British Nuclear Plant Construction Should Be Delayed
The CFE-CGC Energy Union has said investment in the huge Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant development should be delayed by several years until some potential problems can be worked out. The £18bn project, if completed, could provide about 7% of UK’s electricity, so it’s obviously a massive project.
Engineers at the French utility EDF have also called for delay, saying that the project is very complicated and unproven. “Right now, Hinkley is too risky for the company. We think it is better to wait and see. Wait for three years so we can see that everything works… or not,” said Francis Raillott from CFE-CGC.
The project is so huge that reportedly up to 25,000 jobs could be created during the construction phase.
This new reactor type has had some problems during construction, “The world’s first EPR at Olkiluoto in Finland is still not finished after eight years. Construction started on an EPR at Flamanville in France in 2007, but completion has been delayed until 2016. However, two EPRs at Taishan, China, should be finished within a year.”
Recently it was reported that a British parliamentary committee had asked for information about plans and potential costs if the massive project should fail.
The project was designed to use two EPR reactors situated in Somerset, England and have a capacity of 3,200 MWe. There are already two nuclear power stations in the area: Hinkley Point A and Hinkley Point B, but only the latter is still operational.
In addition to the potential design issues, some have commented on the high cost, “We are frankly staggered that the UK Government thinks it is appropriate to take such a bet and under-write the economics of any power station that costs £5m per MW and takes 9 years to build,” said Peter Atherton from Liberium Partners.
Of course, the main reason for building it is to add electricity generation capacity, and nuclear does fit the bill in terms of not using carbon-emitting fossil fuels. Building such a large, high-cost plant does also seem risky — especially if it proves in the end to have any problems when it goes live.
Image Credit: Richard Baker, Creative Commons Attribution Share-alike license 2.0
Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
CleanTechnica Holiday Wish Book
Our Latest EVObsession Video
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.
Delay the plant and double down on off shore wind, and solar.
The total wind capacity in the UK is 13.5 Gw yet currently it is only producing .69 Gw (Gridwatch) while natural gas and coal are producing 20 Gw.
The UK desperately needs nuclear if they want to shut down the coal plants by 2025.
The UK is expanding its power links (soon it will have ties with Belgium, Scandinavia and indirectly with Germany and Scandinavia alongside the existing connection with France). Over an area that size, wind power is remarkably reliable.
Also, if history is anything to go by, Hinkley won’t be finished by 2025 even if construction starts today. And the other proposed reactors are still in the earliest planning stages (even the generic design assesment isn’t complete yet).
The concept of “the wind is always blowing somewhere” does not apply all of Europe. Below are a graphics which show wind output in northern Europe.
Source: http://euanmearns.com/wind-blowing-nowhere-again/
Lowest output: 3GW
Peak: 27-ish GW.
That is a factor 9 difference, which is already much smaller than what is seen in the UK alone. Extending the graph to include Ireland, the Benelux, France, Austria, the Iberian Peninsula and the rest of Scandinavia – all of which will have direct links to the UK if all current projects are completed – will reduce variance a lot further.
Also, don’t forget that those countries (Norway and Austria most of all) have considerable pumped hydro capacity, which allows for smoothing wind output further.
All that you wrote makes renewables even cheaper, but there is no need to even go there. PV with battery storage alone would beat the proposed Hinkley C reactor hands down on economics while delivering better capabilities even if you ignore risk and radioactive waste, as it is usually done for nuclear for no reason at all. Yes, Hinkley C is that expensive.
So far, most analysts (including Agora Energiewende!) suggest that long distance transmission offers the same result as battery storage at a lower cost.
That’s not to say there is no place for storage, but it is unlikely to be the main part of the solution.
I am not disputing that, just saying that in this case you could even go for the not cheapest renewable solution and still beat Hinkley C easily on economics alone.
Minor niggle: IIRC Norway has so much flow hydro they don’t actually need the pumping to offer vast despatchable supply. I believe they have started to upgrade some existing dams to reverse pumping for extra flexibility.
Pumped hydro comes at a price. And it’s another loss in efficiency. Denmark-Norway deal is great, but it’s not about pumped. It’s let stop hydro while wind from Denmark is blowing. You don’t need to pump water up.
It’s not so simple to get to very high % of renowables in big area. There are still obstacles and unknowns on the way.
367.6 MW at this moment
http://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/energy-minerals-and-infrastructure/offshore-wind-energy/offshore-wind-electricity-map/
That is not data from all of Europe. It’s not even data from all off northern Europe. It’s data from a very small part of northern Europe.
Crap from Means site is not welcome here.
Don’t be dishonest Mark.
Fair enough but i can’t find any charts showing real data across all of Europe. The “It’s sunny somewhere” concept is a critical component of the 100% renewable plans, where is the evidence using real time data?
I do not know where one finds that data. But I do know that the use of data from an area that covers probably less than 5% of Europe is worthless when asking the “all Europe” question.
“It’s sunny somewhere” is something you pulled out of your neither regions. There’s essentially no chance that we would ship power from the dark side of the planet to the sunny side.
I have never seen any 100% renewable plans use 24/365 solar input.
Mark, please clean up your act. In your advocacy for nuclear energy you are posting crap and wasting the time of others. There’s a low tolerance for that sort of behavior here.
The “It’s sunny somewhere” was just a figure of speech representing the concept that interconnected regions can power each other during calm/cloudy days.
I come to these sites to learn. my support for nuclear comes from sites such as Energy Collective where every myth promoted by the anti-nuclear groups has been debunked. Similar to deniers, the anti-nuclear group just keeps repeating the same myths.
The “It’s sunny somewhere” concept is so critical yet little information can be found to support it.
There is one myth presented by anti-nuclear groups (with whom I have no affiliation whatsoever, I must add) that has never been debunked: new nuclear power stations are among the most expensive sources of new low carbon electricity.
The strike price for Hinkley C is further proof of this. Its electricity is far more costly than either the spot market price for electricity or even what renewable generators get after subsidies are added.
For data on power production across Europe, you can go to the website of Entso E, the European network of grid operators. Its website is far from user friendly and you’ll have to collate national data yourself, but at least all the data is there.
The 0.5 GW minimum you mention in your other post is not going to be repeated. The share of offshore wind is growing, and these turbines rarely if ever reach zero output. Onshore, the move towards larger rotor sizes is also sharply reducing the gap between peak and through production.
See this interesting summary: http://energytransition.de/2016/01/2015-germanys-record-wind-year/
“The strike price for Hinkley C is further proof of this.”
Current strike prices in the UK (pounds)
Hinkley C £92.50/MWh
Onshore Wind £95/MWh
Offshore Wind £155/Mwh
Solar £120/Mwh
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/263937/Final_Document_-_Investing_in_renewable_technologies_-_CfD_contract_terms_and_strike_prices_UPDATED_6_DEC.pdf
The last DECC CfD auction resulted in an average strike price for onshore wind of between £80 and £82/MWh. Solar PV also came in at £80.
