Nuclear Energy - I need to vent/rant

[luddite]

The world which you seem to envision would be a miserable place for the next generation. Florida would not be underwater. But what what would be the use of Florida? it's terribly uncomfortable in the summer without air conditioning. And the economey is based highly on tourism. Without vacations, there's not much ecomic activity in florida. Well there's the space center, but launching rockets takes HUGE amounts of energy, so that's a no-no

Unless you can convince me that we can achieve the necessary emissions cuts with nuclear power, we haven't got much choice, have we? Are you actually willing to put Florida underwater? Do you think it will be any easier moving those people? What about Bangladesh? Do you kill those people or move them? Where?

If we need to make those kinds of emissions cuts, and generation isn't an option (or at least not a complete solution)...then it's time to decide what's important to preserve and make the best of it. Yes we'll have to give some things up. Hopefully there are other things we'll gain.

I know that one day, no matter what we do today, our descendants will say "Can you believe our idiot ancestors used to toss out whole aluminum cans? Isn't that insane?". They'll be digging them out of the garbage heaps.

And I don't want to tell my kids that because I flew to Fiji to see the coral reefs, I contributed in part to a situation where all the coral reefs in the world are dead. And I don't want to tell my kids that because I couldn't stand the thought of living without an air conditioner, they have to suffer heat waves.

 

[DRBUZZ0]

Has anyone provided a side by side comparison with costs per kw/h between nuclear and wind yet? Or is it just speculation?

I've seen a lot of cost comparisons with wind. Some put wind cheaper than coal or almost anything else, which I suppose is probably true if you just measure the raw energy output as a factor of building a turbine divided by the estimated lifespan.

But I've also seen others which put wind as being astronomically expensive due to grid destabilization issues, transmission and phasing, the fact that you really can't measure capacity factor in the same way as other energy forms because you need excess. Also the cost increases by a lot after it becomes more than 10% of the grid power source. When you hit about 20% you reach the limit of wind power without buffering like massive flywheels or some sort of continuous flow pumped storage buffer.

All in all, I really think that's a tough call. But I tend to also think that the best way to cut through the numbers games on wind is just to look at reality. The fact is that you can't really point out a country which has managed to make wind power the basis for their power supply.

The closest example is Denmark. They're at about 18% generating capacity right now, (NOT TOTAL ENERGY) and they've been struggling to increase capacity past that. The plan right now is shooting for 30% by 2020. But that's very optimistic. The only thing that allows them to do this is that they're tied into a very large European power grid. In reality the amount of energy from wind as a factor of the European power system in that area is less than 10%, so they've gotten by by importing and occasionally exporting excess capactiy.

This has been a good 20 year commitment from the country. Perhaps "struggling" isn't the best word, because they have had some success creating profitable energy from the wind.


But in any case, to compare it to nuclear:

- France, as we have mentioned is nearly 100% nuclear.

- Japan currently gets a good 35% energy from nuclear, and parts of the country are nearly entirely nuclear. It's not one single grid really, because of the fact that it's broken into islands. They want to increase this to more than half in the next ten years. Not too bad, considering they had about zero capability in the 1970's.

- Sweden gets 50% of their power from nuclear. Most of the rest comes from hydroelectric. Sweden has very good hydroelectric resources, With nuclear and hydro they are able get only 7% of generating energy from fossil fuels. In 1980 a popular referendum backed by the "Green" parties passed with several methods for phasing out nuclear energy (mostly by switching to coal gasification and/or renewables... but really fossil fuel is the realistic way). As such, they have closed two plants, but they aren't planning on closing any more. Too bad really. They were on track for complete fossil fuel phase-out for electricity and then moving toward an electric-centric transportation system...

- South Korea does a good 50% from nuclear. Not too bad either considering that they didn't have it in the 1970's. The technology all had to be bought from the US for their first two or three plants. But now they're doing it on their own and Samsung has entered the reactor business.


More than a few other countries have also demonstrated an ability to go from zero to gigawatts in a few years without going into the red. I think history speaks for itself.

 

[DRBUZZ0]

Unless you can convince me that we can achieve the necessary emissions cuts with nuclear power, we haven't got much choice, have we? Are you actually willing to put Florida underwater? Do you think it will be any easier moving those people? What about Bangladesh? Do you kill those people or move them? Where?

