plant upgrade and scheduled to complete before the higher power plant is turned on. Basic project management.you may not assume smart management but why are you assuming idiots who would do it worse than every 20% uprate that has gone before? However, long the transmission lines take it does not effect the shutdown period.
The 20% uprates which get completed faster also have new steam turbines.
All of those pieces are built offsite and then just brought in and hooked up during the downtime.
http://pepei.pennnet.com/display_article/313216/6/ARTCL/none/none/1/Stea...
The 20% uprates have been done and it has been shown that shutdown time is minimal.
I pointed at abstracts because I am not paying for the full article. There is no free source for the full article.
I am not aware of ANY operational wind farm offshore in the United States (a couple WTs on islands to displace diesel). Plans for a medium (300 MW from memory) offshore Massachusetts wind farm. Output can be absorbed with a few miles of landfall.
In many (certainly not all) cases, HV distribution lines can be thrown into reverse and WTs feed not just local demand but back into the larger grid. They can supply voltage support except during very low winds.
50% is not 20%. Many more parts of the system need to be replaced. I think Sweden did a 40% or so uprate and it would be nice to know the downtime for that.
I AM IMPRESSED by replacing steam turbines in an extended refueling outage. But it is taking 4 years to rework the feeder pipes for CANDUs
http://www.ccnr.org/feeder_pipes.html
and some significant repiping will almost certainly be required for a 50% uprate (along with new pumps). Any work in high rad areas is always slow.
And I have seen large hydroelectric generators assembled in place and that takes some time. I doubt that 4 pole 1.5 GW generators are roll in units.
As I said, I am impressed by the turnaround for 20% uprates, but I question about the time for 50% uprates.
Alan
A good technical description of a 20.8% uprate in Sweden
http://pepei.pennnet.com/display_article/266773/17/ARTCL/none/none/1/An-...
And conservation clearly kept Austin Energy from building half of a coal fired plant.
LCRA & Austin Energy went 50-50 on two coal fired plants Fayette 1 & 2 (each 598 MW). LCRA had load growth, Austin did not, so Austin declined to take half of Fayette 3. LCRA built a smaller plant (it had planned on an identical unit to 1 & 2 or larger) of 445 MW (any smaller reduced economic efficiency and LCRA wanted more coal fired power).
http://www.lcra.org/energy/power/facilities/fayette.html
Do you know what a strawman is?
One thing which is noticeable by its absence here is a discussion of suitable sites for a major expansion of nuclear in the UK. All our plants are in areas which will be severely flooded when the Greenland ice cap melts. Considering that we're currently planning to leave decommissioned but still radioactive nuclear plants standing for 30-50 years before starting the dismantling process, we've got a few logistical problems there.
No realistic climate model predicts Greenland to actually be green again inside several centuries, and were that the case, the logistical problems of nuclear reactor decomissioning is a tiny subset of a much much larger problem.
Depends what you mean by "realistic climate model". Here's a YouTube video of Jim Hansen discussing ice-sheet melt, the risk and the problems with the IPCC report.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3oMf_WnaA8
Actually no, the consensus seems to be that there are no realistic icesheet models. We don't understand their dynamics. There is paleodata showing sea level rise rates of several meters per century under conditions similar to what we are creating now. A "safe" estimate for the level of sea level rise to anticipate for a new nuclear power reactor seems to be 6 meters since the plant would need attention into the next century. I would say that in the US, the NRC should delay consideration of any new reactors proposed in tidal regions so that it can concentrate its limited resources on plants that are further inland. Climate change can impact these as well through decreased river flows and increased water and air temperature so this is also a hard problem. The UK, being more dependent on coastal sites, has a more difficult path to adaptation to climate change wrt nuclear power. The amount of sea level rise we can expect as a result of warming eventually is about 25 meters. Getting roughly a fifth of that in the next 150 years seems pretty reasonable.
Chris
Hi Kiashu, one point at a time.
So pointing out that resources are finite adds nothing to the debate on any side - agreed.
The arguments (as you go on to discuss) are about the long term energy economics (of the whole process, inlcude the safety, recycling, reprocessing, technology etc.)
As we were .....
PS "Let the people decide" is a crass suggestion - this thread shows just how difficult it is to get to point of understanding the decision involved - complexities of the process lifecycles and the interests involved.
We need open debate and good will.
I missed that EROI report on Nuclear power. I would like to read it. Could you or anybody post the connection.
I won't post the connection because I don't like to link to an intentionally deceptive report but I will say that it has been discredited here on TOD and Sterling is just being provocative by citing it. The value of 93 intentionally hides the energy needed to enrich the fuel, currently the largest energy input. One can take the fact that France devotes the entire output of three reactors to enrich fuel to estimate that the EROEI of their program has to be less than about 7, not counting the energy inputs in mining, plant construction and waste disposal. They may improve their EROEI if they carry through with plans to shift from gas diffusion to centrifuges but those plans are running into difficulties owing to worries about earthquakes which are bad for centrifuges. Japan has been developing some earthquake prediction methods which might be helpful for this but that may still be a long way down the road.
Chris
You've been pulled apart here so many times before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France
425.8 TWh out of the country's total production of 540.6 TWh was from nuclear power.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricastin_Nuclear_Power_Center
24.622 TWh about 2/3rds goes to the diffusion enrichment facility
so about 16.414 TWh is used by enrichment in france.
Thats 25, not 7.
You reamin unwilling to acknowledge that nuclear power has poor thermodynamic performance. It doesn't even do as well as the ICE.
Chris
First, a strawman. I never talked about thermodynamic performance at all.
Second, irrelevant. We measure the electric power out of power plants, not their thermodynamic performance.
Third, its largely false, entirely dependant on which ICE, which nuclear power plant and the delta T. Comparing the 33% steam boilers to the 50% efficient cathedral diesel engines look good, while comparing the 50% efficient high temperature reactors with the 15% efficient family car doesn't look so good.
Elsewhere in the thread you also refuse to consider input energy. I won't express the same sentiment here but I do think you need to consider what the term 'energy invested' might mean.
Chris
Adress it there if you like, but here...
Where do you get the number 7?
You are only counting the electric output of the reactors but there is more energy input than that. Most of it is wasted as heat.
Chris
And thats not the least bit relevant. Where do you get your number? Run the calculation for us.
Take your 25 and multiply by about 0.3 to get a number close to 7. This is a typical estimate for the EROEI of nuclear power though it neglects energy inputs for mining, plant construction and such. It is not all that different from the Storm and Smith estimate so it seems likely to be close to reasonable. Obviously, in the US, the use of diluted weapons grade uranium means that the EROEI is much less so that looking at the French program makes more sense for trying to figure out if there is anything worthwhile here. There isn't.
Chris
And why do you get to multiply 25 by .3?
Be explicit here.
Because that accounts for the energy input.
Chris
Sorry, thats not the least bit explicit. What energy input. Do the calculation for me. Spell it out. You're performing some numerical wizardry I'm quite sure you dont get to do. I'm suspecting you're doing something twice.
This is really quite simple. The energy invested is the energy produced by the fission in the three reactors. Only a third of that energy ends up as electricity to run the diffusion, the rest is wasted. But, you can't get away from investing that energy because nuclear power has low thermodynamic efficiency. You missed this factor in your calculation.
Chris
You really dont understand. You're multiplying by the thermodynamic efficiency even though its allready done. Here I'll run your equasion the way I think you're trying to interpret it.
1300 TWh thermal is generated in thermal capacity by the French nuclear reactors.
1300 * .3 for the thermodynamic conversion to french electricity = 425.8 TWh electric
16.414 TWh is used by enrichment in france.
425.8/16.414 = 25.9
Where are you multiplying by .3 twice?
You are mixing up energy returned with energy invested. On the returned side you can just take the useful energy out but on the invested side you need to include all the warts, including the wasted energy. Your number would make sense if hydro were used to enrich uranium, though we'd have to broaden the boundy conditions at that point since it would no longer be a simple example, but you need to include the thermal efficiency on the invested side in this instance.
Chris
Actually there's a whole lot a mixing up going on, Chris, and in order to sort it out we have to answer the question: what is EROEI?
Easy, n'est pas? Energy Returned on Energy Invested.
So, in the case of oil, we ask how many barrels of oil do I get if I invest one barrel of oil (or equivalent)? In the case of coal, perhaps how many tonnes you get back for one invested? And so on.
Easy and simple, right?
So surely in the case of nuclear power we should be asking the question: How much uranium do I get back for one tonne (or equivalent) of uranium invested? Except in all the above discussion we're not. Instead the energy of the electricity generated by the fission of uranium is used (roughly 1/3).