To add insult to injury, the Hinkley C strike price is inflation-linked whereas the strike price for renewables is not.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/contracts-for-difference-cfd-allocation-round-one-outcome
I see you edited your post. You do realise your link is over 3 years old at this point? See my post for current figures.
I’m starting to think that Bob is right and that you’re trolling. Goodbye.
Which post did Mark edit? Give me the first few words and I’ll check it against the database.
Making a substantial edit without indicating the edit is simply not going to fly here.
It’s not substantial. He just edited the post with the costs of renewables to include offshore wind and solar and to include a link to the old DECC report. Before that, it just gave a cost for nuclear and onshore wind without a source.
Mark – if you make a substantial edit (something more than a spelling correction or change in verb tense) then include a note indicating the change(s) you made.
Try googling “Europe renewable integration future”.
You don’t seem to have done any research.
Or try.
http://cleantechnica.com/2015/03/04/60-of-renewables-can-be-integrated-into-european-grid-by-2030/
No surprise that you would come away from EC with a decidedly pro nuclear bent.
Thanks but Mr. Wallace called into question a chart showing daily wind output in the UK, Belgium and Germany, that is what I was looking for all of EU.
Note: the Integration of Renewable Energy in Europe report assumes nuclear power will be major source of electric in 2030. I am trying to figure out how it can be done without nuclear power.
To be clear, I am pro nuclear, solar, wind, geothermal and tidal. I am strongly against specific bio-mass ie: burning trees in coal plants. Being a tree hugger, I am biased on that topic.
How can grids be powered without nuclear energy?
1) Incorporate a mix of all available renewables.
2) Make the ‘harvest area’ large enough to smooth out local input variations as much as feasible. (Transmission)
3) Use dispatchable hydro as a fill-in source.
4) Create as much dispatchable demand as possible.
5) Incorporate storage.
6) Incorporate dispatchable low carbon generation. (Biofuels)
You could read some of the studies I linked for you learn this stuff on your own.
Here is one reference.
http://www.irena.org/menu/index.aspx?mnu=Subcat&PriMenuID=36&CatID=141&SubcatID=1691
To get an idea how wide scale renewables can be used, read NRELs Futures Study.
http://cleantechnica.com/2015/04/13/80-renewables-by-2050-in-us-says-nrel/
Renewables are not just wind and solar. The NREL study only posits 50% variable renewables to get to 80%. The other 30% are hydro, geothermal, biomass, etc.
And they conclude there are many ways that work, and different ways in different places.
Consider that even if wind, solar, etc, failed to provide energy for 2 weeks, and the supply were FF, we would only have 2/52 or a bit less than 4% FF energy.
100% is not necessary if we add some carbon sinks by ending deforestation and other means for example. Given the variety of solutions, its feasible.
Bullshit, Mark. Find some combined solar and wind data over a large region for an extended timeframe.
Look at the green/top line of the graph below. That is four years of actual wind and solar input for the PJM, the largest wholesale grid in the US.
Hooking that grid to the grids north, west and south of it would smooth out the availability of wind and solar even more.
The Energy Collective has a very large pro-nuclear bias. I’ve read many of their so called debunkings and they’re bunk.
“The Energy Collective” actively prunes anybody with data contrary to their financial supporters. It is a good site to learn the art of propaganda.
That’s my experience. I politely pointed out a factual error concerning cost of wind energy in an article about nuclear cost and was banned.
One strike and I was out.
Happens to everybody there.
Like the military, the nuclear industry gets more and more expensive – and more and more of that expense somehow finds its way into its propaganda organs.
Lockheed is the perfect military-industrial complex company. It doesn’t primarily make aircraft anymore, it cultivates and harvests congressmen for money. When the nuclear industry reaches the Lockheed stage, it will just keep taking your money, feeding lobbyists, smearing critics, and never turn on any damn reactors at all.
True. But it is a good thing they don’t turn on any reactors. Imagine the horrible job they’d do running them! They’d probably plan melt downs so they could get more money for the clean ups.
Look up the story of the Lockheed F-35 fighter plane project. It’s amazing how bad it is. They had to cancel the big air show unveiling because one prototype spontaneously caught fire on a runway. Due to the special lift fans the Marine version requires, ALL versions have such poor maneuverability that they can’t beat ancient F-16s in USAF tests. They have such poor rear visibility that they require a custom pilot’s helmet that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, but doesn’t work well.
The lifetime costs for the project are now projected over two TRILLION dollars. But don’t worry, the US is applying every form of pressure to make as many countries buy it as possible so that your taxpayers can share the burden with ours.
I bet F-35 fanboys sound exactly like nuke fanboys.
You can’t find charts so you have a legitimate argument? Please. People take issues seriously here. If you can’t bother to do the research, don’t make flaccid comments about one site in Germany and expect to be taken seriously.
Now you are asking the right questions. Gregor Czisch did a 100% RE study/model with hourly data.
That was 10 years ago and is still valid only much cheaper by now. But even back then his conclusion was that power wouldn’t be more expensive in a 100% RE grid.
It’s just using the technologies we got and using the data we got to built a reliable and affordable system.
Never played sim city?
The whole grid is converging in that direction anyways as it evolves toward higher RE share.
Stranded assets like coal and nuclear will get pushed out naturally.
A younger me, had to have a conversation about time management, when the early Sim City versions were released, LOL!
That blog asks why bother with distribution when large centralised plants can supply it. It is hard to take them seriously when they refuse to acknowledge that there’s even a need to transition to zero carbon. They are exaggerating the challenges.
“That blog asks why bother with distribution when large centralised plants can supply it.”
A bit biased but centralized generation has worked very well for over 100 years.
A wind or solar farm is another form of centralized generation.
We farmed with horses for hundreds of years.
Then we left horse-powered farming behind when we invented a better technology.
Most wind and solar farm are much, much smaller than a nuclear reactor and even the largest are spread out over a large area. That’s why we call them “distributed”.
“Centralized generation” means organized lobbying, political contributions and data manipulation. That’s the real problem. It worked well enough to accumulate economic and political power so that now it can get away with working less well. Many institutions in our society exhibit the same disease.
What about rooftop distributed solar and many, farmer owned, small wind turbines in farms?
About 133 years. One size fits all in a dynamically changing economy – for 134 years? Not likely.
Oh dear, Bob can I use this site?
Agora Energiewende
http://www.agora-energiewende.de/en/topics/-agothem-/Produkt/produkt/76/Agorameter/
This show wind output in Germany was .5 Gw on March 31, I did not know it could go that low.
What was energy output everywhere in Europe at that time. And solar. And biomass. And hydro.
You are grasping at straws trying to make an argument in a phony way.
You are cherry-picking, Mark. (And wearing out your welcome by pulling crap like that.)
Here’s some cherry-picked data for you to put in your pie.
On January 31, 2012 both SONGs nuclear reactors in Oceanside, CA went offline and never came back on leaving Southern California with zero nuclear energy on their grid.
Did you know nuclear could go that low?
Two can cherry pick. But those cherries do not make for rational discussion.
“Did you know nuclear could go that low?”