If we need to make those kinds of emissions cuts, and generation isn't an option (or at least not a complete solution)...then it's time to decide what's important to preserve and make the best of it. Yes we'll have to give some things up. Hopefully there are other things we'll gain.

I know that one day, no matter what we do today, our descendants will say "Can you believe our idiot ancestors used to toss out whole aluminum cans? Isn't that insane?". They'll be digging them out of the garbage heaps.

And I don't want to tell my kids that because I flew to Fiji to see the coral reefs, I contributed in part to a situation where all the coral reefs in the world are dead. And I don't want to tell my kids that because I couldn't stand the thought of living without an air conditioner, they have to suffer heat waves.

I don't really get what you're saying about "Unless you can convince me that we can achieve the necessary emissions cuts with nuclear power"

Are you trying to imply that you can cut more without nuclear than with?

I never said that nuclear energy was a "magic bullet" to stop global warming. It's probably too late for anything to stop global warming completely. Conservation would need to be part of the solution. Any plan will be less than perfect, because you can't change things overnight.

But you seem to be saying that building reactors does zero to help and that it even is just going to continue the problem...

There are two ways to cut emissions.

1. With nuclear energy. As much nuclear energy as can be built. Doubtless effeciency and conservation will need to be implemented too, especially while coal still provides the mainstay of power.

2. Don't build nuclear plants. Instead just cut back power use by a good 80-90% to the point where power-rationing becomes the dominating factor of everyday life and most current technology needs to be abandoned. If you could cut power usage by that much you could maybe get by with wind and hydro... or maybe by burning only a small amount of coal.

So the question is "Do you want to do this the hard, gruling, society-destroying, economically crushing way" or the "comparatively easy way where the world doesn't need to suffer so badly"


This is just illogical on so many levels. The key to stopping co2 emissions is most certainly not abandoning nuclear energy.

"Nuclear can't do it. Therefore we should not build nuclear plants eventhough they don't make co2. We should just conserve so we don't burn as much coal"


Sorry... I just... can't... see.... the... logic.

 

[luddite]

Just found a peak oil site with a section on uranium. I just know I'm going to set people off in a freak again. I'm not drawing any conclusions here. Just pointing out why I'm just not prepared to accept assertions from this blog. The assertions below seem equally compelling to me. They analyze the Energy Watch Group study. Here are some highlights:

Uranium, like any other resource, can't be mined at any desired rate, nor every last drop or ounce of the resource can be mined. No matter the technology, at some point it is just not worth it to mine lower grade ores. While energy balance analysis are complicated and a discussion about it would only bring controversy, another way of putting it is more easily grasped. For any mined ore, the lower the grade, the higher the material throughput you need to process. There is always a limit. And despite what the nuclear industry might tell you, for Uranium too. The materials throughput (not unrelated to the energy needed) is inversely proportional to the ore grade for any mined material: To extract 1 kg of uranium out of 1% ore containing material needs the processing of 100 kg. Extracting the same amount from 0.01% ore needs the processing of 10,000 kg. You can easily see that even if, for the sake of the argument we assume that the EROEI of nuclear energy for all ore grades is positive, there are physical limits to the production throughput Uranium production can ever reach.

This study uses the same data as the post by Martin Sevior. What he labels "Additional recovarable Uranium" is in reality "undiscovered resources prognosticated" and "undiscovered resources speculative". They are very unreliable data, considered by the study too speculative and with a very low probability of ever being brought into production. While some quantity in that category will be eventually mined, it wouldn't matter much in the time-frame considered.

It will surely be interesting for TODers to have a look at the depletion curve for uranium in France. It clearly shows that uranium does deplete in a manner not entirely dissimilar to oil.

While the USA is not nearly completely depleted like France is, the analysis of historical resource reports reveals similar patterns like the ones shown for France before. Shortly after reaching the production peak, in 1983 the "reasonably assured and inferred resources" where downgraded by 85%, a decline of almost 1,000 kt. The implication is that the reserve reporting practices are not "transparent" and "understated" as the nuclear industry will tell you.

