|
Post by sod on Aug 21, 2013 0:53:43 GMT 9.5
|
|
|
Post by trag on Aug 21, 2013 2:35:42 GMT 9.5
And you continue to ignore the cost of transmission and the cost of intermittency in your assertions. The real cost of solar, even if the panels were free, would still be twice any conventionally generated electricity because of those costs.
|
|
|
Post by sod on Aug 21, 2013 7:38:42 GMT 9.5
And you continue to ignore the cost of transmission and the cost of intermittency in your assertions. The real cost of solar, even if the panels were free, would still be twice any conventionally generated electricity because of those costs. So transmission costs are included in those 11.5 ct for nuclear? In the real world, rooftop solar causes LESS transmission costs than nuclear, as it is produced where it is used. In a free market, intermittency doesn t really matter. And in deed, the utilities are getting nervous about solar, as this report shows: www.eei.org/ourissues/finance/Documents/disruptivechallenges.pdfgrist has done a nice summary of the effects: grist.org/climate-energy/solar-panels-could-destroy-u-s-utilities-according-to-u-s-utilities/But again the simple question: why should nuclear get a higher price per kwh than solar and why would it need it?
|
|
|
Post by eclipse on Sept 8, 2013 12:28:20 GMT 9.5
And you continue to ignore the cost of transmission and the cost of intermittency in your assertions. The real cost of solar, even if the panels were free, would still be twice any conventionally generated electricity because of those costs. So transmission costs are included in those 11.5 ct for nuclear? In the real world, rooftop solar causes LESS transmission costs than nuclear, as it is produced where it is used. In a free market, intermittency doesn t really matter. How can you say something so ridiculous? Even Dick Smith's "10 Bucks a Litre" clearly showed how taking solar PV baseload would require 3 to 4 times the amount of solar of your general daytime load (because the daytime load is taken up running your day and you need another 3 times the amount to charge for night and rainy days when you're only generating half the juice!) Then you've got to pay for the batteries! Spread out over a lifetime's use, your electricity would cost FOUR TIMES AS MUCH! That tells me intermittency DOES matter in a free market! It turns solar into the expensive ENEMY of energy security! It doesn't have to be. If we built a nuclear grid, supplemented with solar PV for daytime relief (and this is a FREE MARKET we're talking about so only the upper middle class would be buying solar: there's no subsidies in this scenario, remember?) then the solar PV would reduce some of that terrible 'gold plating' of the grid for our highest energy demand periods over summer and in mid winter. It's a win win for the wealthy and the poor. The wealthy reduce their nuclear power bills, and the poor don't have to pay extra energy costs for the gold plating. But asking solar PV to do baseload is suicidal in a free market.
|
|
|
Post by quokka on Sept 8, 2013 15:58:30 GMT 9.5
In a free market, intermittency doesn t really matter. That made me laugh. I can say with some confidence that as soon as the lights start going out said market will very quickly morph into something other than (your definition of) free. Expect to see capacity payments to coal plants in Germany in the coming years. And who cares about purportedly free market anyway. The point is to radically reduce carbon emissions not act as guardians of the "free market". Some of the PV crowd are starting to sound like a branch of the tea party.