Yes I did. Solar and wind farms can go offline if there is a substation problem but,,,
I acknowledge solar and wind far more reliable concerning equipment failures. For maintenance, just shutting down one turbine instead of a 1 Gw nuke plants is a big advantage. That is one of the reason for small modular reactors development ie: a nuclear farm similar to wind.
Why are you getting upset?
Perhaps you are interested in this IEEE article then,
“Economics killed small nuclear power plants in the past—and probably will keep doing so”
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/nuclear/the-forgotten-history-of-small-nuclear-reactors
You are grasping at straws. The reason the large nuclear manufacturers go big is economics. Making them small is not going to help.
Bob – your approach is basically “non believers get the heck out of here, these is not place for discussion”, and your attitude is often “this is my plice, I am the ruller here”. You are not making any favour to your agenda in this way. It’s second time I want to stop reading cleantechnica because of your unfriendlines.
Yes – Mark is cherry picking. Power is to be working all the time. Not statistically. When I’ll be in hospital I don’t want to hear – sorry, no wind. And it would be very inconvenient to adjust my worktime or bathing time to when wind blows.
Haveing doubts it’s a thing of the wise. And shouting “you are not welcome if you have doubts” is a thing of fanatics.
Read the site commenting rules. I’ll copy over the relevant portions for you …
“This site isn’t a place to discuss the future of nuclear energy. To date, nuclear is simply too expensive to compete in open markets. If there’s a clear demonstration of affordable nuclear sometime in the future, then we can open up the discussion about the role nuclear can play in replacing fossil fuels.
In the meantime, there are several sites where they love to discuss nuclear ideas. Feel free to take your speculations to one or more of those sites. We’re going to stick with stuff that is affordable.”
“repeatedly posting illogical or demonstrably incorrect statements”
http://cleantechnica.com/cleantechnica-comment-policy/
I’m one of the people who do moderating. My task is to enforce the site rules. Climate change deniers spammers, jerks, habitual liars and trolls get booted.
—
If you think the lights go out when the wind stops blowing then you aren’t doing a very good job of reading this site.
If Clean Technica has banned discussion on nuclear power, why are posting articles on nuclear power? At least turn off the comment section.
Stop trolling.
Consider this your last warning.
How may comments have you made? Is that a ban?
How is this. Endlessly stating that the wind doesn’t blow somewhere, sometime, is a useless, non scientific way of discussing the subject.
How about we discuss how a team of scientists and engineers found that 80% renewables could power the grid by 2050 with only 10% storage? Now how did they do that?
http://cleantechnica.com/2015/04/13/80-renewables-by-2050-in-us-says-nrel/
Discussing wind not being available from a grid and wind energy system that doesn’t exist yet is a useless framework for determining what level of renewables could exist. The study from NREL is professional, detailed, and may be above the level of comprehension of some. But I am tired of citing it and having no one read it. Its hundreds of pages and four volumes.
Thats my approach. Churning the internet with opinions is useless. Use cited and sourced scientifically reviewed papers.
The whole wind wasn’t there this time discussion is a waste of time.
1) study shows 50% of variable energy sources. Hydro is renewable and biomass is as well, but they are dispatchable. So this study confirms need for dispatchable energy.
2) Being kind is usually better and more effective than accusing people on opposite side that they are too lazy to read.
3) There is no something like 10% storage of generation. We are producing power and storing energy. There can be something like 10 minutes of storage or 10 hours, but not 10%. This is super basic thing required to understand problems with energy markets.
Both is important. Storage and associated generation capacity.
There is 220TWh of storage in Europe but not the necessary capacity.
Sorry. I lose my patience after a few dozen times erroneous remarks are made without references or research. Its pointless to discuss renewable resources anecdotally as if the matters could be settled like a bar bet.
And I know I tick people off with my insistence on accuracy.
But I have a choice. Either let people get away with nonsense or call it to their attention. I got a little upset there.
Now back to your statements.
Here I go being picky.
2)
I never made this statement.
“accusing people on opposite side that they are too lazy to read. ”
I generally try to avoid that kind of language.
You don’t have to read hundreds of pages. The NREL documents have been studied by others and summarized. There are the executive summaries. And there are articles like this:
http://cleantechnica.com/2015/04/13/80-renewables-by-2050-in-us-says-nrel/
http://cleantechnica.com/2015/12/16/how-the-grid-works-why-renewables-can-dominate/
Thats still a lot of reading, but this is a serious subject and warrants it.
3) Take a look at the graphs. There is one for percentage storage by energy and one for installed power (capacity)
http://c1cleantechnicacom.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/files/2015/04/renewable-energy-growth-US.png
For some reason, commenters have swung full circle from noticing that storage power specs are insufficient, to demeaning storage power specs. Both are necessary and useful. Take your pick. The graph shows both.
1) You are noting that some renewables are dispatch able. Good. And we don’t need 100% solar or wind or some extreme like that. Thats one of the important conclusions from this paper. But it was written in 2010 when it was believed solar would not have the impact it does today and wind has made strides. That would tend to increase the wind and solar percentages.
In general, if it was possible to do it in the US with 2010 technology perspectives, its even more possible to do it today.
Finally, I will say this. Its makes no sense to point at wind outputs from existing wind farms and renewables infrastructure that are not fully developed for matching load, but instead are developed for fuel savings and declare it doesn’t work. Its a straw man.
So you are comparing a largely unbuilt renewable wind energy with what? And only wind not solar or hydro? Cmon Mark.
When and if there ever is a highly developed system of renewables then you can use existing data. Since its not here yet, its ingenuous circular reasoning to say it can’t be done.
Here is another graphic from the same source, a weather map:
Not at all. There are offers to build PV with battery storage in the UK that is capable of delivering the exact same baseload (as if anyone still needed that) that Hinkley C would, but cheaper and obviously without the risk of blowing up or the radioactive waste. And PV with battery obviously would offer a greater flexibility and it wouldn’t have any fuel costs or supply problems. Who on earth with even half a brain would choose nuclear then if it offers less and costs more? The UK government obviously, but the reason can’t be electricity, it must be some obscure military connection. To build Hinkley C just for electricity makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
And there are plans to connect to Norwegian hydro for storage and power.
The UK simply needs more interconnections to NordPool.
That would be the fastest and cheapest solution.
The UK is already importing power from Europe around the clock.
What does that mean? Are you claiming that the capacity factor for UK wind is only 5%? (0.69 / 13.5 * 100)
Wind CF in 2014 was 32.3%.
Double down on land wind and tell the nimby folk to sod off.
If EDF goes ahead with Hinkley, it will be against the will of the unions, non-state shareholders (myself included) and apparently also its own engineers and managers.
This kind of madness is the best argument against state ownership of companies. The French and British government want Hinkley and poor old EDF is being forced to go along.
The resignation of EDF’s CFO, Thomas Piquemal, in protest against the financial risks to the company, suggests that the heavily networked French technocratic elite is also divided. Hollande’s political position is very weak. He hasn’t even stopped ex-partner Royal’s crackpot solar roads scheme. Caught between Cameron, French unions, China, and factions in the technocracy, it could go either way. Not sure if Le Pen has an opinion.
