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26 comments on More on the long term UK situation

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jkissing on November 29, 2005 - 8:44pm Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
Opinions are clearly changing. In September I commented that we will turn to nukes as fossil fuel dollar and environmental costs climb, but several posters thought nukes are just too dangerous. THese days nukes don't seem to draw as many negative posts. Cold Britishers, not able to afford to keep the gas on, might be sitting in the dark if utilities can't either. Politicians, even popular ones like Blair, need a crisis to embark on an expensive, controversial course; a cold winter might be just the thing.

Some worry that the fossil fuel cost to build a nuke and/or mine the fuel will too high. These will be happy to note that bean counters will carefully set (ever higher) fossil fuel costs agains the (ever higher) value of fossil fuels avoided over the plant's 40-year life. Many at TOD think fossil fuel prices will rise over time, in which case the value of future fossil fuels saved will be much higher than those consumed today. Of course, renewables may also look good with a similar cost/benefit analysis, even though ASPO worries about the cost of building (unpopular) wind farms.

Indeed, it seems a good idea to take advantage of our declining fossil fuels to build infrastructure that avoids future fossil fuel usage. THose countries that successfully solve the technical, financial and political hurdles required to make the transition seem likely to look somewhat different from those that do not.

My earlier post suggested 400 nukes, including breeders, would be sufficient to replace all US coal plants, leaving coal to supplement declining liquid fuel supplies. The longest journey begins with but a single step...

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Rick on November 30, 2005 - 2:16am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Yes, opinions are shifting--even Tony Blair is in the fray.

Although I agree that we will need nuclear power, there are real logistical issues that will prevent widespread near-term use.

Uranium availability is one big issue. The OECD said that in 2002 there were 67,000 tonnes of uranium consumed, but only 36,000 tonnes mined. The remainder came from diluting enriched uranium from decomissioned nuclear weapons (largely Russian). Russia has decided not to sell more uranium, as they will need it at home. As a result, most new nuclear plants under construction right now do not have long-term contracts in place for fuel supply. More plants will mean a bigger shortfall. Breeders could fix that, but haven't they been disastrous so far?

The other issue is one of capital and expertise. I'm guessing that liability issues will make many companies reluctant to invest in nuclear without government indemnity or guarantees of some sort. And if they choose to, where will the engineers and other experts come from?

Countries that made the investment in nuclear in the past, like France (75% of electricity from nuclear) and Japan (35%), will look pretty smart. Later converts will have a lot of hurdles to overcome, even if they want to.

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rascal on November 30, 2005 - 6:57am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Breeders could fix that, but haven't they been disastrous so far?

I'm under the impression that the reasons why breeders haven't been taken into use are almost completely political. I can't claim any deep knowledge of this subject, but it seems that there are some extremely promising designs in existence. One example is the Integral Fast Reactor.

If the IFR and other advanced reactor designs are as great as they seem to be, why are we worrying about peak oil? And why spend massive resources on fusion research if breeder designs could be finished with relatively little effort?

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Magnus Redin on November 30, 2005 - 8:33am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Breeders are more expensive to build and harder to maintain since it is fairly easy to maintain water filled equipment but much harder with equipment full of molten metal or salt. Molten metals and salts are not transparent making inspection much harder and they are not liquid at room temperature.  You can for instance easily use acids to etch away the irradiated surface inside a water based reactor vessel and then go down and make manual repairs inside a reactor vessel that has been in use for 20 years.

Breeders do not make economical sense when nuclear fuel is cheap.

But imagine if coal power worked like nuclear power. When coal get scarse you dig up the ash, put it in a twise as expensive powerplant and get at least  ten times the energy you got the first time you burnt the coal.

Spending lots of money on fusion research makes sense for me, plasma physics and extreme materials will likely have other uses and if we get fusion to work in an economical way we have another exelent energy source.  What is dumd is to not also spend research money on better fission technology, your example of one such promising technology is very good.

All kinds of energy production and efficiency in energy use needs to researched and developed in parallell.