|
|
|
Post by jagdish on Sept 8, 2013 19:06:39 GMT 9.5
|
|
|
Post by sod on Sept 8, 2013 23:32:32 GMT 9.5
To understand that article, one has to know something about the german magazin "Der Spiegel". "Der Spiegel" was a leftwing magazine in the past. It is taking now a much more centrist position. The magazines position on climate change on the other hand is borderline "climate sceptic", their favorite scientist being Hans von storch: here an interview: the miracle of lack of global warming www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-98091084.htmland his wiki page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_von_StorchSo it is rather normal, that "Der Spiegel" is giving rather extreme positions against renewable power. And such an article does not signal a change in german public opinion. I was disregard all climate and alternative power reports in "Der Spiegel", as i would disregard anyone who is sticking to a climate sceptic belief. The truth is basically the opposite. There is a misinformation campaign against solar, mostly from utility companies. They are just threatened by the massive amount of solar which is hitting peak demand times: www.sma.de/en/company/pv-electricity-produced-in-germany.htmlThis blog tries to put the false information into perspective: exopermaculture.com/2013/08/26/despite-disinfo-campaign-germany-really-is-succeeding-with-renewables/
|
|
|
Post by David B. Benson on Sept 9, 2013 2:54:45 GMT 9.5
|
|
|
Post by sod on Sept 9, 2013 4:29:14 GMT 9.5
That article is garbage. On this site, you can see electricity prices ("Strom") in comparison to other costs. you can do so for the average household (durchschnittlicher Haushalt) and for the lowest income (Hartz 4) The average Household has an income of 2245 € per month and is using 55.25€ for electricity. Even doubling that amount will not cause poverty. With Hartz 4, there is a completely different problem. While rent (including heating) is directly paid for those who get social transfers, a high electricity bill can cause problems for these people. Especially as they only have 30.24€ for water, electricity and gas (for cooking).
|
|
|
Post by sod on Sept 9, 2013 5:55:36 GMT 9.5
|
|
|
Post by David B. Benson on Sept 9, 2013 7:53:35 GMT 9.5
sod --- Der Spiegel has an excellent reputation for accuracy.
|
|
|
Post by sod on Sept 10, 2013 2:56:11 GMT 9.5
|
|
|
Post by David B. Benson on Sept 12, 2013 7:44:46 GMT 9.5
sod --- It seems that many of the poorest inhabitants of Germany can no longer afford electricity. Hence it is too expensive.
|
|
|
Post by Ed Leaver on Sept 15, 2013 14:54:35 GMT 9.5
And remember-Diesel generators have to be installed at nuclear power plants. Fukushima got into problems when they were knocked out by earthquake/tsunami. Solar with storage at a height may have helped! Thank you for your links, Jagdish. But I think you may misunderstand how Fukushima went down. It was tsunami. Period. Japan requires its reactors be founded on bedrock, and Fukushima Daiichi was no exception. Ground acceleration at the reactors was a bit over 1/2 g -- admittedly above the design spec -- as compared with 2 g on nearby sediments. But as far as can be determined at this time, there was little or no reactor damage from ground motion. The problem was totally inadequate preparation for a tsunami that was totally predictable. Most people don't realize the multiple backup systems incorporated even in those 60's designs. The first was yes, diesel generators that can run everything -- cooling and circulation pumps in particular -- in the unlikely event the plant sees protracted separation from the grid -- an unthinkable possibility in Japan. Should the diesels fail -- and there were two at each reactor unit -- there was a redundant steam-driven system to maintain circulation and, if necessary, emergency ventilation. This steam system used reactor heat, of which there was plenty, and a standby battery system to operate the necessary valves. However... Both the batteries and the diesels shared a common bay in the basement of the overall containment building. And the bay was not sealable against ingress of a flood. Further, the turbine pumps that exchanged reactor heat with the ultimate heat sink (the Pacific ocean) were sited 4 m above sea level, one meter above the initial 3m spec based on the tsunami from the massive 9.4 Chilean quake of 1960. No, don't even think about that one. But it did eventually occur to someone that a somewhat nearer quake, even of considerably lesser magnitude, might possibly generate something perhaps a bit higher, and Tepco upgraded the Fukushima tsunami spec to 5.7 m in 2006. But did nothing to further fortify the heat ocean exchangers or their pumps. The Great East Japan Earthquake of 11 March 2011 raised a tsunami 13 m at Fukushima Daiichi. All offsite grid connections were severed. All ocean heat exchangers and pumps were disabled. The diesels, which had been running for 40 minutes since the ground-motion sensors first detected the earthquake and automatically shutdown the reactors, were disabled -- probably for good -- when their generator bays flooded and they inhaled seawater. The neighboring backup-backup batteries were shorted as well. And the external busbars that might possibly have connected the plant to emergency portable generators brought from inland were damaged beyond use. Interesting times. There were twelve diesel generators at Fukushima Daiichi. Even if their generator bays had been sealed against flood, eleven of them could not have run long because they too were cooled through the ocean heat exchangers by the ultimate heat sink. The twelfth generator was an air-cooled unit at Fukushima Daiichi 6 that someone had thought to site on higher ground. It did survive and kept the lights on at Unit 6 and Unit 5. But it either was insufficient to the task, or the operators were unable to route power in time to save Units 1, 2, an 3. It was not for lack of serious effort. Unit 1 suffered full core exposure within 4 hours of the tsunami.