Claims of a power crisis if it isn’t built are also highly suspect. With all the delays, easier to deploy solutions will save the day. Hopefully with as little fossil fuels as possible. And that’s even if by some miracle Hinkley Point C isn’t cancelled along the way.
It is actually an argument for having taxpayer-funded election campaigns.
The politicians have been captured by the bankers.
You mean as they have in France, pretty much the world’s most nuclear friendly country (and the one that does most banker bashing, at least in public?).
And the world’s most competent nuclear program – which then falls apart when it gets entangled with Britain’s corrupt energy politics. Maybe getting the bankers out of politics has let French nuclear engineers do their jobs properly, but that does us no good in the rest of the world.
Yes, the Flamanville EPR is a huge succes.
🙂
Yes, 80% success after 6 years delay – as reported on fools day:
http://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/basse-normandie/manche/nord-cotentin/cherbourg-en-cotentin/flamanville-l-epr-acheve-80-965979.html
Communication positive ……
A better suggestion, hire the Chinese as the primary contractor.
A major issue with the Olilkuoto plant, a Finnish subcontractor failed to use the proper concrete which would set properly in the low temperatures of Finland.
The first reactor vessel was forged by Japan Steel, that one was fine.
There are concerns with the vessels for Flammanville and Taishan reactors, these were forged in France.
The French Unions which oppose Hinkley should use caution, there are numerous proposal for the AP1000 which is in the final approval stage in the UK.
The AP1000 has its fair share of problems as well. The two flagship projects, Vogtle and Summer in the US, have been delayed ad nauseam. Even the Chinese AP1000 is delayed, though not as badly.
Of all large current nuclear projects, only the Barrakah Plant in the UAE is on schedule and on budget. It’s being built by the Korean utility KEPCO, whose APR1400 design hasn’t even started the generic desing assesment and thus cannot be built before 2030, never mind 2025.
If the UK wants nuclear, it should go ahead. But the argument that it is needed to quit coal on time is nonsensical. Only gas and renewable plants can be built quickly enough to replace coal generators, nuclear projects take about 10 years to build and the planning and financing takes at least as long.
To meet the 2025 goal, why are you using the AP1400 as reference? I am unaware of proposed AP1400 for the UK.
Using a realistic build time of 8 years would mean they come online in the 2025 time frame.
But it doesn’t matter, worse case the nukes can displace natural gas which is currently 45% of UK’s electric.
I use the Korean APR1400 (not the same as the AP1400!) as an example, because it is the only major Gen III reactor design that has been built without massive delays. Perhaps the Chinese Hualong One could join that tragically short list too at some point, but the safety of that design is still far from certain (only the Chinese regulator has verified the design).
No other Gen III design has so far been built within its planned budget and schedule (and the APR1400 could still encounter some late stage delays).
My apologies concerning APR1400.
One issue with the massive delays may be too optimistic with the initial schedules. An AP1000 may require 8 years to build.
Looking at the big picture ie: with low emission generation for 60 years, an initial delay is not a big deal except financing issue.
If you reserve margins are already tight and you want to (sensibly) quit coal soon-ish, you can’t afford delays. No nuclear new build project can realistically be finished by 2025 even if construction starts today.
Nuclear power plants are madness both economically, environmentally and politically:
Let’s say it only takes 10 years to build; for building to start they must be promised a (high) price per megawatt once it is finally finished. But: during those 10 years the price of f.ex. solar cells will drop dramatically, as they already have during the last few years. And that’s even happened without any tech breakthrough, just mass production and stepwise improvement. In 10 years I’m certain we will have totally different panels, not based on the current silicon stuff. So: madness to bind the whole society to high power prices decades into a cheaper future.
Environmentally: this is the enormous elephant in the room you are not addressing. There is still no solution on what to do with the high radioactivity waste. Most is still only in temporary storage, and the EU has pressed memeberstates to find final storage. The stuff will be dangerous 10-100 000 years into the future. Who shall guard it that long, and who shall pay for that?
Politically: nuclear reactors require imported uranium, which can be difficult to get depending on world political situation. Also centralized power plants are a good target for terrorists, especially when hitting them would poison huge areas with deadly radioactivity. What if the 9-11 planes had crashed into a nuclear power station, instead of only an office building…?
The 60years are a huge problem. Nuclear plants are uneconomical now. It is totally clear that they won’t compete another 60years.
It’s short-sighted and unresponsible to built stranded assets now.
Start more planes that we don’t have landing strips for.
You can’t say nuclear without saying unresolved waste problem and extreme risk technology.
“The 60years are a huge problem.”
Unfortunately I cannot predict the future.
A bizarre argument, increasing the life of a system tends to decrease cost. For a nuclear plant last 30 years, there are no payments on capital cost.
Still old nuclear plants get prohibitively expensive. Especially with high penetration, low CFs and increasing competition from cheaper RE. There are old struggling reactors all over the place in the US, France and Switzerland.
I don’t understand the logic behind your thinking. You want to built something that is expensive for 30years, will keep expensive until it’s end of life and leave unmanageable highly toxical waste behind for someone after you to deal with? Why?
Cooper proved it. He predicted the ones that are shutting down now. Fitzpatrick. etc.
https://will.illinois.edu/nfs/RenaissanceinReverse7.18.2013.pdf
No nuclear power plant in existence has ever had a 60 year life. Many have been retired much earlier than that. They wear out and cost more to maintain. Even if they could last that long, they become uneconomical long before that.
The ones Cooper predicted to shut down are slowly ceasing to operate.
https://will.illinois.edu/nfs/RenaissanceinReverse7.18.2013.pdf
Low emissions of CO2? not for the construction of the power plant, nor the mining, processing and transport of the uranium.
And then, a big “emission” of radioactive waste to keep safe for centuries.and paid by the future generations.
Now don’t be as dishonest as Mark is. The IPCC, the global authority on climate change, finds that nuclear power has the same life cycle carbon emissions as wind, solar or biomass and is only soundly beaten by hydropower.
There are many reasons to be against nuclear, but the carbon point is valid. That’s why I am personally in favor of extending the life of existing plants, though strongly opposed to building new ones (on cost grounds, mostly).
http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report/IPCC_SRREN_Annex_II.pdf
Fair enough, I stand corrected on the UK strike price. I was unaware of a change in policy last fall.
Now I could give a rats ass about
heinbloed
but he does make a fair point, strike prices do not represent accurate cost.
@Larmion,
I’m not pulling my comment out of my hat. It’s based on “Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security” by Mark. Z. Jacobson. professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University and director of its Atmosphere and Energy Program.
In that paper, table 3 mentions the CO2 emissions over the entire lifecycle of different power sources in (gCO2ekWh-1).
Solar PV: 19 – 59
Wind: 2.8 – 7.4
Nuclear: 68 – 180.1
I guess it is the “entire lifecycle” that makes the difference.
