Can we deploy nuclear fast enough?

[David Walters]

Recently on the Green Left yahoo forum, Renfrey Clark has poised the the view that even IFRs can't come on line fast enough in order to effect climate change. He uses figures published here, on the BNC, in fact. The training, material, deployment would be way too late he argues. How do you answer that? An earlier and well argued piece devoid of hysteria is here:

links.org.au/node/1607

David

[anonposter]

I would argue it based on the fact that a small reactor (SMR scale, IFR and LFTR would apply here) is roughly similar in complexity and safety requirements to an airliner and that Boeing can build more than one airliner a day (one reactor a day is pretty much what we'd need, though with smaller SMRs it'd probably be ten a day but that should be doable as well).

It's also worth noting that in the early days of nuclear power before the fossil fuel industry captured the regulators nuclear power plants were going from concept to reality rather quickly, if we wanted an IFR or LFTR enough we could probably have a deployable reactor design ready within a decade (actually I think within 5 years would be doable if you don't interfere with the engineers designing it).

Besides, we know that nuclear power can displace fossil fuels, we do not know that any alternative to nuclear has the ability to do it on the scale we need (hydro has proven it can displace fossil fuels, but we don't have enough rivers).

[Barry Brook]

I have commented extensively on this issue here:

SNE 2060 – can we build nuclear power plants fast enough to meet the 2060 target?
bravenewclimate.com/2010/10/25/2060-nuclear-scenarios-p4/

[proteos]

Jul 20, 2012 2:30:27 GMT 9.5 @David Walters said:

The training, material, deployment would be way too late he argues. How do you answer that?

The fact is that it is difficult to give a definitive answer, because you have to make so many assumption on what has to go right.

A first reply is that the challenge is of the same magnitude in every single aspect of energy production or use.
Denmark has pushed hard for wind power since 15 years. what they achieved is ~25% of their electricity production comes from that source. You can make the very same checks for hydro, solar, etc. The necessary building pace is very high for any tech!
The same goes for energy conservation. I've no reference at hand right now, but in the rich world, the rate of replacement for homes may be lower than 1% per year. The renovation rate is certainly higher, but it will take you a very long time to reduce heat leaks to a sufficiently low level.

Meanwhile, China seems to be building GenIII plants in 5 years or so, judging by what happens with AP1000s and EPRs. GenII plants have their buildings (no piping etc) completed in 18 months. A big part of the delays for new nuclear often relates to construction works problems.

[davidm]

Jul 20, 2012 12:51:49 GMT 9.5 Barry Brook said:

I have commented extensively on this issue here:

SNE 2060 – can we build nuclear power plants fast enough to meet the 2060 target?
bravenewclimate.com/2010/10/25/2060-nuclear-scenarios-p4/

It seems to me each approach to a nuclear solution is operating from a different premise so it's hard to develop an argument. From the link above you have this.

The nuclear scenario I describe here requires around 10,000 GWe of nuclear capacity by 2060, to replace most of our current fossil fuel use.

From the original link in the first post.

If a basically recognisable natural world is to survive, the US climatologist has concluded, atmospheric carbon dioxide must be cut by the end of the century to a level below 350 parts per million (ppm). This will require ending net human-induced CO2 emissions by 2050.

How much CO2 can be emitted during this period, if the eventual concentration of 350 ppm is to be achieved? Other scientists have calculated the allowable “carbon budget” for the years until 2050 at a total of 420 gigatonnes (billion tonnes) of CO2, with other greenhouse gases in proportion. At present emission rates, this budget will be exhausted around 2021.

How might third- and fourth-generation nuclear plants fit these requirements? Highly complex, and still unproven, third-generation plants would not be operating in significant numbers before 2020

.

Two different critical timeline concepts are in play here. One seems to preclude the other.