This study may have flaws, but so far it is more convincing to me than the position of the nuclear industry, which regards Uranium as mineable without limits. If you believe some, we could mine it form the earth's crust, from sea water, ... or use breeders. And if all fails we have thorium. That is not serious. Being able to do it, even to technologically demonstrate it is not the same as doing it. We can extract gold from sea water too. While all those possibilities may be workable in the future, they could just as well not be viable. You cannot bet your energy future, the biggest investment society has to make, on such assertions. You may as well choose fusion.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2379

 

[luddite]

I don't really get what you're saying about "Unless you can convince me that we can achieve the necessary emissions cuts with nuclear power"

Are you trying to imply that you can cut more without nuclear than with?

I never said that nuclear energy was a "magic bullet" to stop global warming. It's probably too late for anything to stop global warming completely. Conservation would need to be part of the solution. Any plan will be less than perfect, because you can't change things overnight.

But you seem to be saying that building reactors does zero to help and that it even is just going to continue the problem...

There are two ways to cut emissions.

1. With nuclear energy. As much nuclear energy as can be built. Doubtless effeciency and conservation will need to be implemented too, especially while coal still provides the mainstay of power.

2. Don't build nuclear plants. Instead just cut back power use by a good 80-90% to the point where power-rationing becomes the dominating factor of everyday life and most current technology needs to be abandoned. If you could cut power usage by that much you could maybe get by with wind and hydro... or maybe by burning only a small amount of coal.

So the question is "Do you want to do this the hard, gruling, society-destroying, economically crushing way" or the "comparatively easy way where the world doesn't need to suffer so badly"


This is just illogical on so many levels. The key to stopping co2 emissions is most certainly not abandoning nuclear energy.

"Nuclear can't do it. Therefore we should not build nuclear plants eventhough they don't make co2. We should just conserve so we don't burn as much coal"


Sorry... I just... can't... see.... the... logic.

No, my point has been pretty consistent throughout. Regardless of whether we build nuclear reactors, a commitment to the 80-90% emissions cuts necessary in 30 years will necessarily involve an enormous conservation component.

I was responding to your idea that massive energy reductions would make life intolerable in Florida.

How we get the remaining generation is a minor point. I favour renewables because they can make a dent faster, and in my experience, I still think they're cheaper. I don't really expect you to agree.

There's another question about whether we'll want to ramp up nuclear beyond the crisis point - say 50 years out from now. But I don't think that any serious attempt to address climate change can maintain the current scale of energy use.

 

[luddite]

I've seen a lot of cost comparisons with wind. Some put wind cheaper than coal or almost anything else, which I suppose is probably true if you just measure the raw energy output as a factor of building a turbine divided by the estimated lifespan.

But I've also seen others which put wind as being astronomically expensive due to grid destabilization issues, transmission and phasing, the fact that you really can't measure capacity factor in the same way as other energy forms because you need excess. Also the cost increases by a lot after it becomes more than 10% of the grid power source. When you hit about 20% you reach the limit of wind power without buffering like massive flywheels or some sort of continuous flow pumped storage buffer.

All in all, I really think that's a tough call. But I tend to also think that the best way to cut through the numbers games on wind is just to look at reality. The fact is that you can't really point out a country which has managed to make wind power the basis for their power supply.

The closest example is Denmark. They're at about 18% generating capacity right now, (NOT TOTAL ENERGY) and they've been struggling to increase capacity past that. The plan right now is shooting for 30% by 2020. But that's very optimistic. The only thing that allows them to do this is that they're tied into a very large European power grid. In reality the amount of energy from wind as a factor of the European power system in that area is less than 10%, so they've gotten by by importing and occasionally exporting excess capactiy.

This has been a good 20 year commitment from the country. Perhaps "struggling" isn't the best word, because they have had some success creating profitable energy from the wind.


But in any case, to compare it to nuclear:

- France, as we have mentioned is nearly 100% nuclear.

- Japan currently gets a good 35% energy from nuclear, and parts of the country are nearly entirely nuclear. It's not one single grid really, because of the fact that it's broken into islands. They want to increase this to more than half in the next ten years. Not too bad, considering they had about zero capability in the 1970's.