This may seem reasonable, but we don't do it in the case of oil, do we? Oil might be used to generate electricity (33% efficiency), heating (< 80% efficiency), or most commonly to run an ICE (~ 20% efficiency). But what use it is put to and how efficiently it is used is irrelevant to the question of EROEI. All that is relevant is that a certain amount of oil is needed and EROEI tells us how many barrels of oil equivalent we'll have to spend to get it.
So if you continue to measure the the EROEI of nuclear power by using the electrical energy produced, then you employ a different metric to the one used for oil, coal, gas, etc. In fact you divide its EROEI by 3 with respect to those other sources, making it look artificially small.
If you're having trouble getting your head around it (took me a while to think it through) consider the following thought experiment:
Each year Santa brings our fictional country of Nukeland its uranium. Since it was gathered by elves, no energy was expended to mine or mill it. The reactors themselves were also a gift after the citizens of Nukeland were especially good one year. The only energy actually expended by Nukeland is used to enrich the uranium, but this they do extraordinarily inefficiently, using half the energy produced by their reactors. So what's the EROEI?
Using your methodology, we take the thermal energy released by the fission (Eu) and divide it by 3 to get useful energy produced (Eout):
Eout = Eu/3
We know half of this is used to power the enrichment process and, using your method, we must multiply it by 3 to get the thermal energy inputted (Ein):
Ein = 3*(Eout/2) = 3*((Eu/3)/2) = Eu/2
Therefore we can now calculate:
EROEI = Eout/Ein = (Eu/3)/(Eu/2) = 2/3
It seems we have ended up with an EROEI less than one. How can this be when no energy was spent but to enrich the uranium and this only took half the total energy generated? Each year Nukeland only gets a set amount of uranium, yet each year they have surplus electricity to use in their factories and homes.
It appears that despite having an EROEI of less than one they still make an energy profit. Perhaps they got their sums wrong.
With oil it is pretty easy to see why the efficiency is important. Let us take a well that uses and ICE to run. We will use the oil input to run that ICE as energy invested. Now, there are both hydrogen and carbon fuel cells under development with the carbon fuel cells looking like they will ultimately achieve the best efficiency. If we substitute these fuel cells and an electric motor for the ICE, the EROEI for that oil well goes up (invoking your eleves to deliver the equipment). I think you are correct that oil gets a "free pass" on the output side since we don't look all that hard at how it is used and what efficeincies are involved but we do know how uranium is used so it would be incorrect to ignore this.
The reason you have come up with EROEI=2/3 rather than the expected value is because of an approximation I used early on. France has 58 reactors and uses three for enrichment. I should properly have only considered the 55 used for consumer power for the energy out side but it does not make a big difference to do this and I was interested in figuring out roughly what the EROEI of nuclear power is in the face of a very deceptive value cited frequently here on TOD. When pushed to the extreme as you have done, using half the reactors for enrichment, we must be more careful.
First, we should note that the elves need to supply a year's worth of enriched uranium initially or there will be nothing to run the enrichment facilites at the beginning. We'll leave this out, but it does make the point that your Eu does not really exist until enrichment has occured. So, we'll look at year 2. The net energy gain is Eu/2*0.3 while the energy expended is Eu so EROEI=(Eu/2*0.3)/Eu+1=1.15, where we have previously ignored the "+1" owing to approximation. In terms of numbers of plants producing power Np and plants used for enrichment Ne, this is (Np*0.3)/(Np+Ne)+1 so for France we get EROEI=6.5. A more careful look would see how much energy each plant uses since they are not all the same. Hope this helps.
Chris
mdsolar:
It doesn't matter what efficiency oil gets used with on the output side when considering EROEI. All that is important is the ratio of barrels in to barrels out. The efficiency of conversion is already factored into the equation on the input side as you correctly note. If oil is used more efficiently less is needed and EROEI increases. But, at the end of the day, if you've used less barrels than you've produced, then you have a net energy gain, no matter what the efficiency you then use to convert your output into useful work.
In order to really bang the point home let us again consider an illustrative thought experiment:
Mankind has discovered a new, very dense energy source: gloop. It occurs deep underground and can be extracted with the use of one gloopbit for every ten gained. The only downside to this energy source is that only 1/1000th of the energy contained within can be converted into electricity. Now let us calculate EROEI using the mdsolar method:
Ein = 1 gloopbit
Eout = 10 gloopbits/1000
therefore EROEI = Eout/Ein = (10/1000)/1 = 0.01
Again your method produces a nonsensical result for EROEI, suggesting vastly more energy is spent extracting gloop than it releases, when this is obviously not the case.
mdsolar:
Thermodynamics tells us that none of the energy inputs of oil, gas, coal, etc will be used at 100% efficiency or anything like it. It is inconsistent to ignore this wasted energy on the output side, while including it on the input side. Either compare primary energy input and output, or factor in the conversions on both sides, otherwise you're essentially comparing apples and oranges.
So let's now apply this to the French nuclear example.
Taking a hypothetical year 0 where no enrichment is required and X amount of enriched uranium is gifted to the french nuclear industry.
Uranium used by for enrichment of next year's uranium = 3*X/58
Fraction of uranium used for enrichment = 3/58 = 5.2%
Therefore we can roughly say that for every tonne of uranium the French use for enrichment, another 19 or so can be used for power generation.
Finally, it should be noted that the French will stop using diffusion enrichment by 2016 and convert to centrifuge instead. On a previous thread I used the audited data for the Forsmark nuclear plant in Sweden to calculate the EROEI of nuclear power with 100% centrifugal enrichment and came to a value of 47. This was, however, comparing primary energy input with electric output so on the same measuring scale (correctly) used for oil, gas, etc this is equivalent to an EROEI of 141. Given that this is for a second generation plant and that third generation plants should have higher thermal efficiencies and burn ups it seems reasonable to conclude that future nuclear plants built in the UK should have an EROEI > 150.
You also seem to have come up with an interesting new definition of EROEI:
EROEI = net energy/Ein = (Eout-Ein)/Ein = Eout/Ein - 1
I say interesting because EROEI = 1 is commonly thought to be the breakeven point at which you spend as much as you produce in energy. Setting EROEI to 1 in the above equation leads to some surprising conclusions:
1 = Eout/Ein -1
--> Eout/Ein = 2
--> Eout = 2Ein
Using your novel definition we find that at EROEI = 1 we're still getting double out what we put in. Think we'd best stick with the conventional definition for now, Chris.
I think that if you reread my comment you'll see that I am using EROEI=(net energy out/energy expended)+1. This is a correction to your erroneous use previously. The "+1" in not terribly important in estimating in more realistic situations, but in your example with the elves it is and this is why you have become confused.
I also think you need to consider more closely your gloop example. You state that only one unit is needed to extract ten units but seem to fail to account for this.
Chris
You're either being willfully ignorant about math or are unforgivably stupid.
We have a clear example which you find impossible to wrap your head around, and its been explained over and over to you. Try to find even one professional who shares your opinion. You wont. Try uranium returned on uranium invested, and try to tell me that you come up with the same number.
Sorry, Chris, it appears I didn't scan your formulae closely enough.
EROEI = Eout/Ein = (Eout -Ein + Ein)/Ein = (Eout - Ein)/Ein + 1
So you are correct that EROEI can be calculated by taking the ratio of net energy to the energy inputted and adding 1. Where you go wrong in your example is in the calculation of net energy.
You use for net energy (Eu/2)*0.3. Since net energy = Eout-Ein and Eout = Eu*0.3 the value you use for Ein must be (Eu/2)*0.3.
However, later in the calculation you use Eu for Ein. Since your Ein's are not consistent, your formula does not calculate EROEI as it is commonly understood (Eout/Ein).
mdsolar:
No, the gloop example illustrates perfectly where you are going wrong. Despite the fact that one gloopbit expended gains you ten in return, the low efficiency of conversion into electricity means you will forever calculate its EROEI to be less than one, which makes a mockery of the whole concept of EROEI.
I think it is fairly clear that the energy expended in the effort is Eu, but perhaps you feel that only the output should be counted as input? This seems a little strange. As far as I can tell from your initial description, Eu is consumed and Eu/2*0.3 is produced for use by society outside of the process. This give an EROEI=1.15. I think you wish it to be 2 perhaps? If it were oil, it would be because we are not doing well-to-wheels, but in this case we are (almost) doing natural uranium-to-toaster. If you wish to never use the reactors to deliver power to people, you can stop before this is done, but then half the uranium you have enriched just sits there.