Now yes, if a solar generator were located inland and the batteries it charged were located on higher ground and the power connection from those batteries were proof against tsunami, It could have made a difference. Skip the solar farm -- the batteries alone could have. But no one had both the forethought and the authority to do so, or to install water-tight bulkheads to the generator bays, or to fortify the heat exchangers to the UHS. Because to those with authority, such a tsunami was unthinkable. And it is Japanese culture to accept authority. A concise overview is given by Fukushima a disaster 'Made in Japan', with the sordid details exposed at Why Fukushima Was Preventable. A counterexample to the bubble-think that went on at Tepco is given by How tenacity, a wall saved a Japanese nuclear plant from meltdown. after tsunam (Although that article may be in error as to some details, e.g. from photographs it does not appear ONPS was actually re-sited. However, Mr. Hirai was able to ensure its seawall was built to 14 m. A near thing to be sure, but sufficient unto the day.)
Ed
|
|
|
Post by trag on Sept 18, 2013 0:26:45 GMT 9.5
Now yes, if a solar generator were located inland and the batteries it charged were located on higher ground and the power connection from those batteries were proof against tsunami, It could have made a difference. Skip the solar farm -- the batteries alone could have. But no one had both the forethought and the authority to do so, or to install water-tight bulkheads to the generator bays, or to fortify the heat exchangers to the UHS. Because to those with authority, such a tsunami was unthinkable. And it is Japanese culture to accept authority. Ever since I first read about them, I've thought that siting a Toshiba 4S generator at each large nuclear generator would make for a nice backup. I'm not sure the sizing it correct, but a sealed, buried 10 - 50 MW electricity generator on site would probably take care of any emergency needs, as long as the cabling isn't fouled or destroyed.
|
|
|
Post by jagdish on Sept 18, 2013 23:18:40 GMT 9.5
Earthquakes and tsunami of those proportions are geological happenings and just have to be accepted as the Japanese accept earthquakes in general. Thing to do now is to accept it as loss due to a natural disaster and proceed ahead. A new volcano getting active close by could have been even worse. Such things are happening in Indonesia, the scene of last tsunami disaster.