[anonposter]

David M: Nothing else anyone has proposed could do the job by 2020 so that Gen IV nuclear probably can't is pretty much a moot point. We're just going to have to accept that we will not get the CO₂ concentration below 350 ppm by 2050 unless we do some pretty serious geoengineering by then.

Our best option at the moment is to deploy the existing nuclear technology as fast as we can while working on getting Gen IV reactors ready, then when they come out we deploy them as fast as we can (and don't replace any existing working nuclear power plants, not even if they are RBMKs, until we've dealt with fossil fuels). Continuing research on other promising technologies should be done with the resources concentrated on fusion and space solar as well as some R&D on better energy storage (whilst I don't think we should deploy it on a large scale it could be useful) and sequestration (but not as part of 'clean' coal which doesn't exist).

[davidm]

Jul 21, 2012 12:00:40 GMT 9.5 @anonposter said:

We're just going to have to accept that we will not get the CO₂ concentration below 350 ppm by 2050 unless we do some pretty serious geoengineering by then.

Hansen's goal was to get it back to less than 350 ppm by 2100. Presumably it would be well into the 4 hundreds by 2050 but due to lack of further human CO2 contributions would fall back to under 350.

Our best option at the moment is to deploy the existing nuclear technology as fast as we can while working on getting Gen IV reactors ready

Renfrey Clarke discusses that here.

The development of IFRs, if it goes ahead, will be expensive, difficult and prolonged. Wikipedia predicts a commercialisation date for fourth-generation nuclear plants of 2030. But we cannot wait that long before drastically curtailing greenhouse emissions.

With both third- and fourth-generation nuclear plants outside the time bracket, what is left for environmentalists who hanker after nuclear power? The only option for them is the one embraced by the French and Chinese governments, and now, it seems, by the Obama administration in the US: an accelerated roll-out of second-generation nuclear plants, built to standardised designs following rushed or non-existent consultation with the plants’ future neighbours.

There are no guarantees, however, that major savings of carbon emissions would result. The power-generating operations of nuclear plants emit virtually no greenhouse gases, but other parts of the nuclear cycle – uranium mining, milling and enrichment, and the construction of power plants – are fossil fuel-intensive. Estimates of the all-up carbon footprints of today’s nuclear plants are controversial, but whatever the actual emissions might be, they are considered certain to increase dramatically over time. High-grade deposits of uranium are few, and likely to be quickly exhausted. “If nuclear energy were to be expanded to contribute (say) half of the world’s electricity”, researchers Mark Diesendorf and Peter Christoff calculated in 2006, “high-grade (uranium) reserves would last less than a decade”.

Once these reserves are gone, second- and third-generation nuclear plants will depend for their fuel on low-grade ores some 10-20 times less concentrated than those which now grace the supply picture. The cost in carbon emissions will mount accordingly.

The major points I get from this is if we go hog wild with 2nd generation nuclear plants, as a time buyer, because they are standardized, cheap and ready to go we still have to deal with the fact that the ramp up will be very fossil fuel intensive and in addition would soon exhaust the availability of high grade uranium.

Thorium anybody? but I imagine they are more on the timeline of 3rd or 4th generation plants. I guess some sort of CO2 removing geo-engineering or plant grow and bury approach will have to be inserted.

[anonposter]

Jul 21, 2012 16:14:24 GMT 9.5 @davidm said:

Hansen's goal was to get it back to less than 350 ppm by 2100. Presumably it would be well into the 4 hundreds by 2050 but due to lack of further human CO2 contributions would fall back to under 350.

Even then I'd be surprised if we can meet it without geoengineering, CO₂ does last a while in the atmosphere.

Jul 21, 2012 16:14:24 GMT 9.5 @davidm said:

Renfrey Clarke discusses that here.

Not very well I would say.

The development of IFRs, if it goes ahead, will be expensive, difficult and prolonged.

It is unlikely to be any worse than getting intermittent renewables to work (and it is at least technically proven to be possible).