- Sweden gets 50% of their power from nuclear. Most of the rest comes from hydroelectric. Sweden has very good hydroelectric resources, With nuclear and hydro they are able get only 7% of generating energy from fossil fuels. In 1980 a popular referendum backed by the "Green" parties passed with several methods for phasing out nuclear energy (mostly by switching to coal gasification and/or renewables... but really fossil fuel is the realistic way). As such, they have closed two plants, but they aren't planning on closing any more. Too bad really. They were on track for complete fossil fuel phase-out for electricity and then moving toward an electric-centric transportation system...

- South Korea does a good 50% from nuclear. Not too bad either considering that they didn't have it in the 1970's. The technology all had to be bought from the US for their first two or three plants. But now they're doing it on their own and Samsung has entered the reactor business.


More than a few other countries have also demonstrated an ability to go from zero to gigawatts in a few years without going into the red. I think history speaks for itself.

I just looked up energy prices in the EU. France is cheaper than Denmark.

 

[DRBUZZ0]

How we get the remaining generation is a minor point.

No. That's ridiculous.

I favour renewables because they can make a dent faster, and in my experience, I still think they're cheaper. I don't really expect you to agree.

This is directly opposed by all the facts presented. Although there is some semi-truthiness to the "cheaper" part. Nuclear is only economical on a certain scale. Yes, powering a house with solar is cheaper than with a nuclear reactor. Powering a city with solar is absurdly expensive.

 

[luddite]

No. That's ridiculous.



This is directly opposed by all the facts presented. Although there is some semi-truthiness to the "cheaper" part. Nuclear is only economical on a certain scale. Yes, powering a house with solar is cheaper than with a nuclear reactor. Powering a city with solar is absurdly expensive.

You keep comparing nuclear baseload to solar. Nobody is suggesting a solar baseload.

 

[DRBUZZ0]

UG. I'm going to have to step out of this for a bit. This thread is making my concern about the future and climate change increase a lot... to the point of near panic. I had best stop facing the attitude toward nuclear for a while as it is becoming overwhelming.

 

[luddite]

The IAEA numbers coincide with much of what I had read in the past. Scientific American had 50-60 years minimum with once through fuel. Even back in the 70s when I was in school, these were similar to the amount of uranium that would be available. Breeders were expected to extent the use of nuclear about 1000 years. Oil companies are not saying we have a lot of oil...oil company executives are and they are lying to keep the stock prices up. If you look at various oil analysis on the web...from geologists etc...they will show the oil issues that exist. See Peakoil.com. Anyone that has followed the oil industry knows that there hasn't been a major oil discovery since the 70s and with modern technology for finding oil, we know where most of it all is. Eventually we will be drilling off the coast of calfornia again and in ANWR and any number of places.

I'm not sure there's a contradiction between any of these numbers. A peak in 32 years is perfectly consistent with 50-60 years once through supply, or maybe even 82 years once through supply.

What breeders will do is a separate question. I just read the IAEA site that stated that breeders increase the cost of electricity by 10% or more. That's enough that other factors can come into play.

Here's a paper from August of this year that puts costs of uranium from seawater at $250-$450/kg but states that even this is highly uncertain:

http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache...arvard.edu/~wilson/energypmp/2007_uranium.doc

As fuel costs at $37/kg are said to contribute 1-3% to the cost of electricity, seawater sources would increase the cost by 10-30% or possibly more. Again enough that other options come into play. And certainly at this level, fuel costs are no longer insignificant.

The same paper states that

The only way that nuclear power can make an early contribution to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is for the industry to deploy large numbers of reactors of existing type, although the gradual introduction of more advanced reactors will be welcome.

Though I would argue that it's already too late for nuclear to make an early contribution to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Early would have been 10 years ago.

But the point is, if we're going to be talking about contributions to dealing with global warming, let's stick to uranium fission reactors with once through fuel sources.

 

[luddite]

It is not like we can build a 100,000 wind generators overnight either. And that's how many would be needed to put a small dent in the US grid.

We need all sorts of power: solar, geothermal, wind, nuclear, coal if all the world is going to come close to surviving the next 50 years without severe issues. All oil and natural gas should be reserved for transportation and space heating.

As far as global warming, CO2 capture needs to be advanced and quickly. But I think we are way over the hump on this and will see real problems.