|
|
|
Post by Ed Leaver on Sept 20, 2013 13:12:22 GMT 9.5
Earthquakes and tsunami of those proportions are geological happenings and just have to be accepted as the Japanese accept earthquakes in general. Thing to do now is to accept it as loss due to a natural disaster and proceed ahead. A new volcano getting active close by could have been even worse. Such things are happening in Indonesia, the scene of last tsunami disaster. Thanks Jagdish. Proceed ahead, yes. But "accept Fukushima as a loss due to a natural disaster" just isn't the way the international nuclear power industry thinks. Listen to IAEA, US NRC, French ASN, Russian Rostekhnadzor and their published findings on nuclear accidents, and these folks spend years -- decades -- going over and over and over what went wrong, why it went wrong, and how to ensure it will never happen again. Three Mile Island was a huge wake-up call to the industry and the Nuclear Regulatory Agency here in the States. Yes, the RPV was never breached. The amount of radiation released never exceeded background more than a few meters from the vent stack, and what did escape was nearly entirely Xe-133 as per design. But TMI should never have happened at all, and the fact that it did was eventually attributed to poor internal communication within NRC itself. Now that was scary. "The pressure relief valve is open but the indicator light says it closed" bug had been reported several months earlier by a similar plant. But NRC failed to spread the word, the indicators were never upgraded, and the shift operators at TMI spent two and a half frantic hours trying to figure it out for themselves. Similarly, that "Hey comrade! Did you know one can actually run an RBMK-1000 into an unstable low-power state from which it is not possible to achieve safe shutdown without first return to full power?" thingy had been reported to State Committee for the Supervision of Safety in Industry and Nuclear Power by the Ingalina plant in Lithuania back in 1983. But no design corrections were made, and the operators at the sister plants were never notified. "Ingalina was a 1-in-a-million fluke. Her operators shut her down okay. Not a bug." Yet the exact same conditions arose again at Chernobyl Unit 4 three years later. Fluke circumstance indeed. Over 40 people died and hundreds of thousands displaced. Yes, we're here free to second-guess the Ukraine authorities as to how many of those thousands really did need to move, just as we do for the 160,000 evacuated after Fukushima Daiichi. But the industry and international regulators are keenly interested in why Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station went up in smoke while Onagawa NPS, 74 km closer to the epicenter, experienced even greater ground motion, an essentially identical tsunami, remained undamaged, and was made by Tohoku Electric an emergency community refuge in the immediate aftermath. These things are important. And I'm not criticizing you or anyone else; this is a friendly discussion. Its just that Fukushima Daiichi was extremely demoralizing to me personally. Not so much for the immediate damage, which I thought at the time would be overblown in the press, or by the non-earthquake non-tsunami casualties, which even then were known to be non-existent. But rather for its inevitable consequence upon public perception of nuclear power, a battle I'd been losing for thirty years while greenhouse gasses made their inexorable increase. But we keep fighting on anyway. Because we're human, and that's what humans do. An important part of the battle is against widespread misperception that the nuclear power industry is lazy, incompetent, corrupt, and in bed with its supposed regulators. I've spent the better part of six months researching this stuff, and that just isn't true. But there have been mistakes. Serious mistakes, and some of them were indeed cultural. The only way to maintain public trust and support is by acknowledging them, and showing how thoroughly the lessons are learned. As an aside, "a new volcano getting active close by" could not have been worse. Existing volcanoes give months of warning before going active. New volcanoes -- save perhaps on undersea rifts -- years. Certainly plenty enough time sufficient to obtain complete safe cold shutdown of any hypothetical nuclear power station. One just doesn't site a nuclear power station on an active volcano. Yet you do raise an interesting point about Indonesia. What if one *did* want to site a NPP where there was remote chance of volcanic activity? If such danger became immanent I'd think one would desire a bit more than just complete cold shutdown. Removal of the reactor vessel and any spent fuel to a safe location might also be desirable. I'm thinking "small modular reactor", but admit its a bit beyond my expertise.
Thanks, Ed
|
|
|
Post by Ed Leaver on Sept 20, 2013 22:11:13 GMT 9.5
Apologies, correction needed. Should read: "Did you know one can actually run an RBMK-1000 into an unstable low-power state from which it is not possible to achieve immediate safe shutdown?" -- as the "return to full power" was probably not a requirement for safe recovery from that particularly situation. Recognizing the possibility, of course, was requisite for not getting there in the first place.