I also happen to think that if you got the anti-nuclear regulators out of the way and just let the engineers do their job that they'd be able to get something within a decade (probably significantly less time, say 5 years to grid ready design).

Wikipedia predicts a commercialisation date for fourth-generation nuclear plants of 2030. But we cannot wait that long before drastically curtailing greenhouse emissions.

The only thing we have right now which can do the job is current nuclear technology, hydro when you have rivers to dam can help but it can't scale to the level we need, the other renewables are somewhere between marginally useful and actively harmful.

That date of 2030 is also based on regulators taking too long to approve things, streamline the approval process and you could have reactors operating in a decade (Flibe selling to the US military is a very good idea in this respect).

With both third- and fourth-generation nuclear plants outside the time bracket, what is left for environmentalists who hanker after nuclear power?

Fix the regulations so that those advanced reactors can be deployed in time.

The only option for them is the one embraced by the French and Chinese governments, and now, it seems, by the Obama administration in the US: an accelerated roll-out of second-generation nuclear plants, built to standardised designs following rushed or non-existent consultation with the plants’ future neighbours.

It's no worse than what is done with future neighbours of wind farms, except that nuclear is safer and doesn't annoy people through noise pollution or strobe light effect.

I should also note that most expansion in the US will probably be new reactors on existing sites, in those cases the neighbours are overwhelmingly in favour of an extra unit.

There are no guarantees, however, that major savings of carbon emissions would result. The power-generating operations of nuclear plants emit virtually no greenhouse gases, but other parts of the nuclear cycle – uranium mining, milling and enrichment, and the construction of power plants – are fossil fuel-intensive.

The evidence is that nuclear is better than most of the renewables proposed instead in this regard.

Estimates of the all-up carbon footprints of today’s nuclear plants are controversial,

Not really, no one with a working brain thinks SLS is credible.

See nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeEnergyLifecycleOfNuclear_Power for some details of what is going on here (and why Renfrey Clarke is wrong).

but whatever the actual emissions might be, they are considered certain to increase dramatically over time.

That is not at all proven.

High-grade deposits of uranium are few, and likely to be quickly exhausted.

So? Olympic Dam and Rossing aren't high grade and nuclear power using Uranium from those mines doesn't produce much CO₂

Once these reserves are gone, second- and third-generation nuclear plants will depend for their fuel on low-grade ores some 10-20 times less concentrated than those which now grace the supply picture. The cost in carbon emissions will mount accordingly.

It is an insignificant difference compared to the difference between nuclear and fossil fuels (or even nuclear and PV, which has rather high lifecycle emissions).

Jul 21, 2012 16:14:24 GMT 9.5 @davidm said:

The major points I get from this is if we go hog wild with 2nd generation nuclear plants, as a time buyer, because they are standardized, cheap and ready to go we still have to deal with the fact that the initial stages of this ramp up will be very fossil fuel intensive and in addition would soon exhaust the availability of high grade uranium.

The evidence does not indicate that to be the case. At the very worst realistic scenario nuclear is no worse than renewable energy which is what people propose instead of nuclear (then there's the fact that when you ask for renewable energy you really get fossil fuels).

Jul 21, 2012 16:14:24 GMT 9.5 @davidm said:

Thorium anybody? but I guess they are more on the timeline of 3rd or 4th generation plants.

CANDUs can already do some Thorium breeding (though I don't think any are doing it) though to really take full advantage of Th you need an MSR.

Current reactors on sale now are usually considered to be Gen III or Gen III+, Gen II would be most currently operating.

[davidm]

Jul 21, 2012 16:57:34 GMT 9.5 @anonposter said:

That date of 2030 is also based on regulators taking too long to approve things, streamline the approval process and you could have reactors operating in a decade

I'd like to hear what an IFR expert had to say on the timeline to a working operation under the best conditions.

Estimates of the all-up carbon footprints of today’s nuclear plants are controversial,

Not really, no one with a working brain thinks SLS is credible.

See nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeEnergyLifecycleOfNuclear_Power for some details of what is going on here (and why Renfrey Clarke is wrong).

[/size][/quote]
Both sides seem to have expertise. How is a poor amateur like me suppose to sort it out?

but whatever the actual emissions might be, they are considered certain to increase dramatically over time.

That is not at all proven.

[/size][/quote]
But it would seem to make sense. If you are accelerating the building of NPPS logically there would be a window of time where fossil fuel input would be very high and if you have a carbon target that you have to stay under that ramp up could be a critical concern.

Once these reserves are gone, second- and third-generation nuclear plants will depend for their fuel on low-grade ores some 10-20 times less concentrated than those which now grace the supply picture. The cost in carbon emissions will mount accordingly.

It is an insignificant difference

[/size][/quote]
Just on the face of it I would think 10-20 times more energy to make nuclear useable than from high-grade ores. Do you have any comparative figures?

[anonposter]

Jul 21, 2012 18:36:03 GMT 9.5 @davidm said:

I'd like to hear what an IFR expert had to say on the timeline to a working operation under the best conditions.

Define best conditions?

The people who worked on it were working under regulations designed to make things hard and will probably base any timeline on that.

I would tend to say that the best guide to how quickly we can bring reactors into service would be early in the nuclear age before the fossil fuel industry captured the regulators (if you want to treat global warming like a war emergency the B reactor was built in about a year and it was a first of a kind, sure it wasn't all that good for the environment, but they didn't think closed loop was important back then).

Jul 21, 2012 18:36:03 GMT 9.5 @davidm said:

Both sides seem to have expertise. How is a poor amateur like me suppose to sort it out?

I guess the only thing you could do is to just learn the basics so as to be able to tell which side is sprouting bulls***.

Jul 21, 2012 18:36:03 GMT 9.5 @davidm said:

But it would seem to make sense. If you are accelerating the building of NPPS logically there would be a window of time where fossil fuel input would be very high and if you have a carbon target that you have to stay under that ramp up could be a critical concern.

As I keep pointing out, it would be no worse with nuclear than any other way of doing things (i.e. renewable energy would be at least as bad if ramped up at the same rate).

The fact that a nuclear power plant produces about a hundred times as much energy as is required to run it helps.

Jul 21, 2012 18:36:03 GMT 9.5 @davidm said:

Just on the face of it I would think 10-20 times more energy to make nuclear useable than from high-grade ores. Do you have any comparative figures?

The Rossing U mine in Namibia has an energy gain of over 500 with relatively low grade ore so I would use it as proof that it isn't a problem (Olympic Dam is also a copper and gold mine though still has an energy gain of over 100).

[David B. Benson]

David M --- GEH has proposed their PRISM design to the Brits. The UK regulators would have to approve the design but they are much more agile than the US's NRC. At 300 MWe the PRISM classifies as an SMR; I estimate construction time for the very first one as 40--46 months after licensing.

[davidm]

Jul 22, 2012 8:51:41 GMT 9.5 David B. Benson said:

David M --- GEH has proposed their PRISM design to the Brits. The UK regulators would have to approve the design but they are much more agile than the US's NRC. At 300 MWe the PRISM classifies as an SMR; I estimate construction time for the very first one as 40--46 months after licensing.

One can see here what the hope and the fear is.
www.smartplanet.com/blog/cities/using-nuclear-waste-prism-reactor-could-power-uk-for-500-years/3881

[David B. Benson]

From Plutonium to Power
www.spiegel.de/international/world/energy-from-the-bomb-russia-to-produce-electricity-with-former-nukes-a-854318.html
This (poorly written and with errors) article nonetheless
(1) briefly mentions the BN-600 about which I knew nothing;
(2) suggests what happens when a FOAK NPP construction project (BN-800) is hurried.

I had not realized that both are fast reactors (and that Russia now has quite a bit of experience with the BN-600).