Are you saying that the gloop is extracted using electricity powered by gloop or is the gloop used in some other manner? You example is quite unphysical so I am having difficulty following you I think.
Chris
Just once try actually running your calculation rather than doing this nonsense handwaving.
We'll use your formula even
EROEI = Eout/Ein = (Eout -Ein + Ein)/Ein = (Eout - Ein)/Ein + 1
Lets measure this only in thermal energy since you're keen on measuring the full thermal EROEI
EuOut = 1277.4TWh
EuIn = 49.242TWH
(1277.4TWh - 49.242TWH) / 49.242TWH + 1 = 25.94
And now you want to multiply by the thermodynamic conversion? Then you're not measuring an energy ratio. You can masure the electric energy out versus the electric energy in, or the thermal energy out over the thermal energy in or even the uranium out versus the uranium in, but you're mixing your terms around and assuming that its meaningful in terms of energy payback. Its not!
Just assume that the diffusion enrichment plant cost ten times as much. It wouldn't be able to support France using your assumptions, but thats clearly wrong because you still get more than twice as much electricity out than you invest. Here, lets run with this:
(425.8TWh electric out - 164TWh electric in)/164.14TWh electric in + 1 = 2.59
But now you think you get to divide by and say that it doesn't work, even though it obviously does? It clearly doesnt have an EROEI of .864!
Or here's another one for you. Assume we just cant make heat engines work well for some reason with reactors, and we're limited to 1/10th the thermodynamic efficiency of modern reactors.
Now we still have 1277.4TWh out thermal, but because the reactor turbines are so inefficient, we only get 42.8 TWh out electric. The diffusion plant still takes 16.414 TWh electric in.
(42.8TWh electric out - 16.414TWh electric in)/16.414TWh electric in + 1 = 2.59...
But now since the thermodynamic conversion is goofy you get to divide by 30 for .0864!
I notice that the WNA does flag their energy ratio estimate as thermal though later they drop this when comparing with wind and solar. So, to be fair in trying to pick a source for, say, electrolysis of hydogen in a scheme such as this, we should include the conversion factor as I have done. Thus, we would compare 6.5 or so for nuclear with about 20 for wind and chose wind rather than nuclear power since nuclear power is more costly in terms of energy in this application. Not to do so would be deceptive.
Chris
If you add your conversion factor, its not EROEI anymore. Its not a ratio. Do you know what dimensional analysis is and why you're breaking the rules? All the units must match, and when you're done your ratio is dimensionless.
Does EROEI mean anything to you when it drops below one?
How about adressing the scenario where we're using power conversion systems that are only .03% efficient, where you get an EROEI of .08 with your magic scheme yet still produce enough to keep the reactors running to feed electricity into the grid.
You clearly have no understanding about what your posting.
You do understand that efficiencies are dimensionless don't you?
Thats my point!
You dont get to divide by 3!
In your world when you have EROEI below one does the system still run? Because it still can with your little rule.
If you understand that efficiencies are dimensionless then why are you raising units as an issue?
You're making artificial dimensions of energy(electric)out and energy(thermal)in. You're mixing these without reason. Sure you can multiply two efficiencies to come up with a third number, your efficiency of uranium utilization or whatever, but its not EROEI.
You continually dodge the salient point! Again, what does it mean to you that you can have EROEI below one?
In nuclear power it is customary to use Watts for both thermal and electric so this is also dimensionless.
I have not said that EROEI is below one except for the US program at present. This seems to be a statement of yours.
Your model allows EROEI to be below one and be indefinately sustainable as illustrated.
So its not the EROEI that everyone else is concerned with.
I think you need to go back and read the discussion. You must calculate more carefully when EROEI approaches one. You have made a calculational error.
To assert you must prove. Show where it is. You havent got anything.
Assume that the thermodynamic efficiency of reactors is .03% instead of 30%. Can they produce their own uranium from a diffusion plant that takes 16TWh annually as an input?
I've shown my work, you can tell me where I've made my calculation error.
I think that your difficulty is in dividing after you have calculated EROEI(thermal). Normally this is not so important but you want to explore extreme situations. Calculate EROEI(actual)=(actual net energy)/(energy expended)+1 and you should be on the right track. Here, actual means how the energy is eventually used. So, for oil used in a furnace, actual is about the same as thermal. But, used in an ICE it will be lower. This aids in comparison with, say, electric vehicles using EROEI(actual)=20 from a wind turbine. With 80% efficient batteries and regenerative breaking they will usually out perform oil by this measure.
Chris
Then you're missing the whole point of EROEI, energetic sustainability.
What you're measuring is electricity returned on energy invested, and thats an invented term. It has nothing to do with cost competitiveness either, because heat is cheap, nor resource utilization.
No, it helps to reveal what is the better investment for society. So, you have to compare apples with apples. The nuclear industry puts out a lot of FUD about renewables and lobbies strongly against them. But they are talking through their hats because they have a low quality energy source. When they put out a table comparing EROEI of various sources or complain about the surface area needed, they hide their own warts and try to deceive people. You're one of the people who has been taken in I think.
Chris
Sorry, I should have said EROEI=1.5 for an oil-like calculation.
Chris
Why do you believe this? This statement is trivially, obviously false.
We include the invested energy because it is invested. You can make up your own measure if you like, but it won't turn out to be useful.
Chris
You dont invest it then go back and look where it came from and downgrade it though. You dont get to multiply the thermodynamic efficiency twice. You aren't investing waste heat. You're investing work, and in this particular case, electricity.
I find it rather sad that you dont even realize how wrong you are about this, but I can guarantee you following this line of reasoning doesnt do much for your credibility. Stop and think about your argument for just a little while.
A nuke is 33-35% efficient, while a coal powered plant is ~40% efficient. It's not such a big difference and I don't see the point you make with it - as long as the primary energy source is abundant we can afford lower efficiencies, otherwise 6% efficient thin film solar cells would have never been manufactured at all.
The efficiency of photovoltaics is quantum efficiency not thermal efficiency. The limit is about 80%. The tradeoffs are in cost rather than clumsiness.
Chris
Thermal efficiency seems on track to greatly improve over the next few years. DOE Freedomcar project to advance thermoelectrics.
the ZT figures of 4.5 (latest prototypes get to this level. 4.5 ZT gets 27% from 250 degrees, 38% efficiency for 500 degrees and 54% efficiency for 1000 degrees. the thermoelectric retrofit would not involve changing the operation of the core just the conversion efficiency of the heat.
Nuclear reactors often produce about 3 times as many MW from thermal as from MW electrical. So capturing 30-60% of the waste heat would be huge and worth the investment of 1-2 billion per plant.
Boiler water reactors core is about 285°C
Pressurized reactors operate at about 315C
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2007/jan/tech/kb_nuclear...
Parts of the reactor operate at 1800 °C.
So? What exactly is your point?
Thermal efficiency is such also because of physical limitations. What follows? Repeal the second law? Thermal efficiency by itself does not say a lot. If you don't put in in some context you are not making any advance at all.
If I knew a cheap way to harness the sunlight falling on the the desert of Sahara, I would be satisfied even if the technology is only 0.1% efficient. In both cases it is the amount of primary energy that is of interest. It is the vast amount of energy released from fission that makes it attractive, and this energy is more then sufficient even with lower thermal efficiency. To put things in perspective - all PV installed in the world produce ~1 GW continuously - which is a little more than the output of just one 1GW nuclear reactor (out of 440 currently operating worldwide).
There was a discussion about thermal efficiency. My point was to provide information on non-static progress in that regard. My other point is that the electricity generated by existing nuclear power plants can be increased. Long term projections like the one in the base article where nothing new is developed are idiotic. I am not talking about repealing the second law but pushing up to 80-90% of carnot efficiency using nanostructured materials.
Possibly with only a few hundred square meters of new materials around the reactor vessel or the turbines or the piping per reactor.
This can happen in the 2010-2020 timeframe. Significant thermoelectric enhanced commercial cars will be coming out in 2010. By 2015, they are shooting to capture 10% energy from waste heat. It would easier to incorporate the thermoelectrics with nuclear (and other stationary higher heat power sources)
10+% captures 2015-2017 deployment
25+% capture 2020-2022 deployment
You are talking about solar tiling the Sahara's 9,000,000 square kilometres (which is also a politically unstable region). I am talking about retrofitting existing and new plants with some thermoelectrics covering maybe a hundred square meters each. I am talking about economic and achievable improvement over 8-15 years with an already fully funded government and business program involving GE, Catepillar, Dupont, Ford, and many others.