As for supporting nuclear, despite being strongly opposed to any new plant or permit extension beyond the initially agreed lifetime, I somehow agree with you that it is stupid to dismantle nuclear IF it can’t be immediately replaced with some cleaner source. Otherwise, the sooner it’s gone the less intractable waste we have in hands.
You are relying on a single source, using a single modelling methodology. That is pretty much as close as pulling something out of your hat as you can get.
The IPCC bases its figures on a meta-analysis, that is to say a weighted average of all relevant, methodologically sound peer reviewed studies on a given topic.
That said, even if you work with the figures in your study, the overall conclusion does not change: nuclear power plants should not be closed as long as they will be replaced even in part by fossil fuels (NG is around 600, coal over 1200).
The paper is not single source with a single methodology.
In Chapter 4a.VII, it reads “We estimate the lifecycle
emissions of new nuclear power plants … from a review of 103 new and old lifecycle studies of nuclear energy.”
Sovacool did a meta analysis also. The evidence that nuclear is higher emissions than the early pro nuclear studies admitted is mounting.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/05/why-nuclear-power-is-not-low-carbon/
Here’s the NREL lifetime carbon footprint graph for the meta-analysis that they published.
I wish Jacobson had not brought the issue of a nuclear conflict into the discussion. While I agree with him that it is a possibility I wish he had left that out of his analysis. It’s too easily used by his critics to dismiss everything else he says.
It’s the ‘uncrossed t’ attack. Find one flaw, even tiny, and use that as an excuse to toss out the entire paper.
Better, IMHO, if he had put it in as an aside.
—
North Korea just fired another missile into the ocean yesterday. Kim Il Unhinged might have a gigantic tantrum one of these days and decide to go out in a blaze of glory….
So whats wrong with Sovacool. Its multiple source because its a meta analysis.
Or this.
“Remarkably, half of the most rigorous published analyses have a carbon footprint for nuclear power above the limit recommended by the UK government’s official climate change advisor, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC).”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/05/why-nuclear-power-is-not-low-carbon/
I fail to find nuclear industry promoted studies of LCA convincing. They often ignore parts of the life cycle. And nobody can predict what it will take to store the waste. That alone makes the subject tenuous for nuclear.
Jacobson assume there will be a nuclear war caused by nuclear plants, from his 2009 report:
“4d. Effects of nuclear energy on nuclear war and terrorism damage
Because the production of nuclear weapons material is occurring
only in countries that have developed civilian nuclear energy programs, the risk of a limited nuclear exchange between countries or the detonation of a nuclear device by terrorists has increased due to the dissemination of nuclear energy facilities worldwide. As such, it is a valid exercise to estimate the potential number of immediate deaths and carbon emissions due to the burning of buildings and infrastructure associated with the proliferation of nuclear energy facilities and the resulting proliferation of nuclear weapons. The number of deaths and carbon emissions, though, must be multiplied by a probability range of an exchange or explosion occurring to estimate the overall risk of nuclear energy proliferation. Although concern at the time of an explosion will be the deaths and not carbon emissions, policy makers today must weigh all the potential future risks of mortality and carbon emissions when comparing energy sources.”
That number is disputed by some sources.
http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0810/full/climate.2008.99.html
Thats if you assume uranium is mined at the same level of concentration as it is today. The carbon goes up as uranium concentrations go down.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/05/why-nuclear-power-is-not-low-carbon/
“It is our contention that those who tout nuclear power as a carbon-free solution to global warming are missing the forest and the trees. First, the forest: nuclear power plants continuously emit low levels of cancer-causing strontium-90 radiation during “normal” operations, and higher levels when there are serious problems such as the continuing leakage of radioactive water from the tsunami-damaged reactors at Fukushima, or the radiation leak that lead to the instantaneous closure of the San Onofre nuclear reactor in Southern California in January 2012[8].”
“Next, the trees: nuclear power plants are not “carbon free.” They do not emit carbon or other greenhouse gases as they split atoms during the fission process, but their carbon footprint must be assessed on the basis of their complete nuclear fuel life cycle. Significant amounts of fossil fuel are used indirectly in mining, milling, uranium fuel enrichment, plant and waste storage construction, decommissioning, and ultimately transportation and millennia-long storage of waste. There is plenty of carbon in that footprint that is rarely acknowledged, computed, or mediated. In addition, the nuclear industry’s false refrain that nuclear power plants have no carbon footprint is an attempt to obscure the fact that nuclear power plants’ radiation footprint is far more lethal than the carbon footprint of any other industry. Additionally, the industry’s rhetoric masks the astronomical costs for thousands of years of storage that could be better invested in rapidly developing renewable fuels with a zero carbon footprint like solar, wind, geothermal, and Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, which don’t carry harmful, let alone lethal, side effects.”
https://worldbusiness.org/nuclear-power-totally-unqualified-to-combat-climate-change/
Something to contemplate, China isn’t a very transparent country. We know very little about the quality of the reactors China has built.
The quality might be excellent, but they could also be some “Rancho Seco” reactors in their fleet. Perhaps a .Chinese contractor failed to use the proper concrete or used some critical parts which had faked safety certificates.
The quality of BYD cars is frequently criticised as are many Chinese manufactured goods. If they can’t get produce cars with consistent body panel alignment how do we know that they’ve tightened down all the bolts correctly in their reactors?
Could be that the idol has clay feet….
IMHO, the next Chernobyl will be in China.
Got to include South Korea. They’ve had the faked safety certificates issue.
China, North Korea, South Korea, India, … So many candidates.
And it will be because of an earthquake.
https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/5808-Chinese-nuclear-di
“China is heading for a nuclear accident if it continues with current construction plans, says former state nuclear physicist and prominent critic He Zuoxiu”
9 out of 17 board members are against the HP project as it is now and want a delay of 2-3 years before deciding(1) on the project.
http://www.lejdd.fr/Economie/Entreprises/Des-administrateurs-d-EDF-veulent-reporter-les-EPR-en-Grande-Bretagne-778423
machine translation:
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lejdd.fr%2FEconomie%2FEntreprises%2FDes-administrateurs-d-EDF-veulent-reporter-les-EPR-en-Grande-Bretagne-778423
The boss suspects “anonymous carps and rabbits” undermining his darling:)
No joke:
http://www.lesechos.fr/industrie-services/energie-environnement/021806440468-epr-anglais-edf-tente-de-mettre-fin-a-la-polemique-1210497.php
machine translation:
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lesechos.fr%2Findustrie-services%2Fenergie-environnement%2F021806440468-epr-anglais-edf-tente-de-mettre-fin-a-la-polemique-1210497.php&edit-text=
EdF is now looking for a new information officer (whatsdad?) :
http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/2452913/edf-energy-is-looking-for-a-new-cio
The previous ones fecked it always up:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/nov/10/edf-spying-greenpeace
Nuclear energy may be expensive but so are renewables with storage. And without storage you still need a base load, at least nuclear plants dont emmit CO2
Yes but renewables are scalable, you don’t need to put all the money upfront.
It’s just complexity at work. What couldn’t do Greenpeace, will do Zymurgy’s First Law.