Let's imagine what's feasible. Germany is putting in 100 turbines monthly, averaging about 2 MW each. The population of the US is almost four-fold. More importantly the US has more land mass and much better winds. So at least 10,000 MW annually and maybe double that should be possible in a few years. Of course, that's not a steady 10,000 MW. It would probably average out at something like a quarter of that. So let's say 2,500 MW - 5,000 MW. Hmmm. That's pathetic. California's peak demand alone goes into the 50,000's. Over 20 years we get 50,000-100,000 MW. Over 30 we get 75,000-150,000. I suspect the higher end. Technology can only improve. That's only the demand from a few states. And while conservation will go a long way, we'll probably also be electrifying transportation.

We'd have to do something way more dramatic than Germany. Make wind a national priority. Convert existing factories to turbine making. I'm not advocating this, though something of the sort may eventually be done anyway. 3-6 nuclear plants a year is starting to look awfully tempting, I'll admit.

I foresee solar PV making a similar small contribution to peak. I see a bigger role for solar thermal. Throw in some biomass. I have no idea how much there is. You have to be really careful about it anyway, because you can make soil productivity go up in smoke. And soil productivity is going to be a big priority. I know biomass is significant, but I don't know how to assess it. Cogen is out there. Geothermal.

Coal? We need coal?

I guess that's what David Hughes says too. He says we need it all. He's confident that coal will never replace the decline in oil and natural gas anyway. How do you feel about generation from natural gas using cogen in areas where supply is not an issue for the foreseeable future? Can't agree with you on coal. We need to be getting rid of it as fast as we can. That's the point.

Carbon sequestration. Well, we need to stop wasting our time. That may be another pipe dream. It's been the rationale behind maintaining coal. I've been annoyed with energy planners in Ontario that basically use it as a lie to support continued use of coal. Because even a cursory review indicates that power plants built to burn coal conventionally are in no way equipped to sequester it. You need the proper siting to begin with. It's a lot more complicated and expensive to build a coal plant capable of sequestration. Sequestration reduces the efficiency of coal generation, too, so you burn even more. And you never capture it all.

I've seen one compelling opinion suggesting we need to fund one study intensely to look at the potential of sequestration at one study site and pull the plug on funding of coal in every other case. And yesterday, one analyst said that the sequestration sites in China are completely dwarfed by the immense lignite deposits. So it's not going to be a panacea either.

If it turns out, as is becoming increasingly likely, that we'll be driven to attempt to pull carbon out of the living environment to sequester it, we will feel a little stupid if all the sequestration sites are saturated with coal that we thought we could burn because it was safely sequestered.

As an engineer friend of mine put it, the absolutely cheapest form of sequestration is to keep it in the ground in the first place. And by that, he includes all the costs of more expensive energy/conservation or whatever to reduce the need. He has never encountered a case where this wasn't obvious at first glance.

 

[luddite]

UG. I'm going to have to step out of this for a bit. This thread is making my concern about the future and climate change increase a lot... to the point of near panic. I had best stop facing the attitude toward nuclear for a while as it is becoming overwhelming.

Sorry. Take care.

 

[Belz...]

We don't need energy. We need the things it provides us.

Ergo we need energy.

And not all of those. We need shelter and food. No argument there. We also need availability of medicine and education. We need to get between work and home and school and hospitals. We need to be able to communicate with friends and family.

Beyond those basics, what we need most is to leave a livable world for the next generation. That means we flood as little of Bangladesh, Shanghai, Vancouver and Florida as we possibly can.

I see "quality of life" is not part of your list.

Why would you make a list of the bare minimum we need ? I really don't understand your philosophy. If we can continue to live comfortably and bring that level of comfort to the rest of the world by using a safe, abundant source of energy like nuclear fission, then why do we keep arguing about it ?

 

[robinson]

In regards to wind power, solar power, tidal power and so on.

I'm completely in favor of using renewable natural energy sources where available, but the fact is that it's just not realistic to expect these to be able to do anything more than provide a small portion of total energy needs.

