Will nuclear-produced electricity be low carbon?
Faced with the problems of oil supply and environmental factors, it seems quite certain that many of our transportation options in the future with be powered by electricity. Methods of supplying the necessary electrons are legion but all seem to involve costs and problems of one kind or another. With power from coal, there is not only the well known CO2 emittance problem, but also incredible amounts of mercury and a host of other poisons that get unleashed upon us and our environment. The popular, though increasingly expensive, natural gas option - while definitely cleaner than coal - is still a fossil fuel which gives off CO2, NOx, PM, SOx, not to mention VOCs. Renewables, while having many benefits, also have their limitations. Hydroelectric dams are habitat destructive, block fish migration and can contribute to releases of methane and mercury. Wind power and solar are intermittent and would require energy storage solutions to be in place before they could supply baseload electricity. The cost of solar is projected to decrease significantly over the coming decade though. That leaves us with nuclear power. See how it fares after the break.
Nuclear energy is often touted by its supporters as being cheap, clean and plentiful. It's often stated in articles on the subject that Patrick Moore, purported co-founder of Greenpeace, is in favor of increased nuclear plants. In fact, there are about 30 new American nuclear plants currently on the drawing board. So, does nuclear live up to the claims of its supporters? Well, for one, it might not be as cheap as we've been told. Two reactors planned for Levy County, Florida may clock in at more than twice their original estimate at $10 billion. You can install a lot of distributed solar capacity for that kind of money. In fact Moody's Investor Services gave an estimate in October of $6,000 per kilowatt that Jim Hempstead (a senior credit officer at Moody's) stated in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal has been "blown by" after reviewing recent estimates from a handful of "experienced different nuclear operators".
As far as it being plentiful (we won't even go into the whole "peak uranium" thing), that appears to be tied to the question of its carbon intensity. A report recently published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology makes the case that greenhouse gas emissions from uranium mining are rising. As the easy to reach, high-quality reserves are tapped out, extracting the ore will become more expensive and carbon intense as mining operations are forced to dig deeper and move more material as the deposits worked become lower quality. This lower grade ore will also require more refining which will produce, you guessed it, more greenhouse gases. The lead author of the report, Gavin Mudd, of Monash University in Australia, is quoted in an article on the BBC website discussing the findings as saying, "The rate at which [the average grade of uranium ore] goes down depends on demand, technology, exploration and other factors. But, especially if there is going to be a nuclear resurgence, it will go down and that will entail a higher CO2 cost,"
How high that cost goes will depend on many things, including the speed with which safer and cheaper alternative energy sources are developed, as well as the rate of increases in efficiencies, which in turn, reduce power demands. So, although it appears the future of transportation may be electric, it is too early to say whether or not that electricity will depend heavily on nuclear sources.
[Source: BBC]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Edsel 2:40PM (5/19/2008)
If we don't produce the energy we need now, we won't have the energy to develop alternatives.
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Philipp Metzler 2:57PM (5/19/2008)
Hi,
You could store electricity of wind turbines in flywheels: http://www.greencar.at/archives/241
Alternative energy Power plants can also be combined to supply baseload electricity: http://www.greencar.at/archives/205
And "The Club of Rome" has also a very good concept: http://www.greencar.at/archives/259
The DESERTEC Concept of TREC is to boost the generation of electricity and desalinated water by solar thermal power plants and wind turbines in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and to transmit the clean electrical power via High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) transmission lines throughout those areas and as from 2020 (with overall just 10-15% transmission losses) to Europe.
Cheers,
Philipp
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Mike Z 3:14PM (5/19/2008)
As someone that lives about 60 miles from the proposed plant in Levy county. I should add a few things: First, the project includes several billion dollars of transmission wires and assorted grid improvements in addition to the plant. Second, the plant is designed to support up to four reactors, so there are added costs upfront to support those reactors in they become necessary. Florida is really in need of a modernization of our base load, and solar is anything but base load.
Also, contract to popular opinion the periods of maximum power usage in the Florida are during very cold nights (as we have such infrequent cold nights that almost everyone only has electric heat, as it is hard to economically justify anything else).
The main issue facing nuclear right now is one of cost, which is driven by the rise in commodity prices (steel, copper, concrete, etc). The real unanswered question is how much these will impact alternative energy sources--ie there are projections that the cost of off-shore wind may increase significantly due to raw materials costs. Renewable energy projects often don't have the full project accounting (ie installation, transmission wires, etc) that a nuclear project publicly states in their budget. For example, we talk about the cost of solar panels, but not the cost of the installation, or inverters, etc.
On the emissions front, the argument against nuclear due to the supply chain is really a non sequitur as both of those processes could be electrified and powered by a clean energy source.
I'm impartial on nuclear, clearly the cost issue is something that needs to be evaluated (but I don't think we can until we have built 20 or 30 to see what the real cost is, not just some paper estimates) but the real question is whether the alternatives or these proposed energy storage techniques manage to live up to their claims, until then it seems foolish to take nuclear off the table. And clearly for base load, it seems like nuclear is a far more pragmatic approach as opposed to speculation on how to make variable sources good enough.