I bet you would not want to wait for upscaling when you electricity just turns off when wind stops blowing. All these games are interesting as long as you can rely on some base load. Disconect from the grid and lets see what will happen.
Do you realize how often nuclear reactors go offline unexpectedly?
Here’s a little sample for a few months in the US. These are unplanned shutdowns starting in September, 2013. Routine refueling and maintenance shutdowns are not included.
9/03/13
An unusual event was declared Sept. 2 at the Palo Verde nuclear power plant in Arizona after workers found a fire in a main feed pump for Unit 2. A security officer first noticed smoke y the “A” train main feed pump. A worker found a fire on lagging behind the main standard pump. The fire was put out about 30 minutes later, but re-flashed twice during removal of the lagging.
9/06/13
The Unit 2 reactor at Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant in Maryland was shut down around 5 p.m. Thursday after a control rod dropped into the reactor core during electrical testing, according to a report from The Calvert Recorder.
10/25/13
A nuclear power plant in Oconee County had to shut down one of its three reactors after a problem in the water system that helps generate electricity, according to a release from the Associated Press.
11/07/13
Unit 1 at the Beaver Valley nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania remains offline after a small electrical wiring fire was detected.
12/01/13 and Second Offline
Hope Creek, a single unit boiling water reactor consisting of 1,210 MW in generating capacity, put their nuclear reactor back online after high moisture in the main turbine forced the reactor to be taken offline twice, according to a report on NewJersey.com. Hope Creek originally was taken offline Dec. 1 when high moisture in the steam tripped the main turbine, then taken offline again on Thursday for the same issue. (Back 12/10/13)
12/09/13
Arkansas Nuclear One Unit 2 is offline after a transformer fire was found.
According to Northwest Arkansas Online, a fault in the transformer led to the early morning fire. Entergy said through its Twitter account that the fire has been contained with no injuries or threats of safety.
12/11/13
An Unusual Event was declared at Arkansas’ Nuclear One power plant Tuesday after the transformer to Unit 2 experienced an electrical explosion in the switchyard, causing the unit to shut down. An Unusual Event is declared when an event indicates a potential degradation of the level of safety.
12/14/13
The plant was shut down Dec. 14 for the repairs. Workers with Exelon (NYSE: EXC) completed maintenance on a system that regulates pressure to the steam turbines along with other work. The work could not be completed while the plant was running. (12/20/13)
1/6/14
Unit 1 at the Beaver Valley nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania automatically tripped around 5 p.m. EST, according to an event report with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
Workers with FirstEnergy (NYSE: FE) said a main transformer differential trip caused the reactor to shut down. The transformer converts power generated from the plant to the appropriate voltage for distribution throughout the transmission system, according to Jennifer young, spokesperson with FirstEnergy. It is located on the generation side of the plant.
1/6/14
Unit 3 at the Indian Point n the plant deployed as designed and the unit was safely shut down. (Back on 1/8/14)
1/9/14
Pilgrim was already under additional NRC oversight due to the plant automatically shutting down October 2013 for a week due to the loss of a 345 kV power line that provided offsite power to the plant. It was the second time the plant shut down last year. That incident led to the plant having a “white” performance indicator last year.
1/10/14
A buildup of ice caused the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant to temporarily shut down just weeks after it restarted.
Workers with the Omaha Public Power District were making routine inspections at Unit 1 when they noticed a block of ice had formed on the shaft and the top of one of six sluice gates that control the flow of water into the plant on Jan. 8. The ice also bent the sluice gate operating shaft, which caused the gate to not close and made all four raw water pumps inoperable.
A nuclear power plant in New York automatically tripped due to “33 Steam Generator Steam flow/Feed flow Mismatch,” the NRC said. Plant operator Entergy (NYSE: ETR) said in a release that a controller device failed to regulate the flow of water into one of the plant’s four steam generators, which led to lowered water levels.
“Prompt power prices eased Monday morning despite a double unplanned outage on EDF Energy’s nuclear fleet over the weekend, as wind generation forecasts show surging output levels for Tuesday, market sources said.”
LOL. So much for nuclear reliability.
http://www.platts.com/latest-news/electric-power/london/uk-power-nuclear-outages-fail-to-boost-prompt-26255650
Nuclear requires storage. There’s a need to shift power from when it isn’t needed to when it is. The US built 21 GW of storage in order to time-shift nuclear output. Japan built 25 GW.
Nuclear plants do have low lifetime CO2 footprints, not as good as wind and solar, but acceptably low.
Bob, I admire your tenacity at fighting the nuclear trolls. Every time there is a topic about nuclear on CT, they’re attracted like bears by a honey pot.
If only they were reading CT regularly; there would be no need to educate them ad nauseam.
They are vested interests speaking for the nuclear industry.
They should be blocked from this website if they make false statements against renewable energy.
Unfortunately even Bill Gates makes false statements about renewable energy.
Would you ban James Hansen?
My position:
If we do not get CO2 emission under control, billions could die from climate change in the future. It is insane to leave the most effective tool off the table, nuclear power.
Renewables only is a high risk plan compared to renewables and nuclear, plain and simple.
We should not gamble the lives of future generations.
BS. Total BS. Renewables can overproduce by like 400% of what is needed. They can be distributed via HVDC. The extra energy can be used for dispatchable purposes like recharging BEVs, heating and cooling, purifying ground water polluted via fracking, etc.. Let’s not waste time on nuclear and get rid of it before the next big accident.
The most dangerous energy sources:
1) Nuclear
2) Natural Gas
3) Coal
We should remove them in that order.
Wow, you favor coal over natural gas?
Are you German?
Heh?!?
Both in terms of global warming and casualties per kWh produced, you have your figures the other way round.
I know there’s a lot of hype about NG producing more CO2 than coal, but that is a uniquely American story.
There are other metrics. See http://cleantechnica.com/2016/03/30/stanford-researchers-fracking-impact-drinking-water-sources/
Coal ash is one of the leading contaminants of ground and surface waters in the US.
There is not a single environmental metric where coal performs better than either NG or nuclear.
Only because it has been illegal for anybody including the EPA to investigate fracking.
James Hansen doesn’t know power, he’s a climatologist.
The “pro-nukers” (Mod Mark’s own term) we see on sites like this likely aren’t the pros. They’re the sincere raving conspiracy theory junkies created by the pros selling certain appealing ideologies. Which is increasingly what American politics looks like. They’ve already decided that their solution is the only way to save the world while other solutions are in fact being implemented outside of the Wall Street capitalist mind-control field. They jump from corporate-front sources to cherry-picking better sources, and completely ignore the fact that in the real world, solar and wind are on the march.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the decrepit smear that alternative energy is a racist attack on the poor who can’t afford alternatives. This was originally a coal smear, but now the nuke guys are inheriting it just as they are inheriting the rigid baseline fallacy. POOR COUNTRIES CAN’T GET LOANS. You can’t build nukes without loans. Which is probably why Big Finance and Big Energy love centralized energy so much that they’re willing to let the countries that can’t afford it rot without energy. The model must not be threatened.
