PEAK OIL: Going Mainstream

[Hindmost]

Where on earth will we find the money, brains, and brawn to build that many nuke plants? Much less the real estate?

Of course, that is why I keep posting that Nukes won't save the day, but are a very important contributer. Even if fusion becomes viable in the next 25 years, it will take a bunch of money and infrastructure to provide sufficient energy--and it won't be quick enough due to many technical hurdles and the nature of the energy it produces.

The footprint of nuclear plants in general are quite small when compared with other plants since the power density is so high. Wind, solar, coal, refineries are all much larger.

glenn

 

[JihadJane]

Economic chaos is likely to be a big obstacle .

For example, how does interest get paid on debts when there's permanent economic shrinkage instead of growth?

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Economic chaos is likely to be a big obstacle .

For example, how does interest get paid on debts when there's permanent economic shrinkage instead of growth?

Good question. When we get to the point where there's permanent economic shrinkage, I'll try to answer it.

 

[Hindmost]

This link was a bit of a shock considering the source...

Link

glenn

 

[Dymanic]

Good question. When we get to the point where there's permanent economic shrinkage, I'll try to answer it.

Well, when we get to that point maybe you won't have to. Some things are sort of self-resolving if you wait long enough.

 

[Dymanic]

The footprint of nuclear plants in general are quite small when compared with other plants since the power density is so high. Wind, solar, coal, refineries are all much larger.

Calculating "footprints" is always a tricky affair because it can be easy to overlook some of the factors. Manufacturing of photovoltaic cells, for example, is a pretty energy-intensive process, so a sudden ramp-up to massive solar would incur an energy debt that would take some time to pay off. (I don't know what kind of energy debt is incurred in the building of a large nuke plant, but I'm curious about that). I also remember when highly reflective glass was first touted as a measure which would signficantly reduce cooling costs in highrise buildings in downtown Phoenix. It worked so well that surrounding buildings immediately began to experience significant increases in their cooling costs.

With solar at least there is the opportunity to reduce the footprint by relying a lot on rooftop installations, and the newest generation of PV films holds a lot of promise. Not long ago I visited a doctor's office where they had a monitor displaying the amount of surplus electricity currently being fed into the grid by the solar installation on the roof (which I never even knew was there).

Americans have always had a tendency to think big, so when we start talking about alternative energy the first picture that pops into our heads is one featuring vast solar or wind farms stretching to the horizon. It's just as easy for me to picture a future in which production of energy is much more decentralized, integrated, smaller scale, and lower tech.

Barring some technological breakthrough on the order of controlled fusion, my guess is that most of our grandchildren will take as a matter of course some things that mostly get eyeball rolls today -- ride bicycles to work, hang their wash on the line to dry, get their hot water from a black hose on the roof -- and will regard our present notions about massive solar farms and nuke plants popping up like MacDonald's outlets all across the land as just as quaint and naive as we presently view the BuckRogers-esque 1950's vision of a future replete with antigravity belts and a hovercraft in every garage.

 

[Nosi]

I personally doubt any single energy source will replace the raw power of crude. What is being missed is partner strategies. Oil will be replaced by a combination of a plethora of energy sources and conservation.

Tiny Japan is showing signs of leaving the car behind as a method of people moving. mopeds, bikes, feet, and rail are among some of the ways people get from point A to point B there. Traffic jams often include a clot of bikes. Of course Japan and Texas won't share a solution.

Computers offer a hope for taking a bite out of oil use via telecommuting workers and "go to meeting" software solutions rather than flying employees to wherever.

Solar water heaters will probably become very vogue in the South of the United States. All that heated water off the oil grid may not mean all that much but it is something...

 

[Hindmost]

Calculating "footprints" is always a tricky affair because it can be easy to overlook some of the factors. Manufacturing of photovoltaic cells, for example, is a pretty energy-intensive process, so a sudden ramp-up to massive solar would incur an energy debt that would take some time to pay off. (I don't know what kind of energy debt is incurred in the building of a large nuke plant, but I'm curious about that). I also remember when highly reflective glass was first touted as a measure which would signficantly reduce cooling costs in highrise buildings in downtown Phoenix. It worked so well that surrounding buildings immediately began to experience significant increases in their cooling costs.