Hum, the point is that not all efficiencies are the same. Some can be improved. I expect commercial production of 40% efficient solar panels in 2010 and further gains going forward but no real gains for nucelar plants because they are so clumsy. The thermoelectric idea above is interesting but does not look as though it has that much potential. I think there are about 2 GW of continuous elegant PV power at the end of 2007, 12.4 GW nameplate. At the current growth rate, it shouldn't take to long to retire all those reactors an make the world a safer place to live.
Chris
What is the growth rate and how long until you retire first the coal (2000 billion kwh) and then the nuclear (800 billion kwh in the USA) ?
Many anti-nukers here like to say "not even the nuclear industry thinks". Well not even the solar power industry thinks they can displace coal or nuclear for many decades.
The most aggressive proposal that I have heard of is 2050 for 50% of electricity published in Scientific American.
the German solar power was bought with the "Feed-in Law". In Germany permits customers to receive preferential tariffs for solar generated electricity depending on the nature and size of the installation. Under the new tariff structure introduced in 2004, the base level of compensation for ground-mounted systems can be up to 45.7 euro cents/kWh. PV installations on buildings receive higher rates of up to 57.4 euro cents/kWh.
http://www.solarbuzz.com/FastFactsGermany.htm
Tariffs (subsidies)
German: $0.51/kWh, ground mounted; $0.71/kWh façade cladding
France: $0.70/kWh building integrated
Spain: $0.53/kWh
Ontario: $0.37/kWh
http://www.wind-works.org/articles/BriefSummaryofWorldSolarPVMarketStats...
The solar power industry does not expect to make any major inroads prior to 2020
http://eere.energy.gov/greenpower/conference/11remc06/roper.pdf
solar is 1/30 th of 1% of US electricity at the end of 2006
Historical growth has been 20% CAGR
World growth has been 40% CAGR
Massive German subsidies allowed 67% CAGR
With 20% CAGR solar is still tiny in 2020
Only massive subsidies might push it to significant levels by 2020
800 billion kwh with 50 cent kwh subsidies is $400 billion/year.
I am pro-solar and wind as well but since they cannot contribute that much until after 2020 or 2030 we have to have another option. Time and urgency matters because of the massive death rate from coal and diesel particulates.
In the solar energy industry pdf
http://eere.energy.gov/greenpower/conference/11remc06/roper.pdf
The solar energy industry would like massive subsidies like Germany in order to get to replacing the 100 billion kwh of new power being added. So it would take many more years beyond that to displace coal and then nuclear.
I do not think the 67% growth rate will be achieved or sustained.
the 40% growth rate would need to be sustained for about 20 years before it would start making a dent on old power. And the 20% growth rate the US has experienced would take 35 years to start making a dent against in place coal and nuclear.
In the US the installation of solar power grew 83% in 2007. At that rate of growth, you'd expect the US to install about 100 GW of solar during 2017, We might, rather optimitically, expect 3 GW of new nuclear in 2017 but a net reduction in nuclear power as plants like Vermont Yankee and Indian Point are shut down.
Chris
My bank account grew by 50% last year. This of course means I will be a billionaire in 2020.
US nuclear plants are mostly getting operating extensions from 40 to 60 years. almost all the plants are expected to get the extensions. I expect that most will get another 10-20 years of extensions after that.
Vermont Yankee got a 20 year extension. The extension was already granted
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/sr1437/supple...
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applications/ver...
And vermont yankee got a permission for a power uprate
http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2006/03/nrc-approves-vermont-yankee-...
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has approved a request by Entergy Nuclear to increase the generating capacity of Vermont Yankee by approximately 20 percent. The power uprate for the unit, located in Vernon, Vt., will increase its generating capacity by approximately 100 megawatts electric.
Indian point will get their operating extension too.
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applications/ind...
Nine new reactors are in the licensing process in the US at the end of 2007. They should be completing in the 2015-2020 timeframe along with another 23 that will be applying for licenses in 2008 and 2009
http://advancednano.blogspot.com/2007/12/nine-new-reactors-in-united-sta...
Florida has a power uprate as well for 414MW by 2012
http://advancednano.blogspot.com/2007/12/40-of-power-average-size-nuclea...
Conventional power uprates could add 10GW by 2020
http://advancednano.blogspot.com/2007/08/nuclear-power-uprates.html
20-30 GW or 160 to 240 billion kwh can be added by 2020 even without thermoelectric upgrades and 50% power uprates from donut shaped fuel or from uranium hydride reactors or other mass produceable reactors.
100GW of solar would be great if it happened but it will have to a process that is not constrained by silicon supplies. Plus 100GW of solar is about 200 billion kwh because there is no sun at night and there are clouds etc...
I think you better figure out what TBD means before counting on the Vermont Yankee licence renewal.
Chris
If you think the NRC Director or the committee are not going to rubber stamp it after the public hearings and safety reports have all passed then I would like to bet you on the outcome.
Put some money where your prediction is.
Chris:
When you say 40% efficient solar panels, does that mean that you think they will produce 400 watts per square meter at noon on a clear day? (The solar constant on Earth in low latitudes is somewhere close to 1 kilowatt per square meter at noon on a clear day.)
If that is not what you mean, can you explain where the 40% comes from?
If that is what you mean, can you point me to a single instance of such efficiencies being achieved on a laboratory scale?
Can you also point me to a place that explains how those solar panels will be made in such a way that they can power ships, produce adequate power to drive dense economies like those in the Northeast US, and also operate at night, on snowy days, and during periods of cloudiness?
Nuclear plants are 24 x 7 world wide power sources. Solar panels are niche suppliers for hand held calculators and rich people's roofs.
Yes that it right. DuPont is heading up the production end of things. The initial applications will be military. You can read more here.
Solar is actually moving to 24x7 in some applications. Concentrated thermal solar power does pretty well storing energy using molten salts. A great deal of rooftop PV installation these days is in the commercial sector where cost savings are achieved over standard power supply. Alcoa, Walmart and Macy's are just a few of the companies that are installing solar power. There is certainly adequate surface area in the Northeast to cover consumption there but storage will need to be a part of a system that attempts to use solar only. Wind resources in the Northeast are not so bad so storage may not need to be such a large portion of the final system. I do know of some ocean going vessels that are solar powered but these are prototypes at this point.
Chris
It is about halfway down here . They had a detailed accouting there at one point but I cannot find it now. Sorry I did not get back to you with this sooner. The power is still out at my home in the SF Bay Area mountains. Do not believe Chris that this report has been discredited, at least not among people who have open minds about nuclear power.
New nuclear reactors in the UK - Yes it is a good idea, and yesterday.
Frankly we have no real choice. Renewables can only ever reach 20-30% of UK demand, with their reliability issues. The gas dependence of most of the UK capacity is a significant risk issue and the greenie 'do nothing ever' option is socially untenable.
I've never been convinced of either:
a) the impossibility of finding new Uranium sources, or
b) the extreme costs put on decommissioning (nice little earner there)
For preference I've always considered that Fast Breeders were the future, given both the UK research experience and the Thorp plant. Hopefully someone will put a strategic hat on and go full bore into designing and building fast breeders (which could then be sold on to other countries) for delivery within a decade.
The key issue here is providing a secure and continuing supply of energy for the UK into the future. Nothing else is as big a risk as failing to address that successfully. What those that champion the greenie 'do nothing ever' option seem to forget to do is add up the risk factors associated with their 'root and branch' structural change. I'd suggest the probability of failure there is greater than 50-50, so it should never be something you try to rely on.
I think that what Chris Vernon is trying to point out here is that nuclear is not an option in any meaningful sense. If we have limited remaining fossil fuels, burning them up on negative EROEI projects is not the smartest way to go.
When confronted by a set of unpalatable choices, clearly the least unpleasant ones should be chosen first. Wishful thinking should be left to the clergy.
Sure. Which is why nuclear is a good idea. Uranium mining for light water reactors takes a measured 1/500th the energy that is produced in the same reactors from the lowest ore grades currently mined today.
The notion that nuclear is somehow unsustainable in any time frame worth discussing is an obvious pack of lies.
Obvious is not the right word as many people don't agree. My point of view? I'm not sure.
Most of the people who dont agree have an axe to grind with nuclear power orthoginal of its sustainability.
Talking about the energy cost of nuclear waste for instance is an obvious indicator: It doesnt have any energy cost, it just sits there in a dry storage cask over the centuries. Oh sometime in several hundred years we'll peel them open to get at the fuel and fission products or decide that they need to be resealed, but the actual energy cost is on the order of driving a truck across the country.
Disposal of nuclear waste doesn't have any energy cost. Good one, Dezakin.