The real poor of the world are having to improve their lives without “conventional” infrastructure. It started with cell phones instead of land line networks. Then it was governments refusing to enter Windows OS serfdom and rely on Linux instead. Now it’s becoming little solar panels on a shack in a megaslum. It’s awful, but it’s better than Wall Street’s scheme to get your country in hock forever with infrastructure loans and foreign penetration. 200 years ago, English bankers plied a modernizing Egyptian ruler with infrastructure loans, leading to his attempt to build the Suez Canal. Instead, he wasn’t able to keep up with payments, and the British moved in and took over the country and the canal. If he hadn’t been cheated, the entire history of the Middle East might have gone far better. NOTHING has changed in the model except the manufacture of neoliberal leaders to preserve the illusion of sovereignty – and the fact that Wall Street has replaced London as the chief rapist.
The poor are taking matters into their own hands. Nuclear plants don’t get finished. Mod Mark can do nothing about that.
I find it unlikely that the folks like Mark are being paid by the nuclear industry. That would be a stupid thing for them to do.
When people like Mark post their misleading and incorrect stuff they just open up the gates and get drowned under facts. Rather than convince readers that nuclear is a good idea, the trigger a downpouring of information that tells people why the idea stinks.
What the nuclear industry seems to be doing as its public outreach is to furnish information/opinion pieces for newspapers and websites that will publish their pieces without the opportunity for comments. I see one or two of these ‘no comments allowed’ pieces almost every day.
Mark is typical of someone who has adequate intelligence but lacks the ability to do critical thinking. People like that can latch onto an idea and defend it to the death, generally by waving away inconvenient facts and cherry-picking bits and pieces that allow them to build their fantasy constructs.
” POOR COUNTRIES CAN’T GET LOANS. You can’t build nukes without loans.”
The emerging model seems to be, direct government financing from Russia and China who will build and assist with operations.
“Jordan signs $10 billion nuclear power plant deal with Russia
Rosatom’s investment program, sourced from Russia’s state budget, allows it to spend about $300-$350 billion per year to build nuclear plants in Russia and abroad, a business that has been hit by global safety concerns after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. ”
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-jordan-nuclear-russia-idUSKBN0MK2QD20150324
“Argentina says signs nuclear plant construction deals with China
Between both deals we are talking about financing of close
to $15 billion” over 18 years, the Argentine statement said.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/argentina-china-energy-idUSL1N13A0GF20151115
Why does nuclear need government assistance? Why isn’t nuclear being financially endorsed by investment firms?
Nuclear didn’t just become economically non viable yesterday. This is an old story. Cost overruns, delays, its old.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2013/11/10/new-build-nuclear-is-dead-morningstar/#42bf7c177fe4
“The state has hugely ambitious targets for construction of new nuclear-power plants. By 2030, it wants 200 gigawatts of nuclear capacity up and running, and 400-500 gigawatts by 2050. In the shorter term, it is aiming for 58 gigawatts of operational capacity and a further 30 gigawatts under construction by 2020, head of the China Nuclear Energy Association (CNEA) Zhang Huazhu said in April this year.
Fulfilling this short-term objective would be a remarkable achievement. Notably, however, it is 12 gigawatts below the target recommended by the State Council Research Office (SCRO) in 2011 and a very significant reduction on the prediction of 130 gigawatts suggested by officials the year before that. This decline points to significant issues at home that are working to constrain the construction timetable – and has implications for the industry’s activities abroad.”
But China is already behind on its ambitious timetable.
https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/7305-China-and-Russia-may-struggle-to-deliver-nuclear-power-overseas
http://www.reuters.com/article/china-parliament-nuclear-idUSL4N0W903120150307
Bad timing concerning the ‘educate’ comment.
Storage should. be rated using watts-hour, not watts. Bob knows this, he just cut&pasting from his desktop
Why don’t you take that up with the Department of Energy Mark?
Look the red oval. See how the DOE uses kW and now kWh for storage?
Now why did you post that, you are baiting me?
See the duration next to the red oval?
Stating that a storage system can produce 40,000 Kw for 6 hours would be Kwh. You made a simple mistake, just correct it before you cut & paste it again. No big deal.
No, Mark, I am not baiting you. I’m simply pointing out that, once again, you are incorrect.
The column heading is kW. Not kWh.
If you look at this Wiki article on PuHS you will see them using MW and GW.
Yes Bob, the column is Kw with duration next to it. Why are you being so stubborn? Rating storage by wattage is useless. 25 Gw for 20 milliseconds is a large capacitor, 25Gw for 20 days is Lake Mead.
The Wiki article needs updating.
Really. So you are recommending they remove the storage power rating?
Storage has to be rated for both power and energy.
Thanks.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
I do get tired of playing whack-a-mole with these guys. They try to present themselves as open minded people who want to discuss the pros and cons but most of the degrad into nuclear fanboys/trolls. I have a hard time deciding when it’s to quit wasting time on them.
All generation methods can use storage for time-shifting, it is a great match with nukes while charging the batteries at night to meet baseload and peak demand.
But time-shifting and requiring storage because your generators are not working on a cloudy/calm day is completely different scenarios.
Nuclear requires storage for time-shifting power.
And nuclear needs backup generation in the event of an unscheduled shut down. In fact, nuclear needs spinning back which wind and solar do not require.
Nuclear reactors can and do go offline and remain off for weeks, months and even years.
No one argues the point that grid needs reserve capacity. The issue is the magnitude of variability with renewables. From Agora Energiewende web site, wind can vary from 25.6 Gw to 1.5 Gw two days later.
That is the equivalent of 24 AP1000 shutting down on the same day. If solar is having a bad day, add another 10 AP1000.
Here is a full year of wind, solar, biomass, hydro and PuHS from the site you used.
A mixture of overbuilding, storage and load-shifting can fit that input to demand.
That really low spot in October? Charge EVs only enough to bring them up to their daily minimum. Fire up some converted coal plants and burn some waste wood pellets or use landfill methane to run turbines.
“n fact, nuclear needs spinning back which wind and solar do not require.”
Do you mean spinning reserve? If so then your statement is caribou crap.
Solar/wind cannot ramp up to meet demand when needed and it’s output can fluctuate constantly. Are you giving out free passes for solar/wind?
Note: I thought GE installing batteries in their wind turbines was an excellent idea.
Yes, I meant spinning reserve.
Do you really not realize that nuclear plants go offline without warning and that grids must keep themselves prepared to abruptly lose large amounts of generation?
Solar and wind do not need spinning reserve because they are highly predictable. With prolonged periods of solar or wind input reserves can be shut down and then brought back up as solar/wind fades.
That’s just how it works, Mark. It may not be to your liking but it what happens in the real world.
Let me show you how frequently reactors go offline without prior notice.
These are unplanned shutdowns starting in September, 2013. Routine refueling and maintenance shutdowns are not included.
9/03/13
An unusual event was declared Sept. 2 at the Palo Verde nuclear power plant in Arizona after workers found a fire in a main feed pump for Unit 2. A security officer first noticed smoke y the “A” train main feed pump. A worker found a fire on lagging behind the main standard pump. The fire was put out about 30 minutes later, but re-flashed twice during removal of the lagging.