[quokka]

In addition to the BN-800, a larger 1200 MWe BN-1200 has also been approved at some level:

www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Large_fast_reactor_approved_for_Beloyarsk-2706124.html

As for Spiegel's anecdotal stuff about rushing things, I take these things with a bit of a grain of salt unless they come from an authoritative source. If the thing was running over schedule, they'ed complain about that too. You can't win.

[Roger Clifton]

@david B Benson spoke of the proven track record of the Russian fast reactor, BN600. Interestingly, it powered a desalination plant for most of that time.

A worldwide shortage of clean water is predicted to worsen across the decades ahead. In this week's EOS, the periodical of the American Geophysical union, international conflicts over water are identified and predicted:
www.agu.org/journals/eo/v093/i037/2012EO370001/2012EO370001_rga.pdf#anchor <http://www.agu.org/journals/eo/v093/i037/2012EO370001/2012EO370001_rga.pdf>

Thermal power plants (gas, coal, nuke) are increasingly demanded by an expanding and developing world, yet have a reputation for consuming precious freshwater. What is not generally known is that they can be air cooled instead, at ~5% cost to efficiency.

It would help the advocacy for installing nuclear reactors to point out that nukes are particularly well suited to producing fresh water, instead of consuming it. The urgency of a fresh water supply may be higher than the urgency for reliable electricity. An installation might well be done in the space of a single El Niño drought.


Curiously, desalination allows a nuke 5% peaking power, because during peak demand, it can switch off its fans (the 5%) and use some of its recently produced water in the condenser instead. And of course, excess off-peak power can be topping up the town water supply.

[LancedDendrite]

The simpler solution is to build nuclear power plants along the coast, using once-through seawater cooling. There are no thermodynamic penalties associated with this compared to freshwater cooling, only saltwater-proofing of the condenser systems.

As for the BN600 and desalination, I believe that it was the BN-350 reactor that was a desalination plant that also produced power.

[eclipse]

Sept 9, 2012 9:22:06 GMT 9.5 Roger Clifton said:

Thermal power plants (gas, coal, nuke) are increasingly demanded by an expanding and developing world, yet have a reputation for consuming precious freshwater. What is not generally known is that they can be air cooled instead, at ~5% cost to efficiency.

It would help the advocacy for installing nuclear reactors to point out that nukes are particularly well suited to producing fresh water, instead of consuming it. The urgency of a fresh water supply may be higher than the urgency for reliable electricity. An installation might well be done in the space of a single El Niño drought.

Curiously, desalination allows a nuke 5% peaking power, because during peak demand, it can switch off its fans (the 5%) and use some of its recently produced water in the condenser instead. And of course, excess off-peak power can be topping up the town water supply.

This is really interesting stuff, and I'd like to put it up on my blog. Do you have a link to papers that break down the figures (in a credible way for engineers, not for me. I like the way you've explained this in simple English ).

However, how much would it cost to have to suddenly whack up some cooling towers in an El Nino drought? (I assume you mean a few years?)

[singletonengineer]

Eclipse: "How much would it cost to ... whack up some cooling towers?"

If we are talking of dry cooling, then what is needed is multiple football fields in area of cooling towers, plus the power supplies to drive many large fans. If the design of the power station does not include such items, then the switchyard may need to be relocated 100+ metres further away.

This is not a trivial problem and there can be no trivial solution.

Either power stations are designed for dry cooling or they are not. Once constructed, it is all but too late to switch.

[David B. Benson]

While it might require a new condenser it should also be possible to switch to closed loop underground cooling instead of either an evaporator or once-through cooling.

[jagdish]

Fast reactors, to be subsequently integrated in an IFR system, can be a major part of non-carbon energy. Fast reactors are being built now in Russia, India and China and scaling up is possible. They can be run on 20% LEU or MOX or metallic fuel now. The courage to build them is however not widespread.