How much energy did the beer can you threw away last year consume in the meantime?
You people are questioning my belief in common sense.
Well actually it won't be us that peels them open will it? It will be some poor schmuck of future generations that you will never meet. Your flippant willingness to bestow your filthy nuclear wastes on future generations just so you can keep cosy, is a genocidal indulgence that I and many others find morally repugnant. I'd rather be cold thanks.
Its a sound investment. For comparison, say you had a relative who could have either invested 50k in an elaborate bomb shelter or in index funds from 50 years ago. Which would be more valuable today?
As for who peels open the spent fuel canisters? Some omnicorp nuclear materials company. Unless civilization collapses I suppose, in which case there will be far bigger worries than spent fuel.
Hmmmm I wonder about those schmucks... it seems they can pick between two sets of problems:
First set:
1) They will have to cope with a planet with biosphere struggling to adjust to a completely changed climate
2) They will have to struggle to find energy so that he can live at least a resemblance of our quality of living
Second set:
1) They will have to take care noone goes down some rock in the mountain and steals away spent fuel rods. Well they have to periodically check if the storage is OK and not leaking.
2) Or, better yet they can built recycling facilities, use the spent fuel as fresh fuel and reduce the amount that needs to be kept under check 100-fold.
Pardon my arrogance, but I think my grandchildren will prefer the second set of problems.
No, the choice isn't between problem set 1 or 2 but between 1 and 1+2.
In the future they will have to deal with climate change - look at the IPCC data, climate never stays the same.
Has anyone here read advancednano's above post (10:39)? If we build next-generation power plants that can burn 99.9% of nuclear waste generated by today's existing (obsolete) 30-year-old-design reactors, then we don't have a "waste problem". And that's assuming no additional improvements are made to reactor design by future generations.
While I'm optimistic about the future, in no way to I suspect we're going to be building spent fuel incinerator reactors any time in the near future. They would be a large R&D cost for the dubious benifit of disposing of some several thousand tons of spent fuel in 3 centuries rather than simply storing the spent fuel in casks untill there is an actual significant demand for them.
Now this wouldn't be the worst way to spend money, and I imagine the 20 billion or so it would take to commercialize fast neutron liquid chloride reactors would be well spent, such reactors face immense licensing issues and little value add for power companies compared to simply using light water reactors. Certainly this would be better policy than dumping all that money literally into a giant hole in the Nevada desert (the current policy) but do we honestly think that that political inertia is going to change?
Say we could influence public policy to replace the geologic repository with incinerator reactors and above ground storage, it would be far more desirable. A small fleet of liquid chloride reactors destroys the transuranic actinides while breeding U233, either for startup fuel for thermal fluoride reactors or as ordinary fuel for light water reactors. The reprocessed uranium from the process could be sold back into the light water reactor fuel cycle for reenrichment or blending with U233. This would destroy nearly all of the long lived transuranic waste and thus also the need for a geologic repository for about the same cost without the capacity limits.
But that assumes spent fuel is a problem at all. It certainly isn't a financial one. Discounting sees to that.
Chris
Slightly OT, but what are your qualifications and expertise? What about your political leanings? Would you describe yourself as a anti-nuclear environmentalist? Would you support nuclear if it could be demonstrated to have clear significant EROEI gains and uranium supply was undisputed?
I am just wondering if the charges against the anti-nuclear brigade are well founded?
Education is a master’s degree in computational physics, career in telecoms (radio and power engineering). I wouldn't describe myself as an anti-nuclear environmentalist, I think many of the traditional anti-nuclear arguments are very weak. However I don't think the UK building new nukes is a smart idea today - maybe if we'd started 10 years ago it would have made more sense (ie get them complete before the old ones are offline and before the rest of the world started building like mad). My main objection today is that it isn't the most effective way to spend the billions that several new nukes would cost, it would be better to spend on efficiency improvements (including demand side management) and renewables - I think we could cut our electricity consumption by a third within a decade without much hardship. This would have a faster (and cheaper) effect on the demand/supply balance than new nukes. I'm a fan of the Severn tidal barrage for example and see no good reason why we couldn't be generating at least 15% from wind by 2020.
Regarding EROEI and uranium supply, as I said above I'm not sure. The evidence seems highly conflicted. What does seem clear is that there's a uranium supply crunch coming and a bottleneck in global reactor construction in the short term. These two facts alone mean it's probably the worst time in decades for the UK to be building new reactors.
So in summary, I am anti-nuclear in the UK, but not very far from neutral (10 years ago I might have been just on the pro side of neutral). EROEI and uranium supply are not the main aspects leading to that position.
This statement here just means I cant take anything you say seriously.
There's no evidence that the nuclear fuel cycle is in the least bit in any sort of state where the energy payback ratio is anything but very large.
It's not just the mining. It's the fuel processing, fuel rod assembly, transportation of fuel to reactor, building the reactor, handling waste, storage, decommisioning, etc. i.e. the full lifecycle.
The most optimistic nuclear industry figure I've seen is around 100:1.
The truth is probably somewhere between the industry's claims and Storm's claims.
And we're not talking about ores mined today, we're talking about ores mined over the lifetime of any current and proposed reactors.
It's worth revisiting "Uranium Depletion and Nuclear Power: Are We at Peak Uranium?" too.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2379
Doesn't matter. The mining is the only bottleneck in the whole cycle. The rest are derivitive products of the mined uranium. When the ore grade goes down, the cost of fuel processing, fuel rod assembly, transportation of fuel, building the reactor, handling the waste, storage, decommissioning, etc doesnt go up.
'Mining is the only bottleneck in the whole cycle..'
So you solved the waste problem? Good on you!
'When ore grade goes down.. the cost[s] don't go up..'
Of course they go up! First, they're going up ANYWAY, because the fuels and materials they depend on and everything else is going up. Second, lower grade ore means digging more, carrying more, hiring more people, replacing more equipment, taking more time.
'The rest are derivative products of the mined uranium.'
Is that your version of 'Above ground Factors'? As with the waste, you can outsource it to the grandkids and say 'They'll be happy to clean up my crap. Not my problem.. Thanks, Kids!'
Bob
When you look at all the choices we have of what to burden future generations with, a few tons of radioactive waste sealed up and well cared for might be the least burdensome of them. What are our other choices? Mercury everywhere? Run-away global warming? Die-off? Wind and solar sound great until you look at the enormous scale of the problem.
"..a few tons of radioactive waste sealed up and well cared for might be the least burdensome of them."
when you call it 'a few tons', and presume that it's Both 'Sealed up' AND 'well cared for', then you quickly see where the burdens can add up.. and then you get to ask WHO is bearing this burden for us? Are we paying them? With Bennies and full Healthcare in case it does turn out to have some health side-effects.
'Wind and Solar sound great until you look at the enormous scale of the problem.'
Translation, 'Those things are Wimpy Power, gimme REAL power! Mighty Power!'
No. They do sound great, and they are just two very large and reliable sources in addressing an extremely large problem. I do look at this problem every day, and don't see any reason not to continue advocating for investing heavily into Solar and Wind. They and the others will not be enough.. not even close until we revise the meaning of 'enough'. But I do not think Nuclear can be made Economical, Safe or Politically Healthy in a post-petroleum transition. It's too top-heavy, too complex, too Monopoly-prone and too dependent on the stability created BY the petrol economy. Far too much can go wrong from many different directions.
Best,
Bob
One of the things which appalls me about modern-day nuclear proponents is their complete abandonment of any ethical and moral considerations.
In the 1970s the late Alvin Weinberg, a major proponent of nuclear power, was very aware of the Faustian bargain involved.
"We nuclear people have made a Faustian bargain with society. On the one hand, we offer -- in the catalytic nuclear burner -- an inexhaustible source of energy. . . .
But the price that we demand of society for this magical energy source is both a vigilance and a longevity of our social institutions that we are quite unaccustomed to."
"We make two demands. The first, which I think is easier to manage, is that we exercise in nuclear technology the very best techniques and that we use people of high expertise and purpose. . . .
The second demand is less clear, and I hope it may prove unnecessary. This is a demand for longevity in human institutions. We have relatively little problem dealing with wastes if we can assume always that there will be intelligent people around to cope with eventualities we have not though of. If the nuclear parks that I mention are permanent features of our civilization, then we presumably have the social apparatus, and possibly the sites, for dealing with our wastes indefinitely. But even our salt mine may require some surveillance if only to prevent men in the future from drilling holes into the burial grounds.
