Is Nuclear Necessary?
Frequent commenter “BreathOnTheWind” asks: Could someone “remind” me why Nuclear Energy is essential as a “new model” for an era without fossil fuels?
I would summarize the issues with nuclear as follows:
• First of all, let me remake the point that I’ve been trying to communicate for years: the issue of variability of solar and wind isn’t nearly as important as one might think, and those who believe that this is a show-stopper are simply incorrect. Variability certainly won’t be an issue at all until the penetration of solar (now ~ 0.5%) and wind (now ~ 4.7%) increase dramatically. At that point, it is very likely that various cost-effective solutions will exist that facilitate the integration of variable resources in a big way, e.g., the build-out of our power transmission grid and the advent of low-cost energy storage.
• Some experts, including Dr. James Hansen, whose opinions need to be valued very highly, do not believe that renewables can be ramped up fast enough to avert climate catastrophe.
• Nuclear advocates claim that newer technologies are completely safe (an assertion that many take with a grain of salt).
• Everyone who has studied the subject, nuclear advocate or not, believes that “advanced nuclear,” e.g., liquid fluoride thorium reactors, are most certainly safe in all respects. They will offer operational safety, no waste disposal issues, and no opportunity to promote the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Of course, commercialization of LFTRs is at least 20 years in the future.
The second bullet is really the crux of the issue, and, personally, I believe that Dr. Hansen is most probably correct. Put another way, it would be very difficult to argue against someone of his caliber and his position, given the incredible depth to which he has immersed himself into the subject area over the last 45 years.
I added to my reading a bit since I asked that question.
Here is an article with the typical chart that shows that Wind and Solar are more expensive than coal plus the pollution from coal to be viable alternatives. Nuclear is the most expensive option and so concluded that natural gas is our cheapest alternative away from the greenhouse gas of carbon. http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/planetpolicy/posts/2014/05/20-low-carbon-wind-solar-power-frank
But then here is an article starts with the assumption that the intermittency of wind and solar reduces the usefulness of wind and solar to the point that only a massive (6x) build-out could overcome. This goes on to assume as a policy position that that all wind and solar depend upon natural gas to increase their capacity factor to the point that intermittency is not an issue for the grid. Stated more directly wind and solar are really combined cycle gas generation power plants with some supplementary wind or solar. Natural gas is then a “bridge fuel.”
However the point of the article is that although natural gas produces only 50% to 60% of the carbon of Coal, methane is 84% more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon and the focus on carbon to the exclusion of the bigger picture is seriously problematic. Texas has a gas leak as a cost of doing business twice the size of the recent California leak which has been described as the greatest environmental disaster since the BP leak. If only 4% of methane leaks it wipes out the advantages of Natural gas so the article concludes: “…if global warming is actually happening, and if it’s actually man-made, and if it’s actually caused by excessive greenhouse gases, then the only sensible conclusion to be reached is this:
Methane isn’t a bridge fuel to a greener world – it’s a gangplank.”
The long article is well worth the read even if you decide not to closely follow the math.
——— Which brings us back to Nuclear. But now the question is necessarily bigger. Carbon is not our only concern perhaps greenhouse gases are also not our only concern. An exact carbon analysis of my jumping out a window on the 100th floor would declare it to be totally safe. A methane analysis would also not reveal any problems. Nuclear energy presents its unique advantages and issues. This article describes the cost and politics of the nuclear energy industry: http://thebulletin.org/what-epa%E2%80%99s-clean-power-plan-means-nuclear-energy8763 It seems to suggest that nuclear is extremely expensive and would inhibit innovation by comparison to the Bell Telephone monopoly.
We hear that solar and wind are too far away from a sufficient build out to save us and nuclear (at any cost) is our only option. “New reactors” are the answer. These represent a technology we don’t presently have. I haven’t seen estimates of how long it would take to create the “new nuclear” technology to a commercial stage. 10 to 20 years does not seem unreasonable. To that we have to add on the 10 year permitting that nuclear now takes. If cost remains a factor we will be paying roughly 20 times for nuclear that it would cost to build a coal plant. That sounds like 30 years at at least 20 times the cost. We can’t do better than this with less risk? How much Wind and solar would we have to build out?
Coal presently represents about 37% of the US energy grid. It has been estimated that we could save up to 30% of our present energy demands by making our buildings more efficient. A national building energy code could do this. It could also make new buildings ready to accept solar with proper siting and roof slopes. Solar thermal air conditioning could further eliminate up to 5% to 10% of our present electrical energy demands. There are places in the world where all new housing must be energy neutral. We are very behind in this area.
Beyond this we already have the technology for heat storage at CSP electrical generating stations. Incentives could be put in place to ensure that every existing station and all new plants included thermal storage. It may be that with proper incentives new CSP facilities would be built intended to act as grid storage batteries and this will neither require 30 years to build nor be a safety concern.
Lastly… we have recently seen the remarkable success of Tesla’s EV announcement with over 325,000 pre-orders. This seems to have overshadowed the business of the power wall which was valued at $800 million http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-08/tesla-s-battery-grabbed-800-million-in-its-first-week Most of that is from business customers for essentially grid storage. These are not the best possible batteries for grid storage. They are just about the cheapest and most available in the near term. It may be that very little new technology is needed here and we are looking at the beginning of a new industry. And once again it is something that will be far cheaper than nuclear at much more near term. But you only have to look a little wider than what carbon output from power plants is telling you.
Craig,
The issue with variable or intermittent energy sources is critical NOW, and has been for years. From Dec 31, 2008 to Dec 31, 2012, a total of 35 GW of wind power was brought online. From Dec 31, 2012 to Dec 31, 2015; only about 14 GW was brought online.
