Nuclear bomb

[kristopher]

Nuclear bomb
Nuclear energy, the sequel, is opening to raves by everybody from John McCain to a Greenpeace co-founder. Don't be fooled. It's the "Ishtar" of power generation.

By Joseph Romm

Jun. 02, 2008 | No nuclear power plants have been ordered in this country for three decades. Once touted as "too cheap to meter," nuclear power simply became "too costly to matter," as the Economist put it back in May 2001.

Yet growing concern over greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel plants has created a surge of new interest in nuclear. Wired magazine just proclaimed "Go nuclear" on its cover. Environmentalists like Stewart Brand and James Lovelock have begun embracing nukes as a core climate solution. And GOP presidential nominee John McCain, who has called for building hundreds of new nuclear plants in this country, recently announced he won't bother showing up to vote on his friend Joe Lieberman's climate bill because of insufficient subsidies (read "pork") for nuclear power.

What do they know that scores of utility executives and the Economist don't? Nothing, actually. Nuclear power still has so many problems that unless the federal government shovels tens of billions of dollars more in subsidies to the industry, and then shoves it down the throat of U.S. utilities and the public with mandates, it is unlikely to see a significant renaissance in this country. Nor is nuclear power likely to make up even 10 percent of the solution to the climate problem globally.

Why? In a word, cost. Many other technologies can deliver more low-carbon power at far less cost. As a 2003 MIT study, "The Future of Nuclear Energy," concluded: "The prospects for nuclear energy as an option are limited" by many "unresolved problems," of which "high relative cost" is only one. Others include environment, safety and health issues, nuclear proliferation concerns, and the challenge of long-term waste management.

Since new nuclear power now costs more than double what the MIT report assumed -- three times what the Economist called "too costly to matter" -- let me focus solely on the unresolved problem of cost. While safety, proliferation and waste issues get most of the publicity, nuclear plants have become so expensive that cost overwhelms the other problems.

Already nuclear energy, the sequel, is a source of major confusion in the popular press. Consider this recent interview between Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria and Patrick Moore, one of the co-founders of Greenpeace, who is now a strong advocate for nuclear power. Zakaria asks, "A number of analyses say that nuclear power isn't cost competitive, and that without government subsidies, there's no real market for it." Moore replies:

That's simply not true. Where the massive government subsidies are is in wind and solar ... I know that the cost of production of electricity among the 104 nuclear plants operating in the United States is 1.68 cents per kilowatt-hour. That's not including the capital costs, but the cost of production of electricity from nuclear is very low, and competitive with dirty coal. Gas costs three times as much as nuclear, at least. Wind costs five times as much, and solar costs 10 times as much.

In short: That's absurd. Nuclear power, a mature industry providing 20 percent of U.S. power, has received some $100 billion in U.S. subsidies -- more than three times the subsidies of wind and solar, even though they are both emerging industries. And how can one possibly ignore the capital costs of arguably the most capital-intensive form of energy? Moore's statement is like saying "My house is incredibly cheap to live in, if I don't include the mortgage."

Furthermore, after capital costs, wind power and solar power are pretty much free -- nobody charges for the breeze and the sun. Operation is also cheap, compared with nukes, which run on expensive uranium and must be monitored minute by minute so they don't melt down. Moore is talking about old nuclear plants, which have been paid off. But the price of new nuclear power has risen faster than any other form of power, as a detailed study of coal, gas, wind and nuclear power capital costs by Cambridge Energy Research Associates concluded.

In fact, from 2000 through October 2007, nuclear power plant construction costs -- mainly materials, labor and engineering -- have gone up 185 percent! That means a nuclear power plant that would have cost $4 billion to build in 2000 would have cost more than $11 billion to build last October.

You know an industry is starting to price itself out of business when one of its trade magazines, Nuclear Engineering International, headlines a recent article "How Much? For Some Utilities, the Capital Costs of a New Nuclear Power Plant Are Prohibitive."

As the article related, in 2005, the U.S. Energy Information Administration projected about $2,000 per kilowatt for a nuclear plant's "overnight capital costs" -- the industry's rosy-eyed terminology for the cost of the plant if it could be built overnight, absent interest and financing costs, and assuming no construction cost overruns. At the time, Marvin Fertel, the chief nuclear officer at the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), told the Senate that the assumptions made on new nuclear plant construction were "unrealistically high and inflated."

But by mid-2007, a Keystone report, funded in part by the nuclear industry and NEI, estimated overnight costs at $3,000 per kilowatt, which, with interest, equals $3,600 to $4,000 per kilowatt. The report notes, "The power isn't cheap: 8.3 to 11.1 cents per kilowatt hour." That's not cheap, when you consider that in December 2007, retail prices in this country averaged 8.9 cents per kilowatt-hour.