With solar at least there is the opportunity to reduce the footprint by relying a lot on rooftop installations, and the newest generation of PV films holds a lot of promise. Not long ago I visited a doctor's office where they had a monitor displaying the amount of surplus electricity currently being fed into the grid by the solar installation on the roof (which I never even knew was there).

Americans have always had a tendency to think big, so when we start talking about alternative energy the first picture that pops into our heads is one featuring vast solar or wind farms stretching to the horizon. It's just as easy for me to picture a future in which production of energy is much more decentralized, integrated, smaller scale, and lower tech.

Barring some technological breakthrough on the order of controlled fusion, my guess is that most of our grandchildren will take as a matter of course some things that mostly get eyeball rolls today -- ride bicycles to work, hang their wash on the line to dry, get their hot water from a black hose on the roof -- and will regard our present notions about massive solar farms and nuke plants popping up like MacDonald's outlets all across the land as just as quaint and naive as we presently view the BuckRogers-esque 1950's vision of a future replete with antigravity belts and a hovercraft in every garage.

I really can't get a handle on all the footprints. It is difficult to determine when solar will be beneficial for routine installation on homes. Cost breakeven" varies everytime I read something new. Ten years seems to be a minimum. I would hope all new buildings would have some type of solar, wind or geothermal assist for energy conservation...however the geothermal thing seems to need some more development as removing energy from the planet can upset equilibrium it seems.

I have to admit that I don't know how to compute the carbon footprint of a nuclear plant. Nukes were considered "carbon neutral" even when including all the concrete and mining ops. Without seeing the basis of the calcs, I really can't say if it accurate. I can say that running a plant after it is built will produce very little carbon dioxide emissions. The diesels have to be periodically run and an auxiliary boiler if it is oil or gas fired will produce some--but many are electric.

glenn

Don't worry about Phoenix, it will run out of water before energy becomes an issue.

 

[stevea]

I did a quick and dirty calc on the number of plants to cover the entire planet and posted previously. I took 500 quads and converted it to MW-Hrs, added in a reasonable capacity factor and came out with about 13000 large nuke plants IIRC. (a really big ball park number) That would cover the entire energy use on the planet from oil, gas, nuke, hydro and the other smatterings. I actually don't know if the 2.4 billion people that use wood as their primary fuel would be included in the 500 quads.

glenn

500 QUADs (~511Q in 2010) is the commercial energy used worldwide. So no it doesn't include non-commercial wood burned nor companies that use their own generators.

13000 plants is a bit high. More like 6500 based on the US plants from the late 1980s. It's only 3300 plants if they matched the biggest Japanese reactor.

Here is the main problem with this extrapolation: to produce 500Q using once-through conventional nuclear plans requires 2.7 Million tons of uranium. The known land reserves of 4.7 million tons would be used up in <21 months. Yes we can recover some fraction of the ocean uranium reserves at a higher cost, but even assuming we increase the U supply by a factor of 100, and projet growth in energy demand we are looking at another "oil" solution good for a handful of decades. So IMO conventional nuclear alone is far too wasteful or resources. With fast breeder technology tho' we're talking millennia and the proposition becomes far more realistic.

So -- ball park -- what? Maybe fifty quadrillion dollars?

You are off by 3 orders of magnitude. $42 to $90 trillion ballpark based on several economic estimates. That's roughly equal to the planetary GDP for 1 year. That's not a bad price for an entirely new clean long-term energy source for the planet.

And that's why I keep posting that nukes aren't going to solve the problem. Money is one issue and engineering, manufacturing capacity and qualified people are others.

Try using more realistic figures and your pessimism evaporates. We can probably substantially reduce the capital costs, labor, instrumentation and engineering by using just a few common designs.

Where on earth will we find the money, brains, and brawn to build that many nuke plants? Much less the real estate?

Yeah let's see even 13000 plants time ~100 acres = 2000 sq.limes or the size of Delaware to supply the planet. How much land are is used for oil & coal production and conventional electrical production ? Not less I suspect.


Let's not ignore the environmental impact of leaching cadmium and tellurium into the environment from PVs like the India plan too. Cadmium is a fair bit worse that lead pollution.