Even though wind is indeed penetrating only ~4.7% of the U.S. grid, the LOCAL grids in which wind is built out are seeing 30+%, which is enough to saturate the balance power capacity and see large-scale curtailment… so that intermittency is already causing a steep slow-down in the build rate of new renewable energy, and we’re not even at 5%. The same will probably not be true of solar, since it more cleanly matches the peak demand curve, but solar is still decades away from deep penetration.
It will take at least 15-20 years for wind to achieve 20% of the grid energy in the U.S. It will likely take a similar amount of time for solar to achieve ~10%. If we decommission the nuclear power plants, that removes 20% of the grid energy, which means rather than allowing that 25% of grid energy that might be achieved through decades of hard work to displace coal and fracked gas, you’d have that displace carbon-neutral energy from nuclear power.
The net effect of favoring coal and fracked gas over nuclear would be ~20 years more of ~30% of the total emissions from the entire U.S. power grid.
Thanks. I shouldn’t have been so cavalier in what I wrote there. Yes, there is curtailment of wind and conditions of over-building solar to the point that it is difficult for the utilities to deal with.
Having said that though, I do feel confident that mitigating technologies as I described are coming to fruition. A lot happens in a short period of time these days, and the pace of technology development continues to accelerate.
From the article:
“Beyond this we already have the technology for heat storage at CSP electrical generating stations. Incentives could be put in place to ensure that every existing station and all new plants included thermal storage. It may be that with proper incentives new CSP facilities would be built intended to act as grid storage batteries and this will neither require 30 years to build nor be a safety concern.”
That requires some examination.
Yes, some CSP plants have thermal storage, generally in the form of fused NaNO3 and KNO3. However, although they may exist, I know of none which have sufficient storage for more than 24 hours nor to I know of how much storage would actually be required; that would probably depend on location and perhaps other factors as well. However, it should be clear that in general, 24 hours of storage is greatly insufficient. As a guess, probably at least one week would be required if there are no fossil fueled plants for backup. Whether one week of storage would be practical I don’t know nor do I know what the cost would be.
Many solar power plants use only PV technology for which thermal storage is impractical. In most cases, battery storage would be the most practical choice for PV power, but it is unclear whether battery storage on the required scale will ever be practical. There are storage losses with increase with size. Also, battery life has limits after which the materials have to be recycled.
Perhaps we can all agree that no power system is 100% safe and that claims that some are 100% safe are nonsense. People die when working on construction projects and in factories. Accidents occur during the operation of all types of power generation systems. But from the way people react, one would think that someone killed in a nuclear accident is more dead than someone killed by falling off of a wind turbine tower.
The conservative approach to CO2-free power requires a plan “B” for any technology which we cannot be certain will be practical to generate sufficient and reliable power. Most likely that plan “B” has to be nuclear. Thus, we would be most unwise not to work very hard to develop better, safer, and less wasteful nuclear technologies while, in the meantime, rapidly expanding our best current nuclear technology. Otherwise, if 20 years from now we learned from experience that wind and solar would not do the job, we’d be stuck with continuing to emit too much CO2 until we could develop and implement a better nuclear technology. If proof becomes available that wind and solar will do the job at an acceptable cost, then we could halt R & D on nuclear power and stop building more nuclear power plants.
There was a plant built in Spain that included 24 hours of thermal storage. It may have only been a test project. Thermal power plants have not been build with storage because of cheaper alternatives. They are built with with 5 to 7 hours of storage to increase their capacity factor. But most of all they are built to be competitive in a marketplace.
Legislation can change the marketplace to bring the externalities of pollution into consideration. Thermal storage (or any storage) can be given additional incentives.
The last time we heard about a comprehensive energy plan in the US was the one designed and written by the fossil fuel industry. Somehow we need to find a way to a plan that is not written by special interests and has enforceable long term goals.
Here is a link to an on-line book entitled “Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air”:
http://www.withouthotair.com
Because I haven’t yet read it I cannot comment on it. However, it might be interesting.
Thanks for the link. It is a free download. At first glance it does not appear to be too deep an analysis. Depending upon where you are at this could be a good over view or an energy light discussion.
I will let you know more when I have had a closer look.
We are still talking about building out energy resources to match our current usage and what we predict will be the expansion in the future.
Efficiency would still be a big help.
Installing micro combined heat and power in every house that already has natural gas or propane would cut fuel consumption for heat and electricity usage by a large amount.
Installing drain water heat exchangers in every building in the country would cut energy usage to heat water by 30% or more. Run the numbers on that.
Solar heating whether air of fluid would cut energy consumption a fair amount also.
None of this is science fiction of fantasy. It is here right now. We just need to implement it.
Every joule of energy you don’t use is a joule of energy you don’t need to burn something to make.
I’ve heard of micro CHP. But what do you do with the extra heat when you don’t need I?
Basically it is a heater that also generates power. When you don’t need the heat you just shut it off. For me that would be about 4 months our of the year. In some installations water is also heated so it could run longer in the season. But the point is to get more out of the fuel that is being used than just heat making it more efficient than just a heater. I can’t use one here. The most popular unit at this time is Freewatt which has a 1.2kW generator and also produces 28000BTU/Hr. The heat I can use but 28.8kWh is more than twice the power I use in a day. It is designed to be grid tied so in reality I would make my yearly usage (4101kWh last year) in about 4.7 months. Heating season here lasts about 8 months so I would still be selling a substantial amount of power back even if I only ran it during the heating season.