Mid-2007 had already become the good old days for affordable nuclear power. Jim Harding, who was on the Keystone Center panel and was responsible for its economic analysis, e-mailed me in May that his current "reasonable estimate for levelized cost range ... is 12 to 17 cents per kilowatt hour lifetime, and 1.7 times that number <20 to 29 cents per kilowatt-hour> in first year of commercial operation."

At the end of August 2007, American Electric Power CEO Michael Morris said that because of construction delays and high costs, the company wasn't planning to build any new nuclear plants. Also, builders would have to queue for certain parts and face "realistic" costs of about $4,000 a kilowatt. "I'm not convinced we'll see a new nuclear station before probably the 2020 timeline," Morris said.

So much for being a near-term, cost-effective solution to our climate problem. But if $4,000 per kilowatt was starting to price nuclear out of the marketplace, imagine what prices 50 percent to 100 percent higher will do.

In October 2007, Florida Power and Light (FPL), "a leader in nuclear power generation," presented its detailed cost estimate for new nukes to the Florida Public Service Commission. It concluded that two units totaling 2,200 megawatts would cost from $5,500 to $8,100 per kilowatt -- $12 billion to $18 billion total!

Lew Hay, chairman and CEO of FPL, said, "If our cost estimates are even close to being right, the cost ...

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/06/02/nuclear_power_price/print.html

[MrModerate]

1. Sounds waaaay to expensive. However, can enough non-fossil . . .

Power be brought on line to 1) avoid economic collapse due to power shortages, 2) avoid making emissions worse and 3) begin actually reducing emissions?

The $8,000 per kilowatt might seem a bargain if the alternative is an unsuccessful battle against climate change.

[kristopher]

3. 1) Yes 2) Yes 3) Yes

The price is no bargain no matter how your value climate change. When you put money into nuclear, that is money your aren't spending on other forms of less expensive and less environmentally risky energy.

[kristopher]

5. Here is Gore's plan

http://www.wecansolveit.org/content/solution/adoption_of_renewables/

[bananas]

16. Romm and kristopher are correct.

Wind and solar are growing exponentially.
The technologies keep improving.
Nuclear keeps getting more expensive.

[NNadir]

2. What a pathetic ass. If Rohm has a "too cheap to meter" form of energy

he would have the guts to produce it.

But since he is a flake with no mind, he arbitrarily chooses to set a criteria for nuclear that no other form of energy can meet nor will meet.

Is the filthy ineffective solar industry - despite years of claiming to be "free", "too cheap to meter." No.

How about the stupid scheme to strip mine all of North America's soil for biofuels. Free? No.

How about the bird grinder industry? Too cheap to meter? Hardly.


The shit for brains flake is simply choosing to advance dangerous fossil fuel plants, because they're cheap to build.

They're not cheap to run however, since their fuel kills millions of people during ordinary operations.

As for the stupid so called "renewable toys," no one has built an exajoule's worth of them since they were phased out in the 1940's.

The so called "renewable" toys have all proved too expensive, too unreliable, too dangerous, and too damaging to the environment.

But the anti-nukes real agenda is to support the dangerous fossil fuel industry, by causing paralysis.

It's why Lovins takes oodles of money from dangerous fossil fuel companies and why Gerhard Schroeder is owned lock stock and barrel by Gazprom.

[kristopher]

4. That Romm, not Rohm...

Continued:
Let's take a look at one more example. Earlier this year, Progress Energy informed state regulators that the twin 1,100-megawatt plants it intends to build in Florida would cost $14 billion, which "triples estimates the utility offered little more than a year ago." That would be more than $6,400 a kilowatt. But wait, that's not all. As reported by the St. Petersburg Times, "The utility said its 200 mile, 10-county transmission project will cost $3-billion more." If we factor that cost in, the price would be $7,700 a kilowatt.

Amazingly, the utility won't even stand behind the exorbitant tripled cost for the plant. In its filing with state regulators, Progress Energy warned that its new $17 billion estimate for its planned nuclear facility is "nonbinding" and "subject to change over time."

And it gets even better (by I which I mean, worse) for Florida ratepayers. Florida passed a law that allows utilities to recoup some costs while a nuclear plant is under construction. How much? About $9 a month starting as early as next year! Yes, the lucky customers of Progress Energy get to each pay more than $100 a year for years and years and years before they even get one kilowatt-hour from these plants.