 

[stevea]

I really can't get a handle on all the footprints. It is difficult to determine when solar will be beneficial for routine installation on homes. Cost breakeven" varies everytime I read something new. .

I see the same. It appears that PV electricity costs 2.5x to 4x as much as coal based electricity or a a fair notch more than nuclear. On a small scale the lifecycle costs are a big factor. Small inverters are lower in efficiency and have realtively low mttf. The panels output degrades over their lifespan. Then we have the horrible issue of recycling PV panels (on any scale) as they have a useful lifespan of only 20-25 years. For both environmental and economic reasons we can't toss all the doping materials into a landfiill, and it costs serious energy to re-refine the panels. Expect a hefty recycling fee.

My hunch is that unless you have an isolated place in a sunny climate small scale rooftop PV solar is just as impractical as running your own coal-fired gnerator. Mostly silly except for the prices distorted by government policy.

Concentrated solar makes a lot more sense - if you can use the heat or store it (and we can at scale).

 

[Hindmost]

500 QUADs (~511Q in 2010) is the commercial energy used worldwide. So no it doesn't include non-commercial wood burned nor companies that use their own generators.

13000 plants is a bit high. More like 6500 based on the US plants from the late 1980s. It's only 3300 plants if they matched the biggest Japanese reactor.

Here is the main problem with this extrapolation: to produce 500Q using once-through conventional nuclear plans requires 2.7 Million tons of uranium. The known land reserves of 4.7 million tons would be used up in <21 months. Yes we can recover some fraction of the ocean uranium reserves at a higher cost, but even assuming we increase the U supply by a factor of 100, and projet growth in energy demand we are looking at another "oil" solution good for a handful of decades. So IMO conventional nuclear alone is far too wasteful or resources. With fast breeder technology tho' we're talking millennia and the proposition becomes far more realistic.



You are off by 3 orders of magnitude. $42 to $90 trillion ballpark based on several economic estimates. That's roughly equal to the planetary GDP for 1 year. That's not a bad price for an entirely new clean long-term energy source for the planet.



Try using more realistic figures and your pessimism evaporates. We can probably substantially reduce the capital costs, labor, instrumentation and engineering by using just a few common designs.



Yeah let's see even 13000 plants time ~100 acres = 2000 sq.limes or the size of Delaware to supply the planet. How much land are is used for oil & coal production and conventional electrical production ? Not less I suspect.


Let's not ignore the environmental impact of leaching cadmium and tellurium into the environment from PVs like the India plan too. Cadmium is a fair bit worse that lead pollution.

There are about 450 nuclear plants on the planet right now. The US has about 104 plants with an average nameplate capacity of 1000MW or so. They generate about 800,000 GW-hrs per year which is about 20 percent of the US electricity consumption.

Assuming 1200 MW x 24 x 330 = 9.5E6 MW-hr for a plant for a year. 500 quads is about 147E9 Mw-hrs. Dividing you get about 15000 plants.

http://www.onlineconversion.com/energy.htm

Its not pessimism...just being realistic about what nuclear can accomplish. Even using lower numbers, it would be an order of magnitude greater than today. If things go well, the US will build about 30 plants over the next 15 years. Common designs help with some of the initial work, but it will still take a bunch of qualified crafts to build and qualified engineers to startup the plant. Maintenance will be somewhat less, but operations will still require the same staffing levels as now.

I am unaware of any Japanese reactors that are several times the size of current plants. There is an APWR in the 1600 MW range IIRC, so the numbers would only be slightly smaller.

glenn

 

[JihadJane]

'Officials Wake Up to Peak Oil'

Part 1: The End of Peak Oil Denial

"When I began writing about peak oil professionally in 2006, it was generally considered a tinfoil hat theory. The notion that oil production might peak around 2012 (plus or minus) was only taken seriously by a few analysts who were considered extremely pessimistic.

UK Task Force on Peak Oil: Shortages by 2015

...a stern warning that 'oil shortages, insecurity of supply and price volatility will destabilise economic, political, and social activity potentially by 2015.'

...the notion that peak oil will mean the end of economic growth, as I have argued, apparently fell on deaf ears. Still, the very fact that the government has engaged with the peak oil community and formed a parliamentary group to study the issue offers a sliver of hope that, at least in the UK, we'll have some measure of consciousness about the issue and an idea of what to do about it as we drive off the peak oil cliff.