Eugene Wigner has drawn an analogy between this commitment to a permanent social order that may be implied in nuclear energy and our commitment to a stable, year-in and year-out social order when man moved from hunting and gathering to agriculture. Before agriculture, social institutions hardly required the long-lived stability that we now take so much for granted. And the commitment imposed by agriculture in a sense was forever; the land had to be tilled and irrigated every year in perpetuity; the expertise required to accomplish this task could not be allowed to perish or man would perish; his numbers could not be sustained by hunting and gathering. In the same sense, though on a much more highly sophisticated plane, the knowledge and care that goes into the proper building and operation of nuclear power plants and their subsystems is something we are committed to forever, so long as we find no other practical source of infinite extent."
"In exchange for this atomic peace [referring to no recent nuclear bomb use] we had to manage and control nuclear weapons. In a sense, we have established a military priesthood which guards against inadvertent use of nuclear weapons, which maintains what a priori seems to be a precarious balance between readiness to go to war and vigilance against human errors that would precipitate war. Moreover, this is not something that will go away, at least not soon. The discovery of the bomb has imposed an additional demand on our social institutions. It has called forth this military priesthood upon which in a way we all depend for our survival.
It seems to me (and in this I repeat some views expressed very well by Atomic Energy Commissioner Wilfred Johnson) that peaceful nuclear energy probably will make demands of the same sort on our society, and possibly of even longer duration."
Science, July 7, 1972
John Gofman remarked
"If we can predict the social future for generations, including civil strife, international strife, revolutions, psychoses, saboteurs of all stripes and types, hijackers of whatever bizarre or mundane motives, psychopathic personalities of all types, and all criminality, then nuclear power is acceptable, according to Dr. Weinberg's requirements.
Since the social requirements for acceptability of nuclear power are dominant and cannot be met, it follows that no group of humans has the moral right to support the construction or operation of nuclear power plants. Minimum morality, as many have stated, requires that we do not compromise the chance of life for generations to come. No one seriously denies that nuclear power generation can thus compromise the life of generations to come and no one is seriously prepared to guarantee the future social stability required to prevent this."
Environmental Action, November 25, 1972
And there's the rub.
How ethical is it to use a form of electricity generation whose benefits are reaped by a few in the present and whose costs are borne by their descendants?
(This argument also applies to our burning of fossil fuels now, given that climate system lags mean temperatures will continue to rise for some time even if we stopped burning fossil fuels today)
Alvin Weinberg supported molten salt reactors. he believed it to be the answer to his safety concerns. You quote his concern but not his favored solution ? That does not seem to be a very ethical presentation.
http://nucleargreen.blogspot.com/2007/12/alvin-weinbergs-integrity-and-v...
http://thoriumenergy.blogspot.com/2006/08/weinbergs-reactor-rationale.html
What's your preferred method of genie bottling? Knowledge is forever. Or you could say we must not do anything dangerous, ever, or develop any dangerous technology, as the technology may be subverted in the future. It's a run around way of advocating a sticks and stones world, ignoring any benefit that might come about from the use of technology.
Bob:
Do you really believe that the sun and wind are reliable sources of power? You must live in a different world where the sun never sets and the wind always blows.
According to the Energy Information Agency both wind and solar energy collection systems combined produced less than 19 Terawatt hours in 2005 (latest data available on their web site). That compares to a total nuclear plant production in the same year of 781 Terawatt hours and a total electricity generation of 4000 terawatt hours.
On a percentage basis, wind and solar together accounted for just under 1/2 of 1 percent of electricity generation and essentially 0% of industrial and transportation consumption.
Feel free to invest in your "very large and reliable" power systems. You will probably make some money, there are plenty of gullible people without math skills in the world.
For my money, I will continue to pour my efforts into a tiny start-up that plans to compete in the "top heavy, too complex, too Monopoly-prone, and too dependent on the stability created BY the petrol economy" nuclear industry.
Rod Adams'
Editor, Atomic Insights
Founder and CEO, Adams Atomic Engines, Inc.
(not bragging, just disclosing my affiliation and monetary interest in the discussion)
Sunshine and wind are not reliable in any one place, but that actually works alright for renewables since it's physically very difficult to make large renewable plants. We have plenty of 1,000MW or more coal, gas, nuclear plants, but are not likely to see 1,000MW wind or solar plants. We'll have to have instead 1,000 x 1MW plants, which will be spread out over a large area. Or rather, because of their lower load factor, about 3,000 x 1MW plants, spread over an even larger area.
Considering somewhere like Australia, it seems extraordinarily unlikely that the entire continent will be simultaneously overcast and with still air. So we take this generation which we already have to distribute, and we distribute in such a way as to balance things out. If it's overcast in Geelong it'll be clear in Mildura, if it's still at Wonthaggi it'll be windy at Point Cook, or vice versa.
Different areas back each-other up. In fact, we do exactly this now. When demand spikes in one state (for example, in the afternoon of a heat wave), power is drawn from other states. When supply drops out because a bushfire knocks over a power line, or a coal mine's wall collapses, another state helps out. It's called a "grid", and engineers have been managing them fairly well for decades.
Certainly it's a bigger problem, managing supply and demand variations from renewables, compared to managing them from depletables. But nothing I've seen or heard indicates that it's an impossible problem.
People putting out the "renewables can't handle base load because they're unreliable" story seem unaware of just how much messing about we already do to balance supply and demand across an electricity grid.
Waiting for solar and wind alone to fill the energy gap is wishing olduvai on future generations. That is what you strongly imply when you say "we revise the meaning of 'enough'". To me, enough means enough to keep our current population alive and healthy. I guess for you that would be wasteful or something.
Seriously, so what if they have to keep watch over such a tiny amount of radioactive waste that is nicely sealed and labeled and stored in a few specific places. Burning coal just spreads it out everywhere and we can see the results of that in our fish supplies. And burning coal is what we'll do while we wait for solar and wind to ramp up.
'Strongly Imply' ??
Your Honor, I Strenuously Object!
It's simply what you are Strongly Hearing, but when I say 'We revise the meaning of Enough'.. I mean that we USE TOO MUCH.. that we are FAT, SPOILED and SLOPPY with our energy.. that arguments about 'Baseload Power' and 'Renewables Filling the Gap' left by disappearing fossil fuels is the equivalent of a Divorce Proceeding hanging on a spouse insisting on being kept in the 'Lifestyle to which He/She had become accustomed'.. Good luck with that. I don't expect those payments will be coming, and if they did, we get the questionable boon of remaining the Energy Fatheads that we have become.
'So what if THEY had to keep watch..' Who is they, how much are you willing to pay them?
'over such a TINY amount of waste..' ??!! a few billion here, a few billion there.. pretty soon your talking real money!
'nicely sealed .. in a few specific places..'
- Young Man, you clean up your own messes, or you are going to bed without dinner!
"Young Man, you clean up your own messes, or you are going to bed without dinner!"
It seems you are fixated on this idea here. You need to understand that we will be leaving burdens on future generations one way or another. If you choose the moralistic power-down scenario, then you are making choices for them, and some will not appreciate your choice. I daresay, most will not appreciate it.
"'over such a TINY amount of waste..' ??!! a few billion here, a few billion there.. pretty soon your talking real money!"
And here you simply demonstrate that you can't understand the scale of things.
"You need to understand that we will be leaving burdens on future generations one way or another."
Right. I pick 'Another'.
This persistently casual Toss-off that this waste is hardly different from anything else we're creating is highly misleading, particularly with the addition of waste from every step of the process.
'Can't understand the scale of things'
I understand that this industry can't even clean up what it produces now, and it all is being parked in a range of conditions, dependent upon political stability to remain secure, with permanent solutions permanently pending. Ramp this up, and there's your 'Exponential Function' at work.
You call it my 'Fixation' that this generates hundreds of tons of Poisonous Material annually. Sure. I do get into a snit when people don't take responsibility for their actions.
You're lacking perspective if you think hundreds of tons is anything but a tiny ammount, or if any other energy generating technology will generate less with the industrial infrastructure required.
Has there been some accident in the west I'm not aware of having to do with these wastes? Permanent solution seeking is the problem here. It would be a mistake to simply assume intuitively, as you seem to be doing, that the mere existence of poisonous waste warrants a drive for a "permanent solution". Like shipping everything to the mountains for burial or something.
The permanent solution is rather just what they are doing now: keeping the wastes on site in a pool, sealed in caskets. If something goes wrong, it's easy to fix because it's not buried and inaccessible. Besides, this so-called "waste" will hopefully serve as fuel in the future when we start using breeders.
I like how you capitalize Poisonous Materials. As though the fact that it's poisonous is all the argument needed to disallow it's existence at all costs. There's a lot of poisons in this world, why fear one more than others?