Wind's long-term theoretical potential is much greater than current world energy consumption. The potential of wind power on land and near-shore to be 72 TW, or over fifteen times the world's current energy use and 40 times the current electricity use. The potential takes into account only locations with Class 3 (mean annual wind speeds ≥ 6.9 m/s at 80 m) or better wind regimes, which includes the locations suitable for low-cost (0.03–0.04 $/kWh) wind power generation and is in that sense conservative. It assumes 6 turbines per square km for 77 m diameter, 1.5 MW-turbines on roughly 13% of the total global land area (though that land would also be available for other compatible uses such as farming).

http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/winds/global_winds.html

 

[BenBurch]

If we evaluate human deaths per kilowatt-hour, nuclear would be at the bottom of the list. It is very safe. Coal claims lives every few hours, and will claim more as we use more of it in "green coal" applications that are simply not at all green. (If you think they are, go look at mountaintop removal mining.)

And people not only die in MINING coal, but in the railroad services to transport it. And in breathing its effluents. Did you know that there is Uranium in coal smoke? Did you know that the uranium in coal smoke absolutely causes cancers in people downwind?

And if we are not evaluating power systems on how many people die per kilowatt-hour, what basis IS there?

And renewable systems can be really dangerous to maintain; Would you want to steeplejack up to a wind turbine to repair it? How about maintaining photovoltaics?; You know they are dangerous even when disconnected as they never stop trying to make light into current.

 

[Belz...]

Good point about the French. You're right that their economy is fine. That doesn't mean, though, that it couldn't have been done with wind.

"But nuclear is SCARY, man!"

 

[Belz...]

This just makes me sad. You're saying that if you can't travel at the speed of sound there's no point in living. And basically that in order to travel at the speed of sound, you're willing to drown a Bangladeshi or two. Well, who cares, their lives are not worth living anyway, their species is not unique because they haven't been into orbit.

When I thought about what I'd want to tell my kids, I thought I could never explain to them how I had the colossal hubris to stand by and watch the world collapse. The first priority is to preserve a world for them that continues to nurture and sustain them.

I'm not suggesting we turn off our brains. I'm suggesting we turn them keenly to more productive channels. I'm not suggesting we wipe out progress and medicine. I'm suggesting we build on it. I'm suggesting we apply existing building technologies now.

But first we have to recognize the scale of the challenge and what is possible to do to address it.

I've said we cannot redo all our power generation in the next decade. It's not possible. A huge portion will have to be done with conservation. That's not what I want to see, that's the conclusion I inevitably come to. The alternatives are simply unthinkable.

Appeal to emotion = 0.

 

[Belz...]

No. That's ridiculous.



This is directly opposed by all the facts presented. Although there is some semi-truthiness to the "cheaper" part. Nuclear is only economical on a certain scale. Yes, powering a house with solar is cheaper than with a nuclear reactor. Powering a city with solar is absurdly expensive.

See what I meant by "emotion-based" ?

 

[Belz...]

Wind's long-term theoretical potential is much greater than current world energy consumption. The potential of wind power on land and near-shore to be 72 TW, or over fifteen times the world's current energy use and 40 times the current electricity use. The potential takes into account only locations with Class 3 (mean annual wind speeds ≥ 6.9 m/s at 80 m) or better wind regimes, which includes the locations suitable for low-cost (0.03–0.04 $/kWh) wind power generation and is in that sense conservative. It assumes 6 turbines per square km for 77 m diameter, 1.5 MW-turbines on roughly 13% of the total global land area (though that land would also be available for other compatible uses such as farming).

http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/winds/global_winds.html

And how many hundred thousand windmills would we need for that ?

 

[luddite]

I've just been thinking again about the article Glenn pointed out to me that shows that nuclear fission subsidies have delivered more energy than renewable subsidies. I had commented before about how it was unfair to compare baseload fission with peak load solar, and unfair to split off the unproductive subsidies to nuclear while including the unproductive subsidies to ethanol under the broad category "renewables".

But now I'm thinking you could include ethanol under renewables. But you should also calculate all the energy we get from renewables. If you really want to throw in all renewables together, go on to consider how much of our home heating is passive gain. How much of our cooling comes from rain and tree shade. How the water in the lakes we swim in is purified. How leaves and apple cores and dog poop get converted into fertilizer. If all of the natural, renewable processes that make life worth living could actually be quantified, we'd find that the contribution from finite sources is a tiny fraction of the energy we use. What's more a lot of it could be replaced. The sun can dry your clothes. You can bake bread in a solar cooker.