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armmat 3:19PM (5/19/2008)
MIKE Z:
So the choice is clear...pay for it NOW...or pay dearly for it later....which will it be?
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Mike Z 3:27PM (5/19/2008)
It's hard find anyone who knowns what they are talking about who can point to the AP-1000 design and play the same old alarmist/fear crap.
Seriously, a reactor that relies on natural convection as backup cooling, hard to argue I'll pay dearly.
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BlackbirdHighway 3:28PM (5/19/2008)
You can't really have a serious talk about nuclear without considering the French approach. The way they do nuclear power has some fundamental differences with the US methods.
First, they use a standardized power plant design. In the US, they are all pretty much custom designs. A standard design lowers the cost tremendously, by maybe a factor of 10. It also lowers operating cost, since replacement parts are off the shelf, instead of being custom fabricated.
Second, they recycle the spent fuel into new fuel. This greatly reduces the amount of final waste that has to be stored away. The amount of final waste from suppling a person with electrical power for the entire lifetime fits in a teacup, compared to many tons of waste with the US method. This also greatly reduces the need to mine fresh uranium.
Nuclear power is not all sunshine, lollipops and rainbows, and it's certainly not too cheap to meter, but if it's done right, it can have a place in serving our power needs. It's a whole lot cleaner than coal.
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meme 3:35PM (5/19/2008)
In fact Moody's Investor Services gave an estimate in October of $6,000 per kilowatt that Jim Hempstead (a senior credit officer at Moody's) stated in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal has been "blown by" after reviewing recent estimates from a handful of "experienced different nuclear operators".
That's $6/W. Photovoltaic solar currently averages $4.80 per *peak watt*, and with a typical capacity factor of around 20%, that's equivalent to $24/W.
Are you trying to make nuclear's case for them?
As far as it being plentiful (we won't even go into the whole "peak uranium" thing)
What, you don't want to discuss utter nonsense? Given that just ignoring breeders and thorium, and the fact that there really hasn't been that much uranium exploration, uranium is only about 6% of the cost of a nuclear plant's operating cost, and even first-gen seawater extraction only costs 5-10 times as much for uranium, meaning a 30-60% (i.e., hardly end-of-the-world) operating cost increase. And that assumes you don't make a dime from the other metals recovered in the process, which include cobalt, titanium, and vanadium. And what is this wonder trap made out of? Polyethylene. Plain old cheapest-you-can get plastic, irradiated in nuclear reactors (powered by the very fuel they recover ;) ) to develop bonds that have an affinity for heavy metals. And it's reusable. The material is so cheap that half the cost of the current generation is just the moorings. Replace the heavy steel cage by something a quarter the weight, and recovery costs are halved.
A report recently published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology makes the case that greenhouse gas emissions from uranium mining are rising
Emissions rise and fall with technology. For example, in-situ has a small fraction as much emissions (and also not leave any big, ugly open pits). Bioleaching could even be a net negative. But just to back up for a minute, unless you're looking at the widely debunked Leuuwen & Smith "study", even without using breeders, uranium's CO2 emissions are similar to renewables -- 0.5 to 3% of that of fossil fuels (see the chart on page 21). An increase in that isn't going to be that significant.
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armmat 3:39PM (5/19/2008)
MIKE Z...
Then you are fully on your way.
There's nothing alarmist about people pointing out the dire situations we are in...only the blind and foolish would dismiss it as anything else.
Perhaps if we'd spent that trillion dollars here in the US designing a new system that would be your liking rather than creating an empire in the middle east, we'd have viable solution?
Besides, nuclear power is being used in other countries safely and quietly. Your loss...not theirs. I'm sure the same thinking process was used by the American clowns who though using corn ethanol instead of sugar cane like Brazil is doing was also a good idea? Nah...why use an good idea that's already working and giving Brazil, for all practical purposes, energy independence? We wouldn't that now would we.
Honestly, I don't think you realize what "pay dearly" means.
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Mike Z 4:16PM (5/19/2008)
armmat:
Reading what you just wrote I can't honestly tell what your position on nuclear power is.
Given that mine is merely that modern reactor designs are safe and the real question is if they make cost sense vs. the alternatives, I can't say your response was all that civil.
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David Wright 4:18PM (5/19/2008)
Whadya mean "..That leaves us with nuclear power" ??
Of course it doesn't. That selective list of renewables that got skimmed through and dismissed before declaring nuclear as the answer, very conveniently left out tidal power, left out wave power, left out geothermal power. All three of those are benign and reliable. And all three are sidelined by countries with a pro-nuclear agenda. Small amount of research funding are thrown at them as a passing gesture.
Nuclear is nasty. The nuclear industry has already polluted and contaminated the oceans the skies and land, in some cases with types of radioacyivity that will be there for thousands of years. It should never have been allowed in the first place - going back to using even more of it is just incredibly stupid.