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LevinK on November 30, 2005 - 11:16am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Actually the reasons are both political and economical.
In recent years (before 2004) price of uranium was well below 12$/lb. This was mainly due to Russia flooding the market with fuel from decomissioned nuclear weapons.
With the surge of oil and NG prices the uranium price also rose to 22$/lb now and predictably is set to rise. At some point breeders will become economically feasible. Anyway this is the future because something must replace fossil fuels and this will no way be renewables only. IMO we will sooner or later get there but probably a major crisis should happen first.
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wkwillis on December 4, 2005 - 11:54am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Gas cooled fast reactors work very well, but the political support is for liquid metal cooled reactors because the existing companies have invested in the technology and won't gain if we switch emphasis.
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davidsmi on November 30, 2005 - 2:49pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Are opinions shifting or is it that those in positions of "authority" are ratcheting up the propoganda machine? The real problem with nuclear energy always has been and always will be how to deal with the waste. My assumption is that this issue will be buried (pun intended) in the rush for any electrical generation capability. We will pay the price for ignoring this issue - or should I say our grand children's grand children' grand children's... (etc.)... will pay the the price. Iraq isn't going to be the only place unliveable due to radiation poisoning of the environment.
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Everett on November 30, 2005 - 10:49pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Why is it that where nuclear power is concerned, the really long term issues seem to carry significant weight, while  such impacts from current or proposed energy sources are barely acknowledged?  We have already done a much, much better job of poisoning the environment burning coal and oil than we are ever likely to get a chance to do with nuclear.  The grandchildren's grandchildren will not need to worry about nuclear waste if the grandchildren end up starving in some world wide famine.

Can we accept more coal burning power plants, with their short term contribution to air pollution that kills thousands every year, and their long term contribution to CO2 that is probably already tipping us into some chaotic and unfriendly climate regime? If we can, then we should accept nuclear power plants as well, which have not killed anyone in the general public and which produce only a minute fraction of the CO2 that coal does.

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Stoneleigh on December 1, 2005 - 8:51am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
My main concern with nuclear power is that it doesn't mix well with political and economic instability, both of which are likely to occur for a polonged period post peak. It is possible to operate nuclear reactors quite safely now, but, as one of the most complex manifestations of our complex society, the conditions they require in order to be able to deliver their benefits at an acceptable cost and risk (as we would currently make that judgement) may not last much longer.

I have no doubt we will build new ones anyway, keep the old ones we already have running far beyond their design lives, and live with the risk which would eventually result from trying to run them in a resource constrained and unstable world. If we're desperate enough, we might even build nuclear cogens near inhabited areas as well as near the Alberta tar sands. However, in a post-peak world in the midst of a global depression there won't be an international community able to offer millions of dollars for renovations as happened in Eastern Europe after the Soviet collapse. We will be on our own to live with the consequences of our actions, whichever of our unattractive options we choose.

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Magnus Redin on December 1, 2005 - 9:15am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
They do on the other hand have a stabilizing effect due to the power they provide. No power, and we get nothing to stabilize with.
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Stoneleigh on December 1, 2005 - 11:56am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Quite true. There are likely to be many such conundrums facing us in the not so distant future. The era of easy answers and relatively low risk scenarios is coming to an end.
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Magnus Redin on December 1, 2005 - 8:30pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I do realy enjoy living in a country with approximately 45% Hydro, 45% nuclear power, a fairly solid grid, a fair electrified rail network  and enough biomass to provide for about half of the current road traffic.

I would not feel in any way safer if we abandoned our nuclear powerplants. I find it a lot more reassuring that they are being renovated, uprated and able to run for several decades more. I am sad that most of the nuclear building industry is goned in Sweden due to no builds during the 90:s. But the extensive upratings and the building of a 1600 MW EPR in our east neighbour Finland gives hope.

It feals reassuring that major reinvestments are being made in the grid, hydro and nuclear powerplants and new investments in the grid, railroads, district heating, district cooling and combined heating and electricity powerplants. But the infrastructure for making fuel from biomass is more or less in a pilot plant stage.

Two out of 12 nuclear reactors have been closed by aged "enviromentalists" making us a net electricity importer when we fairly easily should become an exporter displacing coal power abroad. I am afraid that they will keep enough power to close more nuclear powerplants when new production comes on line and savings are made. The cost for closing these two powerplants could have paid for half of the cost for a new high speed rail link between our two biggest cities. :-(

If peak oil is near as I am afraid it is I would wish for massive investments in railways and roads to get the rail network ready to take most of the long haul and city to city traffic and the road network to a consistent standard that will be realy nice and fuel efficient to have for the coming years when we only can afford maintainance if things get rough. The current build rate needs to be about doubled to get it finished in less then 20 years. This gives us a 50-100 years of light maintainance before it is time to start replacing the bridges built during the era of cheap oil.

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