This would seem to be the exact opposite of the old claim for the nuclear industry, "Too cheap to meter." Now it's so expensive the company raises your rates before the power even gets to the meter!

How the renewable industry would love to charge people before they built their plants. Even without that benefit, Jigar Shah, chief strategy officer of SunEdison, explained to me that he could guarantee delivery to Florida of more kilowatt-hours of power with solar photovoltaics -- including energy storage so the power was not intermittent -- for less money than the nuke plants cost.

Many other forms of carbon-free power are already cheaper than nuclear today, including wind power, concentrated solar thermal power and, of course, the cheapest of all, energy efficiency. Over the past three decades, California efficiency programs have cut total electricity demand by about 40,000 gigawatt hours for an average 2 to 3 cents per kilowatt-hour. A May presentation of modeling results by the California Public Utilities Commission shows that it could more than double those savings by 2020.

If California's effort were reproduced nationwide, efficiency would deliver 130 gigawatts by 2020, which is more than enough energy savings to avoid the need to build any new power plants through 2020 (and beyond). And that means any new renewable plants built could displace existing fossil fuel plants and begin to reduce U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from the utility sector.

A May report by the Bush Energy Department concluded that Americans could get 300 gigawatts of wind by 2030 at a cost of 6 to 8.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, including the cost of transmission to access existing power lines. And the cost of integrating the variable wind power into the U.S. grid would be under 0.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. (Wind turbines provide energy on average 35 percent of the time. Nukes average 90 percent availability. That means it takes 300 gigawatts of wind capacity to deliver as much electricity as about 120 gigawatts of nuclear.)

Finally we have the reemergence of concentrated solar thermal power (also known as concentrated solar power, or CSP). Utilities in the Southwest are already contracting for power at 14 to 15 cents per kilowatt-hour. The modeling for the California Public Utilities Commission puts solar thermal at around 13 cents per kilowatt-hour. Because CSP has large cost-reduction opportunities from economies of scale and the manufacturing learning curve, the modeling foresees the possibility that CSP costs could drop an additional 20 percent by 2020. And those prices include six hours of storage capacity, which allows CSP to follow the electric load, and that is even better than nuclear power, which is constant around the clock.

All of these sources of electricity are considerably cheaper than the electricity that would be generated by new nuclear plants, which the commission estimates costs more than 15 cents per kilowatt-hour before transmission and delivery costs. This entire discussion doesn't even consider the issue of uranium supply, whose price has risen sharply in recent years. A big shift toward nuclear power would no doubt further increase prices. If, as many advocates want, we ultimately go toward reprocessing of spent fuel, that would add an additional 1.5 to 3 cents per kilowatt-hour to the cost of nuclear power.

Sen. McCain keeps saying, "If France can produce 80 percent of its electricity with nuclear power, why can't we?" Wrong question, Senator. The right question is: Why would we? Energy efficiency and renewables are the key to affordable, carbon-free electricity. They should be a focus of national energy and climate policy. Not nukes.

[DCKit]

6. It's nice that solar and wind are competitive with coal and NG generation...

but they'd still be worth it at the same price as nuclear.

Further, a major point overlooked in these discussions is the fact that (true) distributed generation would negate much of the need and cost of grid improvements. In Florida, solar panels on every second, third or fourth home and industrial building (not to mention the huge parking lots and big-box stores) with local storage - in the form of super-chilled water or ice - would greatly decrease the off-peak load while providing 100% of peak power.

Additionally, solar water heating would, by itself, take a huge load off the grid - and prices for solar hot water are already competitive.

Finally, I've seen grid efficiency numbers as low as 31%. That doesn't say much for any type of large, centralized power plant but speaks volumes about decentralized production. It just doesn't make any sense to lose that kind of energy to grid inefficiency when it can generated and captured at the source.

There are simply too many options for conservation and production of low and zero emissions energy to justify continuing the argument. The roadblocks are in place to protect monopolies, not because we can't do, or afford, better options.

[kristopher]

11. That actually isn't taking the entire picture into account.

When you consider the performance characteristics and concentrations of high quality renewable resources, it becomes clear that major improvements to the grid are a dire necessity. Although wind and solar are everywhere, the resources are much better in some places than in others. this means we need to run corridors where they presently don't extend, and we need to minimize transmission losses in the process. DC and superconducting transmission lines are both a part of the fix, as is the ability of the grid to micromanage the power from all those distributed points of production.

We will also need to upgrade the end user equipment for charging EVs and engaging in V2G transactions.

[DCKit]

15. Which is why I didn't bother to address those concerns in my post.

And specifically spoke about Florida, though all the southern states would be equally well served by distributed solar installations with a big hump of wind in the middle and farther west.