[David B. Benson]

I am puzzled by the very low cost for Russia's latest NPP as reported in
www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Kalinin_4_accepted_for_commercial_operation-2609124.html
How is this possible?

[LancedDendrite]

I suspect a combination of established design (VVER-1000 is an older design), existing site, placid regulatory regime and lower labour costs compared to Western countries.

[QuarkingMad]

Sept 27, 2012 13:44:48 GMT 9.5 LancedDendrite said:

I suspect a combination of established design (VVER-1000 is an older design), existing site, placid regulatory regime and lower labour costs compared to Western countries.

I'd also add in (from parts in the linked article) that it appears that prefabrication and procurement activities were either already done previously or sourced from other mothballed projects.

[QuarkingMad]

Sept 27, 2012 11:56:33 GMT 9.5 David B. Benson said:

I am puzzled by the very low cost for Russia's latest NPP as reported in
www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Kalinin_4_accepted_for_commercial_operation-2609124.html
How is this possible?

The sentence should read:

Rosatom director-general Sergei Kiriyenko said in a statement that Kalinin-4 was completed on schedule and for about 240 million US dollars (USD) (186 million euro) less than the USD 2.4 billion originally allocated to the project.

Source

It was done for around $2.16bn USD, under budget by 10%.

[Roger Clifton]

Jul 20, 2012 2:30:27 GMT 9.5 @David Walters said:

a well argued piece devoid of hysteria is here: links.org.au/node/1607

On the contrary -- we have been given a link to a tirade that opens in hysteria and distortion.

In the second paragraph, Renfrey Clarke refers to "a major nuclear war", as if that is a byproduct of electric power stations. This is old stuff -the arms race of the 1900s is over. Demolition workers have long since gotten used to having some of their tools bigger than they need and so have the world's warriors. Major military forces no longer use reactors to make their weapons, either.

He goes on to refer to "nuclear winter", a old hippy horror where smoke and dust would block the sun and extinguish all life on the planet. It too is extinct, finally proven wrong in the first Gulf War, when all the oil fields of Kuwait were set on fire, sending up far more smoke, but causing only temporary, local cooling.

If there are people out there who listen to this sort of poetry seriously, we need them instead to be taking to the streets to defend the greenhouse from CO2.

[David B. Benson]

QuarkingMad --- Yes, that price is very low by US standards.

[David Walters]

Oct 6, 2012 14:41:48 GMT 9.5 Roger Clifton said:

Jul 20, 2012 2:30:27 GMT 9.5 @David Walters said:

a well argued piece devoid of hysteria is here: links.org.au/node/1607

He goes on to refer to "nuclear winter", a old hip py horror where smoke and dust would block the sun and extinguish all life on the planet. It too is extinct, finally proven wrong in the first Gulf War, when all the oil fields of Kuwait were set on fire, sending up far more smoke, but causing only temporary, local cooling.

This is a very small part of it. In fact, the very limited smoke from the oil fires would pale in comparison to, say, Chicago being completely incinerated in a few seconds and the week. All the major cities in a major nuclear exchange? Let's not do the empirical test, shall we?

The major part of his essay IS well argued. The distillation of it is that that component, staffing and general roll out would be impossible. He claims to use Barry's own numbers on this.

[David B. Benson]

David Walters--- Renfrey Clarke's article is rather full of counterfactuals.

Quite clearly the GE-Hitachi PRISM is ready to go, based on a design which operating without a hitch for 30 years. Also, he seems not to have known about the long power production history that the Russians have running a Gen IV design.

The main difficulty in a rapid rollout is not what he thinks it to be but rather the limited number of large forges capable of making large pressure vessels for both Gen II and Gen III PWRs. Of course, one could also use BWRs which don't need such heavy forgings.

In general, I found the article quite poorly informed, but then at the time he wrote it so was I. The difference is that I didn't write an article exposing my ignorance.