Kuwait Report: Peak by 2014

Oxford Report: Reserves Exaggerated by One Third

...conventional oil reserves stand at just 850-900 billion barrels — not the 1,150-1,350 billion barrels that are officially claimed by oil producers and accepted by the politically influenced IEA.

ConocoPhillips Gives Up on Growth"

http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/the-end-of-peak-oil-denial/1111

[my emphasis - JJ]

 

[Mark6]

With solar at least there is the opportunity to reduce the footprint by relying a lot on rooftop installations, and the newest generation of PV films holds a lot of promise. Not long ago I visited a doctor's office where they had a monitor displaying the amount of surplus electricity currently being fed into the grid by the solar installation on the roof (which I never even knew was there).

Americans have always had a tendency to think big, so when we start talking about alternative energy the first picture that pops into our heads is one featuring vast solar or wind farms stretching to the horizon. It's just as easy for me to picture a future in which production of energy is much more decentralized, integrated, smaller scale, and lower tech.

Not that I disagree, but since when is PV film "lower tech"? If anything, high technology is necessary to make small-scale decentralized power production into anything other than a sideshow.

 

[Dymanic]

You are off by 3 orders of magnitude. $42 to $90 trillion ballpark based on several economic estimates.

I was being a bit TIC, using the numbers provided and figuring 3 or 4 billion dollars per plant. That's actually rather conservative, and does not include the cost of decommissioning -- and we're also ignoring the cost of upgrading transmission infrastructure. Even with your 6500 plants, I still get numbers ten or twenty times higher than what you're figuring. If your "several economic estimates" indicate significantly lower costs, maybe we could take a look at those sources.

Not that I disagree, but since when is PV film "lower tech"?

There was a segue there from "reduced footprint" (which I see PV film as holding potential for) into "lower tech" (which I agree that it is not).

If anything, high technology is necessary to make small-scale decentralized power production into anything other than a sideshow.

A sideshow to what?

 

[Mark6]

A sideshow to what?

Sideshow to centralized power production. The way rooftop solar cells and backyard windmills are currently sideshow to conventional power plants.

 

[stevea]

Its not pessimism...just being realistic about what nuclear can accomplish. Even using lower numbers, it would be an order of magnitude greater than today. If things go well, the US will build about 30 plants over the next 15 years. Common designs help with some of the initial work, but it will still take a bunch of qualified crafts to build and qualified engineers to startup the plant. Maintenance will be somewhat less, but operations will still require the same staffing levels as now.

I am unaware of any Japanese reactors that are several times the size of current plants. There is an APWR in the 1600 MW range IIRC, so the numbers would only be slightly smaller.

glenn

Glenn - thanks for explaining your method. On closer review the largest facility, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa with a total of 7 reactors is has a rated capacity just over 8GW. And an annual production a bit under 60 TW-hr in best year. Palo Verde in AZ ihas 3 reactors rated ar a total of 3.8GW. So the problem is that I didn't realize multiple ~1GW reactors were involved.

Yes, I agree we can't get there at anything like the current rate of reactor production. To replace current demand we'd need to bring up ~120-150 reactors per year for the next century. More pragmatically we need 300+ reactors a year (say 60 in the US) for ~50 years to catchup to the need.. I think it's not impossible in terms of cost, , but the political will is lacking and will remain so until coal evaporates or the climate becomes threatening. Thanks for the downer, Glenn ;^)

I was being a bit TIC, using the numbers provided and figuring 3 or 4 billion dollars per plant. That's actually rather conservative, and does not include the cost of decommissioning -- and we're also ignoring the cost of upgrading transmission infrastructure. Even with your 6500 plants, I still get numbers ten or twenty times higher than what you're figuring. If your "several economic estimates" indicate significantly lower costs, maybe we could take a look at those sources.

The problem with this forum is all sorts of shallow thinking quipsters assume your SWAG is realistic.

Start here and follow out the links. MIT has an online report on nuclear capital costs, I didn't find any at DOE, the economist has some figures also.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_new_nuclear_power_plants
MIT is clamed to have the most sophisticated models and claim about $2000/KWe.
Some other estimates and the MIT 2009 update run up to about twice that figure and only a few lower.