Ed
|
|
|
Post by sod on Sept 21, 2013 15:58:35 GMT 9.5
|
|
|
Post by edireland on Sept 21, 2013 20:34:36 GMT 9.5
The Lib Dems will say anything to escape the fact they are going to lose 80% of their members of parliament at the next election.
|
|
|
Post by Ed Leaver on Sept 22, 2013 5:27:34 GMT 9.5
Thanks for the links, sod. It was indeed a pretty strange vote, for multitudinous reasons. Firstly, unbeknownst to the chatterati e.g. Ms. Bennett, the United Kingdom does in fact have a National Carbon Plan, which I've discussed very briefly here. The Carbon Plan: Delivering our Low Carbon Future envisions 75 GW nuclear capacity by 2050, and essentially zero (i.e., none) carbon emissions from the electric sector by that time. Electricity demand is expected to grow between 30% to 60% in the interim. In that sense, the recent Liberal Democrat vote is an acknowledgement of dear necessity. In the sense that the party chose to reluctantly endorse "Plan B" rather than "Plan A" is, it appears to me, no more than continued pandering to the party base without which they are all out of jobs and will be replaced with something perhaps even worse. I don't know, I'm not a Brit and their politics are as foreign to me as are our own here in U.S. Nonetheless, from your first link: which is a bit of a disappointment, as GE-HItachi had bid a pair of Prisms to help relieve Her Majesty's government of its onerous plutonium surplus. I hope Mr. Davey will not see that possibility as foreclosed by his party's vote. I'm hoping its a matter of continuing education, that the Liberal Democrats may eventually come to realise that nuclear power without "new generation" plant is needlessly inefficient and would saddle the country with a quite unnecessary burden of waste. You are quite right about the need for subsidies. From loan guarantee for hinkley point c one might note Mr. Davey has previously termed a £142 per MWh nuclear strike price "rubbish", but not commented upon a £100 figure. At the recent party conference Mr. Davey was floating £115 for new onshore wind in the Shetlands; I'd expect whatever he finally agrees with EDF will be at least that. New nuclear is upfront pricey; investors must have some reasonable assurance of return or they won't invest. Loan guarantees can help a lot; they are subsidies only if the project goes south, so the government has keen interest in scrutinizing the books beforehand.
|
|
|
Post by edireland on Sept 22, 2013 7:58:52 GMT 9.5
Frankly we should just forget EDF and build the reactors using public money.
But unfortunately the political climate prevents this.
Instead, with a strike price of something like ~£110/MWh we end up paying a ridiculous amount to EDF for no good reason. It is the mother of all Private Finance Agreements.
8760hr/year, assume a 90% capacity factor and a 3GWe plant would produce something like 23,652,000MWh of electricity per year. With a "value" of ~£2.6bn.
Or $4bn+.
That is frankly absurd, considering that the contract lasts 15 years at least and is adjusted for inflation, meaning they will get something like sixty billion US dollars and have a plant with 75% of its operational life remaining at the end of it.
|
|
|
Post by achaios on Sept 23, 2013 21:00:43 GMT 9.5
I recall an old post by cyrilr where he was claiming that during the french nuclear revolution the building of new reactors by the public service ended up costing something like 1300 bil today's euros per GW. Does anyone here have a source for that info? Cyril?
|
|
|
Post by Ed Leaver on Sept 24, 2013 1:27:34 GMT 9.5
Frankly we should just forget EDF and build the reactors using public money. But unfortunately the political climate prevents this. Instead, with a strike price of something like ~£110/MWh we end up paying a ridiculous amount to EDF for no good reason. It is the mother of all Private Finance Agreements. 8760hr/year, assume a 90% capacity factor and a 3GWe plant would produce something like 23,652,000MWh of electricity per year. With a "value" of ~£2.6bn. Or $4bn+. That is frankly absurd, considering that the contract lasts 15 years at least and is adjusted for inflation, meaning they will get something like sixty billion US dollars and have a plant with 75% of its operational life remaining at the end of it. Maybe, maybe not. Remember this "strike price" is for CfD -- Contract for Difference. The way I understand it, this means when UK electric rate falls beneath <strike-price>, HMG makes up the difference to the operator. Likewise, when electric rate exceeds <strike-price>, HMG gets to keep the change. This would go for all the subsidised wind-farms, at their respective strike-prices, as well as nuclear. Yes, there is a lot of money at stake, and nuances of which I'm certainly unaware. New nuclear is front-end very pricey. Nuclear gives very long-term very low-carbon very stable power production. Is why Mr. Davey and EDF have been haggling for so long over this issue. As far as the consumer is concerned, it ultimately comes down to how serious one is about CO2 reduction, and how much one is willing to pay.