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Tim 4:39PM (5/19/2008)
Here is physicist and world renowned energy policy expert Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute testifying to Congress about the danger of relying on nuclear energy as a solution to global warming.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JkrvSaL7-w
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Mike Z 4:43PM (5/19/2008)
David Wright:
Your correct that these sources are underfunded in terms of R&D, but lets not confuse those energy sources that *could* have potential with those that have potential. There is a key difference between the two, I prefer we base on planning for the future on what we already know works, and invest in emerging alternatives and hope to be surprised.
Also using ad hominem attacks against the nuclear power industry (and often times rolling in the defense industry and DoD stuff) is really arguing from emotion and not the facts. Lets fact it, not a single person has died in the US as a result of civilian nuclear power. 104 reactors x ~30 years of uptime translates to over >3,000 years of experience without a single documented death. Some study put Coal power as kills tens of thousands a year.
I'm not in favor of nuclear any more than any other energy source, but I refuse to let bad facts get in the way. I'm willing to oppose nuclear on cost grounds, but the safety issue is settled, nuclear is safe.
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Mike Z 4:47PM (5/19/2008)
Amory Lovins has an amazing track record of making predictions about the future that are wrong. He produced in the 1970s we would use less energy today than we did then--Jevons paradox proved him wrong.
He is a major proponent of combined heat and power, however he completely missed the rise in natural gas prices, the increase in centralized gas turbine efficiency, and the southern migration of the US population that means that CHP units make less and less sense.
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Wildgoosechase73 5:02PM (5/19/2008)
I wonder if we will begin to see nuclear powered cargo vessels if oil prices continue to rise?
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fnc 5:06PM (5/19/2008)
I don't know how the extraction numbers compare, but with coal you use carbon to extract the fuel which then also releases carbon when that fuel is burned. With nuclear you're at least getting rid of the carbon output of burning the fuel you extracted in the first step. And with seawater extraction you're even getting rid of mucking about with all the mining equipment in the first place.
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Tim 5:14PM (5/19/2008)
Nuclear energy is being billed as the solution to the world's energy crisis. This is creating a new ‘Nuclear Renaissance”. But how viable a solution is it? In order for nuclear energy to supply 25% of the world’s electricity by 2050, a new reactor would have to be built EVERY WEEK for the next 40 years! We compare different countries' experiences and hear what the experts think.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Lkh_y47XaA
It costs $Billions to make EACH plant and they can’t be made without taxpayer funds. Only 1% of the available energy in the fuel rods can be used. ALL waste products are radioactive from fuel rods, cooling water, metals, clothing, oils… EVERYTHING! That waste remains radioactive for thousands of years and you can make a “dirty nuclear bomb” with the waste which is a HUGE concern in the golden age of TERROR.
Nuclear is NOT renewable. Every dollar invested in nuclear power, can’t be invested in renewable energy.
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Mike Z 5:58PM (5/19/2008)
http://www.reason.com/news/show/116887.html
"a global solar-energy system would consume at least 20 percent of the world's known iron resources, take a century to build and cover a half-million square miles. "
When you consider the immense challenge of powering the future with clean energy, the reality is that no option is a silver bullet. The real question is whether we are willing to exclude options based on baseless fears.
To build a gigawatt of generating capacity is going to cost several billions no matter the source (coal, wind, wave, etc).
"Nuclear is NOT renewable. Every dollar invested in nuclear power, can’t be invested in renewable energy."
Technically, nothing is renewable. Solar isn't as the sun has a finite, though massive amount of energy. Geothermal is not, as it too is nuclear power. Either way, Economics does not work like that, nothing is that clear cut. Just because I have something does not mean someone else goes without.
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armmat 6:01PM (5/19/2008)
MIKE Z:
Actually my position isn't just nuclear power...but because it's an option that is far more realistic than continuing the use of fossil fuels, it's an option we need to seriously figure out very quickly.
It is by no means the end all be all answer to energy but it is absolutely preposterous to suggest that we can continue of fossil fuels as some here seem to advocate and believe it's an alarmist view not to continue.
I'm not hear to be civil...I'm here to state an opinion on some incredibly hard issues we are going to face in the near future. The issues we are up against make the rest of what we have been through in our pathetic human existence on this planet so far quite trivial. So let's not waste time nitpicking about what is and isn't civil but rather think of some serious solutions to an incredibly daunting problem.
The reason why we are up sh&t's creek NOW is because people like yourself have constantly harped on about costs. Well...we've dug a nice big hole for ourselves because we've been to cheap and greedy to do it right the first time...and even THEN, you turn around and say you'd rather pay dearly?
Haven't we made enough mistakes up to this point to have learned already that being cheap and worrying about costs doesn't work when it comes to lifeblood of our existence? I guess not. It's akin to some guy with high cholesterol continuing to stuff is face with burgers and fries and saying..."Not to worry, I'll start popping cholesterol pills once I hit my 60's...."
Good luck with that.
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Luke 6:24PM (5/19/2008)
Wow, uranium ore needs to be mined. Great insight. So the resources used to make devices that generate alternative energies don't need to be mined too? Get real.
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goehring 7:09PM (5/19/2008)
Wind power is increasing at 20% per year.
Solar (including biomass) seems likely to do the same within a few years.
If these intermittent sources become a large part of our power supply, why should we invest in high capital cost base load when it is peak load that we will really need?
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