If we had this concentration of locally generated solar and wind power, the need for grid improvements *into* those areas would be greatly reduced lowering the overall cost of grid improvement.

Until it becomes cost effective, far more efficient and more reliable/safer to transmit electricity from coast to coast, local production makes more sense. The current inefficiency of the grid doesn't cut it and current technology isn't up to the task at a price we can afford.

I'm not advocating a hodgepodge system, just that we begin with localized nodes and expand outward until everything is connected.

[kristopher]

20. Current technology is fine.

Let me put it this way, without long distance transmission, the cost of local generation is going to be much higher and altogether less efficient than you expect it to be. The advantage of the grid is that it more fully utilizes the electricity that is produced and less is wasted. The 31% efficiency you pointed to is most due to losses incurred with thermal generation; it isn't at all unusual for the end used of electricity generated at an old coal plant to only get 31% of the power contained in the coal.
Renewables don't suffer that kind of loss. So the system efficiency, here and now with the technologies being used daily, is going to be significantly higher- on the order of 80+%.

I'm not saying you're wrong about starting locally, but we also need to concurrently upgrade the transmission and distribution networks. Urban areas and other areas that are too crowded, industry, and people who simply can't install their own system ($$) are all going to continue to use power. We MUST tap into the large, high quality resources of to meet this need.

Incidently, Florida has one of the best current resources in the world; it's the Gulf Stream as it runs between the lower east coast of Florida and Bermuda. It is capable of generating huge quantities of energy 24/7.

[bananas]

17. Hey NNadir, Fox News is stealing your bullshit!

You should sue them!
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/bananas/612

[jpak]

19. LOL!!11

:rofl:

[Javaman]

21. LOLOL Nnadir you are sooooo predictable...

I see you dumped your now over screamed, "everyone is a fundie who doesn't believe in nukes" label.

Dude, step away from the keyboard, that vein on your forehead is about to pop.

you are truly one angry man.

[depakid]

7. Why not just bump the original thread rather than rehash an old discussion

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=152001

[kristopher]

8. You mean the one where you made this bogus statement?

depakid: I'm sure the experts cited will let us know when wind and solar scale up enough to produce more than a tiny fraction of the nations energy needs. Don't get me wrong- I'm a huge supporter of renewables, but I'm also a realist who's numerate enough to look at the numbers (and figure in the externalities).

Considering the paper specifically addresses (with extensive documentation) the issue of scaling up to meet the demands of climate change, and considering all you ever do is make totally unsubstantiated assertions like tho one above where you assure us of your competence to address the issue; I was wondering if you'd care to (for a very drastic change) specifically refute the arguments made by Romm?


"...The most comprehensive report ever done on what one wedge of nuclear power
would require is the 2007 Keystone Center Report, “Nuclear Power Joint Fact-Find-
ing,” which was supported by the utility and nuclear industries.23 The report notes that
achieving a wedge of nuclear power by mid-century would require building approxi-
mately 1,000 1-GW nuclear plants, which requires adding globally:

An average of 14 new plants each year for the next 50 years, as well as approximately ƒ
7.4 plants a year to replace those that will be retired.

11-to-22 additional large enrichment plants to supplement the 17 existing plants. ƒ

18 additional fuel fabrication plants to supplement the 24 existing plants. ƒ

10 nuclear waste repositories the size of the statutory capacity of Yucca Mountain, ƒ
each of which would store approximately 700,000 tons of spent fuel.


Now, mind you that is to meet 1/14 of the needed reductions in CO2 emissions.

Romm also has this to say about the expense of nuclear:

Bloomberg notes, “The June commercial
startup of China’s Tianwan project
came more than two years later than

planned. The Chinese regulator halted
construction for almost a year on the first
of two Russian-designed reactors while
it examined welds in the steel liner for
the reactor core.... In Taiwan, the Lung-
men reactor project has fallen five years
behind schedule. Difficulties include
welds that failed inspections in 2002 and
had to be redone.”
By mid-May, the Wall Street Journal was
reporting that after “months of tough
negotiations between utility companies
and key suppliers ... efforts to control
costs are proving elusive.” How elusive?
According to the Wall Street Journal, “Esti-
mates released in recent weeks by experi-
enced nuclear operators—NRG Energy
Inc., Progress Energy Inc., Exelon Corp.,
Southern Co. and FPL Group Inc.—
‘have blown by our highest estimate’ of
costs computed just eight months ago,
said Jim Hempstead, a senior credit offi-
cer at Moody’s Investors Service credit-
rating agency in New York.”
That is, Moody’s is saying actual costs
have “blown past” their earlier $6,000/
kW estimate.
So what would be the cost of electric-
ity from new nuclear plants today? Jim
Harding, who was on the Keystone Cen-
ter panel, was responsible for its economic
analysis, and previously served as direc-
tor of power planning and forecasting
for Seattle City Light, emailed us in early
May that his own “reasonable estimate for
levelized cost range ... is 12–17 cents per
kWh lifetime, and 1.7x times that number
<20 to 29 cents per kWh> in first year of
commercial operation.”
In a 2008 presentation to the Wisconsin
public utility Institute seminar, he noted
that Puget Sound Energy had quoted a
capital price as high as $10,000/kW.