Has there been some accident in the west I'm not aware of having to do with these wastes?
There was certainly a MAJOR problem in the East. And just because it happened in the Soviet Union does NOT mean it cannot happen here. Some pro-nuke supporters show an alarming lack of concern about nuclear safety, which can translate into major problems if that attitude prevails.
And there have been problems at Windscale, Rocky Mt outside Denver, Hanford and South Carolina (from slightly vague memory).
But I find mercury buildup in the environment to be a greater concern.
Alan
It's not lack of concern, it's just pointing out certain realities, differences between Chernobyl and western reactors and their history of mishap. Vigilance is needed of course - suggesting nuke supporters don't recognize that would be a straw man. As for "problems" at reactors, there are problems everywhere. Some problems result in people dying, their ground water polluted and the like. Those types of serious problems haven't happened at western nuclear reactors, however.
I was also referring to a steam propelled waste "explosion" that contaminated a swath of the Urals. For those that calculate the waste control issue only in cubic meters, it shows what even a couple of cubic meters of nuclear waste can do it not handled with extreme caution.
Alan
Its been solved for decades. Dry cask storage.
The energy costs dont, and the monetary costs of most things fall over time (in terms of man-hours per unit) as a reflection of increased productivity. The only cost that goes up is the fuel. When the energy cost of the fuel is 1/500th the energy generated by the fuel, going to lower ore grades is trivial.
The UK's Committee on Radioactive Waste Management doesn't seem to share your optimism.
http://www.corwm.org.uk/PDF/FullReport.pdf
Nor does the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority
http://www.nda.gov.uk/documents/upload/NDA-Response-to-Government-consul...
And they note that "past experience in the UK and overseas shows that dealing with the long-term management of radioactive waste is not just a scientific and technical issue, but one that has socio, political and ethical considerations."
Well its partly right. Its a political problem, not a technical one. People think spent fuel is 'scary' even though it doesn't do anything but sit there over the decades.
Guys, read advancednano's 10:39 post above. If next-gen reactors can burn 99.9% of today's obsolete-design reactor waste, then we don't have a waste problem.
a) because of the low concentrations involved and the technical practicalities of excavating huge volumes of ore we're not ever going to be mining "North Sea" or "Gulf of Mexico" Uranium. So any undiscovered exploitable Uranium deposits are going to be on land. Whilst it's possible that there are some not too inaccessible deposits of high-grade Uranium ore yet to be discovered, I'd hazard a guess that there's not going to be a lot which we don't already know about.
b) decommissioning costs is one hotly (pun intended) disputed area, both at the energy and financial level. We could do with more studies here.
Unfortunately, there's nothing fast about fast breeders (the term refers to the speed of the neutrons, not the rate of fuel generation). Fast breeders have been abandoned for good reasons, so consider them off the radar for at least 25 years. In which time the Uranium fuel crunch will already have hit.
You just seal the spent fuel in storage casks. The notion that decomissioning is energy expensive is silly nonsense.
Fast breeders have been abandoned because they solve a problem no one has: A shortage of plutonium. Breeders in general are unnecissary themselves because uranium is still too cheap to warrent extra cost unless the fuel cycle has more to offer than mere waste reduction and fuel economy.
And to think that the market cant handle even a solid decade of very tight uranium supplies is silly. All you have to do is dip into depleted uranium stocks (of which there are plenty) and do extra enrichment.
And to produce enriched fuel from the depleted Uranium will require a tripling of enrichment. So, when are we going to hit "peak enrichment facilities"?
For every technical quick fix there's another problem to solve down the line.
That's fine, but we need to be open and transparent about it. And a lot less glib.
Given we're constructing new centrifuge enrichment facilities anyways to replace the gasseous diffusion facilities in the USA and France, I'm not terribly worried about a decline in enrichment capacity. In a supply crunch the diffusion facilities are retired a few years later, and theres a surplus in enrichment capacity anyways.
In addition theres DUPIC, MOX, and a host of other stopgaps avaliable on short order. If the price shoots up, marginal mines shut down are reopened, and in the long run uranium supply is fairly obviously assured. Uranium itself makes up less than 1% of the cost of nuclear power.
Dezakin - "You just seal the spent fuel in storage casks. The notion that decomissioning is energy expensive is silly nonsense."
Well why not just drop it in the rubbish bin on the way home from work if it is that easy to store? This is absolute and complete rubbish. What about vitrifying it in glass as is done now?? I think that this uses a bit of energy. What about the time that it takes to cool in cooling ponds that have to be monitored and the coolant circulated for 10 or 20 years???????
"All you have to do is dip into depleted uranium stocks (of which there are plenty) and do extra enrichment."
Now I really do know your source of glibness - you really have no idea. Depleted uranium is the uranium left over from the enrichment process and has no commercial amount of U235. You cannot enrich this to the required 5%.
Vitrifying it into glass is part of reprocessing for MOX fuel regimes, which unnecissary and when its done anyways (for strategic or political reasons) produces far more energy from the MOX fuel than is consumed in the reprocessing process. The time spent in cooling ponds doesnt consume any significant amount of energy from coolant circulation. You're seriously suggesting a coolant pump consumes energy that is in any way significant on the level of power production?
Sure you can (though I think you mean 3.6%), depending on the spot price of natural uranium. Depleted uranium contains nearly half the concentration of natural uranium. (0.720% for natural uranium versus 0.25-0.30% U-235)
http://web.ead.anl.gov/uranium/pdf/potentialuses.pdf
http://www.uic.com.au/nip53.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_enrichment
http://www.wise-uranium.org/nfcue.html
Dezakin - "You just seal the spent fuel in storage casks. The notion that decomissioning is energy expensive is silly nonsense."
Well why not just drop it in the rubbish bin on the way home from work if it is that easy to store?
--Actually, that is their plan. There is only one way to reduce the cost of proper disposal, and that is to not do it. Dump it in the ocean, abandon it on site, pump it into the air, whatever.
--Who is going to stop them? Who CAN stop them.
--Reading pro-nuke arguments is getting as reasuring as sitting through a screening of "Dr. Strangelove."
I don't seem to ever recall advocating dumping spent fuel in the ocean or pumping it in the air, and it wouldn't make any sense to do this from a purely cost basis even if it was as benign as mud. There just isn't enough of it. A light water reactor produces some several tons of spent fuel per GW/year that can be stored in a dry storage cask onsite without any difficulty at all. The spent fuel inventory from a reactor for its entire life takes up significantly less space than its entire parking lot.
One might be more concerned with proper disposal of mercury which is highly toxic and environmentally mobile, unlike spent fuel which is sealed in dry storage casks.
Actually, dumping it in the oceans is prohibited by the London Dumping Convention. This raises some issues in the face of sea level rise because plant decommissioning may need to be accelerated in tidal areas. This could increase decommisioning costs and also lead to new reactors not being used for their design lifetimes. I don't like the term energy bankrupt in the original article but I do foresee financial bankruptcy as a distinct possibility for coastal plants if we see a few meters of sea level rise this century. I think it would make a lot of sense to avoid providing loan guarantees for these.
Chris
Chris:
Who is predicting a few meters of sea level rise this century? The IPCC report certainly does not include that quantity of increase in their most recent report. According to Table 3.1 on page 7 of the summary report, the largest number in the predicted sea level increase table is 0.59 meters under the worst possible warming case for 2090-2099. Of course, there is a great deal of uncertainty in the models, the same table also lists 0.18 meters as a possible value.
In no case is there any indication of "a few meters" within the next century.
What is the source of your scare tactic?
atomicrod, you seem to have missed the paragraph below Table 3.1 at the top of page 8:
"Because understanding of some important effects driving sea level rise is too limited, this report does not assess the likelihood, nor provide a best estimate or an upper bound for sea level rise. Table SPM.1 shows model-based projections of global average sea level rise for 2090-2099. The projections do not include uncertainties in climate-carbon cycle feedbacks nor the full effects of changes in ice sheet flow, therefore the upper values of the ranges are not to be considered upper bounds for sea level rise. They include a contribution from increased Greenland and Antarctic ice flow at the rates observed for 1993-2003, but this could increase or decrease in the future. {3.2.1}"
And to be really scared, listen to Jim Hansen. There's a link to one of his speeches up this page. Building nukes anywhere near the sea is just plain ignorant.