|
|
|
Post by Roger Clifton on Sept 24, 2013 8:06:50 GMT 9.5
@achaios asked about the early French nuclear costs ... Here is what WNN said: "overnight capital costs of building NPPs increased over time from € 1,070/kWe (at 2010 prices) when the first of the 50 PWRs was built at Fessenheim (commissioned in 1978) to € 2,060/kWe when Chooz 1 and 2 were built in 2000, and to a projected € 3,700/kWe for the Flamanville EPR. [presumably due to] loss of economies of scale."
|
|
|
Post by Ed Leaver on Sept 24, 2013 12:29:52 GMT 9.5
It may be somewhat more complicated than just loss of economy of scale, which we all hope will be regained. But that (at 2010 prices) bit bothers me. Just what does it mean? As I recall there was a lot of heavy industry cost inflation going on in the mid to late 'noughts. I haven't found the industry-by-industry breakdown, but the Producer Price Index gives a general trend: The part of that increase that is distinct from overall-inflation will not be recovered. Here's an EIA graphic of future U.S. LCOE showing anticipated economies of scale: Source: Costs and regulatory uncertainities, Figure 80. These are marginal costs with wind at low market penetration. Degree of market penetration doesn’t matter for dispatchable nuclear, gas, and coal, but has a large (and unfavorable) impact on wind, as will be seen in Renewable Economic Models.
|
|
|
Post by Roger Clifton on Sept 29, 2013 18:12:54 GMT 9.5
Jagdish said: "A new volcano getting active close by could have been even worse." Volcanoes give more warning than tsunamis, enough time to put a recovery plan into operation. It is likely that an erupting volcano within 100 km or so would cover the area with ash. Ash causes flashover on the insulators, so any power delivery will be down during ashfalls, but the reactor core would still need to cool. Ash from Mount Pinatubo collapsed buildings at Subic Bay. A NPP's outer structure would almost certainly be built stronger than most of its client city, but would its cooling structures continue to function with an ash load and subsequent mudslides? Seems to be a case for a removeable reactor. Alerted by the early grumbling, the operators could move (or at least cannibalise) the power station to resume production elsewhere. Most SMRs appear in their promo diagrams as being concreted into a hole in the ground, but perhaps could be built as removable. Whether or not the reactor pressure vessel is to be recovered for reuse, a ferociously hot core would have to be removed from its cooling and transported separately, somehow. Unless the hissing core could be remotely dissassembled and reassembled, that could only be from a small reactor. And efficient rebuilding would require both parent and child to be modular. (Forget about the equivalent solar farm, it would be an expensive write-off after an ash-fall, a vast part-buried junkyard to snag on the ploughs of tomorrow's farmers!)
|
|
|
Post by edireland on Sept 29, 2013 22:43:36 GMT 9.5
A seawater cooled reactor could probably keep functioning despite the ash load if its water intakes are designed properly.
|
|
|
Post by jagdish on Sept 29, 2013 23:10:16 GMT 9.5
A floating reactor would not only have advantage in cooling but also reduce the objections from neighbours. It could be built in a shipyard and towed to site or even shifted if necessary. Solar power should be costed only including the storage, which is always necessary.
|
|
|
Post by edireland on Sept 30, 2013 1:22:59 GMT 9.5
A floating platform for a commercially viable nuclear power plant for large grids would be prohibitively large.
A single ESBWR containment weighs something on order of a quarter of a million tonnes
|
|