One very good source of apples-to-apples
comparisons of different types of low-
and zero-carbon electricity generation is
the modeling work done for the Califor-
nia Public Utility Commission on how to
comply with the AB32 law, California’s
Global Warming Solutions Act.20 AB32
requires a reduction in statewide green-
house gas emissions to 1990 levels by
2020, something the entire country will
have to do if we are to get off the path
toward catastrophic warming.

The research for the CPUC puts the
cost of power from new nuclear plants
at more than 15 cents per kWh before
transmission and delivery costs. These
cost estimates lead directly to the final two
economic problems for nuclear power:

1. The world needs thousands of giga-
watts of zero-carbon electricity by
2050—and this country needs sev-
eral hundred gigawatts—to avert
catastrophic climate outcomes. Such
increased demand would probably
drive up nuclear costs even higher,
while either having a much smaller
cost effect on alternatives or actually
reducing their cost.

2. Many large-scale alternative sources
of carbon-free electricity are today
either considerably cheaper or more
competitive.

[depakid]

9. It's your same standard harps

No more valid to the real world today than whenever you make them.

That's probably why you drudged the old article up- for the opportunity to copy & paste the same old cornucopean fantasies again.

[kristopher]

10. So say you - but you have nothing to support that statement.

Whereas, I have a great deal to support what I say. You don't respond on the merits of the arguments presented because you have no adequate response - you are clearly a member in good standing with the Rush Limbaugh League of Debate.

I'd hardly say the article is "old" as it was published in June 08. Feel free to download the full report here: http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/2008/nuclear_power_report.html

[depakid]

12. You know there's PLENTY -but it's fruitless to reason with you

So it's best to leave it at that.

[kristopher]

13. How would you know?

Your posts in this thread typify the only type argument you've ever offered.

Ever.

You are obviously a world weary legend in your own mind...

Here is a reply from Romm at Salon:

My full nuclear study, “The Self-Limiting Future of Nuclear Power,” is online

I confess I am surprised how many people refuse to accept the plain facts that nuclear power is incredibly expensive. Again, we're now at around $8000/kw and you don't need to amortize that over a mere five years to get near $.15 a kilowatt hour.

Anyway, you can read the full study “The Self-Limiting Future of Nuclear Power,” here

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/2008/nuclear_power_report.html

It has all the original links and studies, and you can email the authors of those articles and question their reporting.

My point in this paper is not to say nuclear power will play no role in the fight to stay below 450 ppm of atmospheric CO2 concentrations and avoid catastrophic climate outcomes. Indeed, I even include a full wedge of nuclear in my 14-wedges “solution” to global warming — though as will be clear from the study, “The Self-Limiting Future of Nuclear Power,” achieving even one wedge of nuclear will be a very time-consuming and expensive proposition, probably costing $6 to $8 trillion.

Fundamentally, the large and growing risks from climate change, particularly the real danger that failure to act NOW means we will approach a horrific 1000 ppm by century’s end, means two things:

1. We must seriously entertain any strategy that can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

2. We must focus on the lowest-cost options first, because we simply don’t have an unlimited amount of capital.

My primary point in this paper is to shatter the widespread myth among conservatives — and others — that nuclear power will be a dominant solution to global warming. No. It is extremely unlikely to even be 10% of the total solution. This is particularly true in the United States, where we have so many more cost-effective alternatives NOW, as I explain in the paper, including energy efficiency, wind power, solar photovoltaics, and concentrated solar power.
-- joeromm

[depakid]

14. I'm just not getting drawn into another copy & paste fest- full of sophomoric comments

You can find others to do that with.

The issues will come up again in various contexts. When they do, add your 2 cents.

[kristopher]

18. You are just denigrating without substantiating.

That is all you and your ilk ever do; make snarky comments, insult people and insist that the only technology worth paying attention to is nuclear.
But when it come to substance you use any number of 'sophomoric' excuses to get out of actually having to provide support for your obviously false claims.

Nothing but mouth, in other words...