You can read this paper in Philosophical Transactions. I can understand that you are fearful, but this really just a technical issue with nuclear power. The planning horizon needs to be pretty long so you need to anticipate century-scale changes. Fortunately, we are beginning to get a handle on these changes. This is similar to seismic issues where you need more than the typical building codes owing to the particular nature of nuclear power. Things would have gone much better for Humboldt 3 if they has done their seismic homework. Similarly, avoiding siting new nuclear plants in tidal regions saves money in the long run.
Chris
Yes Chris, that paper from Hansen may prove to be the most significant publication of 2007, but it appeared too late, July 2007, to be included in the IPPC AR4 other than producing the paragraph I quoted above. One can only hope that all relevant decision makers get round to reading it.
I'm leaning towards some work out of New Zealand as the most significant in 2007. There is a new explanation for the measured acceleration of the expansion rate of the universe that does not rely on dark energy that seems to be pretty sound. But, the Hansen et al. paper is masterful and the use of the albedo flip mechanism to explain why springtime insolation appears to be more important that sumertime insolation in understanding termination events looks quite promising. There are still some issues with circular arguments that are probably related to interlinking feedbacks, but I expect that recalibrating some of the time series will be part of follow-on work and things will be clearer soon.
I think we can say with some certainty that several meters of sea level rise in a century ought to be expected and this century could be one of the centuries when that happens.
Chris
Please read advancednano's 10:39 post above.
There is no reason we should have a "waste problem" when next-gen reactors can burn 99.9% of radioactive waste created by today's obsolete-design reactors.
Fast breeders were abandoned because Uranium was cheap. If that becomes less true then they become a good idea - which is why there is the research effort into Gen IV fast reactors that is ongoing.
That's why I suggest that strategically they make a lot of sense. Not only do they address the sustainability issue, going strong on development now would make good commercial sense in being able to supply solutions to foreign nations as well as answering domestic needs. The timelines that exist reflect minimal funding rather than physical limits.
PS I know what a fast neutron is.
It's hard to study what's never been done.
No commercial nuclear power plant has ever been fully decommissioned - that is, had the fuel removed, been broken up, the site cleared and free for other uses. Typically they just put a padlock on a cyclone wire gate and fence and walk away.
And no, the processing of radioactive waste does not consist simply in sealing it in 44 gallon drums in a hole in the ground. It's more complex than that.
Not entirely sure why you have to do more than that.
Indeed, its sealing it in dry storage casks above ground.
Demonstrably untrue. Shippingport, the first commercial plant built in the US was fully decommissioned as a demonstration project in the early 1990s.
Though Shippingport is described by most resources as a 60 MWe plant, it was later uprated to 100 MWe and its pressure vessel size was not that much smaller than current 1000 MWe plants. It was originally built with a lot of margins in its design.
You can read a very interesting and detailed story of the decommissioning project at http://www.sethshulman.com/downloads/Articles/reactor-funeral.pdf
Rod Adams
Editor, Atomic Insights
First of all, Uranium deposits do not have the be high grade to be profitably mined. The Rossing mine in Nambia mines Uranium at an Ore concentration of 300 ppm. That is with energy cost 500 times less than the energy it delivers with current thermal-spectrum reactors. Of course, I would rather be able to mine the Cigar Lake deposit, which has an average concentration of 210,000 ppm.
I calculated in a post a while back that the exploration intensity of potential Uranium bearing crust has been about 1/120,000 of oil exploration in comparable potential oil bearing crust. What makes you think that we have discovered all of the Uranium if we have spent so little effort looking for it? I doubt we have found even a small fraction of the deposits that have obvious surface manifestations. What about the ones that are down a few thousand feet? Remember the story a few months back of the hundreds or was it thousands of miners who were stuck two kilometers down in a South African gold mine?
We will be able to make the claim that we have found most of the accessible deposits once we have explored all the crust volume of all the Earth's land area down to about three kilometers. We are about in Uranium exploration where the world was in oil exploration in the 1900s. But do not expect all the undiscovered deposits to be found for hundreds or thousands of years. The mining companies will not spend the money looking for them until their inventory runs low and that is not going to happen for a long time. They will always just find enough for the next fifty years or so. Otherwise it would be a waste of money.
garyp
I'd say that's a pretty balanced view I'd share, apart from the unnecessarily-UK-only perspective.
All I would add - on the capital and energy investment side - is the appearance of cheaper / lighter / inherently-safer (eg PBMR) designs. From a US / UK perspective they do suffer from the "not-invented-here" syndrome, but they shouldn't be ignored in a global issue like this.
I'd like to hear more about "breeder" feasibilty and (energy) economics.
Ian
The 20% by 2020 plan
20% Nuke
20% Wind
20% CHP
20% CCGT
20% Coal
Solar thermal to cover heat demand during summer when wind output is at lowest
Compressed air storage in depleted North sea gas fields. Using wind powered compression.
A decent (nationalised?) electric train network
Better local cycle links. http://www.sustransconnect2.org.uk/ Sustrans just won £50 million any chance of the government or anyone else matching it?
Id like to see wave and tidal in that mix. Tidal because it has an element of predictability. Wave because we have got so much of it. I think the pelamis unit looks promising with production economies of scale and possible upsizing. With deployability in water upto 100 metres France, Uk, Ireland, and Norway have one hell of allot of rough seas to cover.
Nick
The article suggests the Olympic Dam expansion is barely profitable. Bollocks it's literally a gold mine, also a copper and silver mine. They throw out tailings containing rare earths and thorium which could one day be extracted. It's true the expansion would require a lot of diesel and new water supplies. I suggest a nuclear power station and desalination plant on the coast 300km away could provide the water for ore processing and electrical power for digging machinery, thereby closing the loop and reducing indirect CO2.
Also waste canisters could be stored onsite as there is ongoing heavy security and it only returns some of the atomic mass to its birthplace, albeit with changed properties. While there might only be 50 years of ore that is surely enough time to sort out new energy sources or for the world to get its population right.
I presume if the writer of the article is swept off a bridge he will decline a life rope because there are a few seconds to learn to swim.
I decline it, too, if the rope has to go around my neck.
In any case, the fossil fuel decline is not like being swept off a bridge. We have many decades' warning. If I were standing on a bridge and knew a flood was coming, I wouldn't stand around arguing about whether the rope was any good, I'd just get off the damn bridge - and if I had time, I'd see if I could reinforce the bridge.
"..if the rope has to go around my neck."
Or if the other end is anchored to my Daughter's neck..
It's a shame that many posters on this thread have created such a storm about Storm van Leeuwen’s figures. David Fleming points out that more research is needed to quantify the problem more accurately. Even if the figures are contested, the principles are sound.
There are four points that stand out for me:
It's clear that, as we work our way through ever poorer quality ore, the theoretical and the real-world EROEI figures will become less and less favourable. Nuclear will cease to be an energy source, just as oil will be, once the EROEI goes below 1:1.
Here in the UK, as elsewhere, the lead time to build new nuclear is too long. The only option now is ramp up the renewables and mostly to curtail our use - hopefully through much greater energy efficiency and behaviour changes rather than unplanned outages.
The energy costs of managing the existing waste, let along any new waste, is going to be a big millstone around our collective necks in future decades as the effects of the energy descent start to bite deeper and deeper.
Finally, as Russia and some of the far east nations expand their nuclear power, the power of the exponential function is going to bring on the uranium shortages much sooner than most expect.
Adam1:
What? We had the bad manners to compare prediction with reality and found van Leeuwen and Smith wanting? So sorry to puncture your anti-nuclear daydream.
Adam1:
Obviously. If an energy resource is spread too thinly then of course you will at some point find you're expending more energy collecting it than you gain. I cannot find one post above that seriously disputes this mundane fact of life. What myself and others have stated is that van Leeuwen and Smith's calculation of this breakeven point is demonstrably wrong.
Adam1:
Not really. While new capacity will take longer to get online than new gas or coal, the difference isn't huge and the first new reactors should start up in the middle of the next decade. Recent life extensions to much of the AGR fleet means the UK will be able to replace its nuclear capacity without the creation of an energy gap.
On the wider point of how fast nuclear could be ramped up it is worth considering the French example across the Channel. France built 56 nuclear reactors in less than two decades, taking France's nuclear contribution to almost 80% of electricity generated and effectively decarbonising their supply.
Adam1:
The energy and financial costs of dealing with nuclear waste are only large in van Leeuwen and Smith's alternate universe. In this one experience shows they are small fractions of the total outlay.
As for being a millstone, if we continue to build nuclear plants then we will eventually progress to one of the many possible designs of epithermal or fast reactors that will turn Britain's 'waste' into an energy resource greater than Saudi Arabia's (possibly inflated) oil reserves. Would that all clouds had such a gold-plated, diamond encrusted linin