So at $2k/KWe the cost for 500Quads (1.6716708e+10 kw-year) anually is
$ 33.4 Trillion, at $4k/KWe it's $67Trillion. These are capital costs for building the reactors.

Now show your references and work please.

 

[Nosi]

Do you think JihadJane that there might be economic activity, even growth, in spite of energy peaks? Perhaps we will start to investigate underground housing, using the Earth as a means of warming, cooling ourselves?

The above ground housing in deserts and other extreme climes is absolutely a waste of the valued energy source...oil.

What about pulley systems?

 

[Dymanic]

MIT is clamed to have the most sophisticated models and claim about $2000/KWe.
Some other estimates and the MIT 2009 update run up to about twice that figure and only a few lower.

Well, hold on. According to the wikipedia link you just provided, some other estimates run up to more than three times that figure:

2007 estimates have considerable uncertainty in overnight cost, and vary widely from $2,950/kWe (overnight cost) to a Moody's Investors Service conservative estimate of between $5,000 and $6,000/kWe (final or "all-in" cost).[13]

However, commodity prices shot up in 2008, and so all types of plants will be more expensive than previously calculated[14] In June 2008 Moody's estimated that the cost of installing new nuclear capacity in the U.S. might possibly exceed $7,000/kWe in final cost.[15]

Of course, if we want the really cheap stuff, we know where to get that:

In 2007, the reported cost for the first two AP1000 units under construction in China was $5.3 billion.

In 2009, the published cost for 4 AP1000 reactors under construction in China was a total of $8 billion.

Whether it's $2 billion per plant, or $4 billion, or whatever the heck it is, I'd say the bottom line is fairly well summed up by this:

the political will is lacking and will remain so until coal evaporates or the climate becomes threatening.

I might modify that slightly: The political will is lacking, and under the economic stress brought on by a global energy shortfall, mustering the political will to launch large-scale government-sponsored energy projects with high front-end costs and long payoff times will become increasingly difficult -- not the least reason being that one of the first things that will evaporate in the face of really difficult economic times is environmental concerns over the burning of coal.

 

[Hindmost]

Glenn - thanks for explaining your method. On closer review the largest facility, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa with a total of 7 reactors is has a rated capacity just over 8GW. And an annual production a bit under 60 TW-hr in best year. Palo Verde in AZ ihas 3 reactors rated ar a total of 3.8GW. So the problem is that I didn't realize multiple ~1GW reactors were involved.

Yes, I agree we can't get there at anything like the current rate of reactor production. To replace current demand we'd need to bring up ~120-150 reactors per year for the next century. More pragmatically we need 300+ reactors a year (say 60 in the US) for ~50 years to catchup to the need.. I think it's not impossible in terms of cost, , but the political will is lacking and will remain so until coal evaporates or the climate becomes threatening. Thanks for the downer, Glenn ;^)

Completely independent of political will or cost, I hope you realize that we can't come anywhere close to starting up 60 reactors a year in the US or 300 a year world wide. There is no where near the industrial capacity or the engineering talent and skilled craft labor to accomplish even a fraction of that level. There are only a few places that can even forge the heavy vessel components. Japan Steel Works can forge maybe four a year.

The problem with this forum is all sorts of shallow thinking quipsters assume your SWAG is realistic.

Start here and follow out the links. MIT has an online report on nuclear capital costs, I didn't find any at DOE, the economist has some figures also.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_new_nuclear_power_plants
MIT is clamed to have the most sophisticated models and claim about $2000/KWe.
Some other estimates and the MIT 2009 update run up to about twice that figure and only a few lower.

So at $2k/KWe the cost for 500Quads (1.6716708e+10 kw-year) anually is
$ 33.4 Trillion, at $4k/KWe it's $67Trillion. These are capital costs for building the reactors.

Now show your references and work please.

As far as the cost of building the plants...others have provided good input, but I can tell you, US utilities are expecting between 4 and 6k/kW overnight cost for a raw construction. (Note: sans any swag.)

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Duke_raises_cost_estimate_for_Lee_plant-0711084.html

glenn

 

[DC]

thanks Hindmost, very informative.
i wasnt aware of that problem at all.