9/06/13
The Unit 2 reactor at Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant in Maryland was shut down around 5 p.m. Thursday after a control rod dropped into the reactor core during electrical testing, according to a report from The Calvert Recorder.
10/25/13
A nuclear power plant in Oconee County had to shut down one of its three reactors after a problem in the water system that helps generate electricity, according to a release from the Associated Press.
11/07/13
Unit 1 at the Beaver Valley nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania remains offline after a small electrical wiring fire was detected.
12/01/13 and Second Offline
Hope Creek, a single unit boiling water reactor consisting of 1,210 MW in generating capacity, put their nuclear reactor back online after high moisture in the main turbine forced the reactor to be taken offline twice, according to a report on NewJersey.com. Hope Creek originally was taken offline Dec. 1 when high moisture in the steam tripped the main turbine, then taken offline again on Thursday for the same issue. (Back 12/10/13)
12/09/13
Arkansas Nuclear One Unit 2 is offline after a transformer fire was found.
According to Northwest Arkansas Online, a fault in the transformer led to the early morning fire. Entergy said through its Twitter account that the fire has been contained with no injuries or threats of safety.
12/11/13
An Unusual Event was declared at Arkansas’ Nuclear One power plant Tuesday after the transformer to Unit 2 experienced an electrical explosion in the switchyard, causing the unit to shut down. An Unusual Event is declared when an event indicates a potential degradation of the level of safety.
12/14/13
The plant was shut down Dec. 14 for the repairs. Workers with Exelon (NYSE: EXC) completed maintenance on a system that regulates pressure to the steam turbines along with other work. The work could not be completed while the plant was running. (12/20/13)
1/6/14
Unit 1 at the Beaver Valley nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania automatically tripped around 5 p.m. EST, according to an event report with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
Workers with FirstEnergy (NYSE: FE) said a main transformer differential trip caused the reactor to shut down. The transformer converts power generated from the plant to the appropriate voltage for distribution throughout the transmission system, according to Jennifer young, spokesperson with FirstEnergy. It is located on the generation side of the plant.
1/6/14
Unit 3 at the Indian Point n the plant deployed as designed and the unit was safely shut down. (Back on 1/8/14)
1/9/14
Pilgrim was already under additional NRC oversight due to the plant automatically shutting down October 2013 for a week due to the loss of a 345 kV power line that provided offsite power to the plant. It was the second time the plant shut down last year. That incident led to the plant having a “white” performance indicator last year.
1/10/14
A buildup of ice caused the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant to temporarily shut down just weeks after it restarted.
Workers with the Omaha Public Power District were making routine inspections at Unit 1 when they noticed a block of ice had formed on the shaft and the top of one of six sluice gates that control the flow of water into the plant on Jan. 8. The ice also bent the sluice gate operating shaft, which caused the gate to not close and made all four raw water pumps inoperable.
A nuclear power plant in New York automatically tripped due to “33 Steam Generator Steam flow/Feed flow Mismatch,” the NRC said. Plant operator Entergy (NYSE: ETR) said in a release that a controller device failed to regulate the flow of water into one of the plant’s four steam generators, which led to lowered water levels.
Bob, I already agreed with you that all grids needs spinning reserve capacity in case of emergency shutdowns, you are wasting your time trying to convince me. I repeat, I agree.
Spinning reserve is also needed to meet minute by minute fluctuation in demand AND supply which includes solar/wind. That is why GE put batteries in it’s turbines (Smart move!), to stabilized output.
The ability to predict solar/wind output would be the equivalent of scheduled shutdowns of conventional generation, backup generation is required. But a difference here, you don’t shut down 25 nuclear plants on the same day, they are scheduled.
It is the magnitude of solar/wind daily variability which makes this a high risk path.
Batteries are not spinning reserve.
Spinning reserve uses fuel (or wastes water from a hydro plant).
A renewable energy supplied grid will engineer around daily/seasonal variability. Just as grids are now designed to deal with inflexible thermal plants and variable demand as well as the unexpected loss of a major input.
“Batteries are not spinning reserve.
Spinning reserve uses fuel (or wastes water from a hydro plant).”
I get it, let make up our own definitions to support renewables.
This is a classic example on why there is so much distrust with anti-nukers.
The spinning reserve is the extra generating capacity that is available by increasing the power output of generators that are already connected to the power system. For most generators, this increase in power output is achieved by increasing the torque applied to the turbine’s rotor.[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_reserve
I suspect you’re about done here, Mark. Perhaps you’d be more successful peddling your junk elsewhere.
Yep, I am done. How can I compete with a Wiki link…
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy16osti/64764.pdf
http://www.irena.org/DocumentDownloads/Publications/IRENA_Battery_Storage_case_studies_2015.pdf
You certainly seem to be done. Past your stale date.
I did a quick word search using “spinning” on both of your links. The NREL doc uses the word twice without defining it and makes no mention of batteries in relation to spinning reserve.
Your second uses the term one time. “One conventional option for KEA was to bring additional diesel generation on stream as spinning reserve. ”
I suppose this was your Hail Mary?
The Wiki quote I gave you, did you bother to take a look? The [3} quote comes from a CASIO paper.
http://www.caiso.com/docs/2003/09/08/2003090815135425649.pdf
Now, if you’d like some other support for the idea that batteries are not spinning reserve you could just Google “batteries and spinning reserve” and read a few of the articles about how batteries replace spinning reserve.
By definition batteries are not “spinning” reserve. They are highly dispatchable though.
Only mechanical storage can spin.
The criticism is that you need a backup system that wastes fuel in the background only to be kept highly dispatchable in case it needs to step in rapidly.
By that definition even flywheel storage is no spinning reserve but rather highly dispatchable storage as it isn’t wasting fuel or much energy to be kept in a hot state.
Maybe confusing but rather logical when you come to think of it.
Jenny,
Power engineers could care less if a power source is ‘spinning’, their task is to solve a problem: how to quickly bring power online to meet load (or demand). On the grid, spinning reserve is an integrated system of power sources.
When a nuke does an emergency shut down, batteries can react quickly and supply power while gas turbines start ramping up. This save fuel ie: the spinning part.
Another example, the problem in big cities when offices come online in the morning. Instead of wasting fuel by creating spinning reserve with gas turbines, a Northeast utility built a massive capacitor bank which handles the huge load spikes while dispatchable power ramps up.
In France, they can create spinning reserve by running the nukes ~10-20% above demand (load following) , fuel is cheap for nukes. Note: using 100% nuclear is an inefficient use of resources.
Anyways, saying spinning reserve has to spin is silly, comments like this will get you banned on technical web sites like the old Energy Collective.
Technically you call batteries highly dispatchable storage/generation assets. They replace spinning reserve.
Spinning reserve isn’t as usefull as storage either.
There is no equivalent word for spinning reserve in German anyways.
Getting banned for something that is highly debatable is childish.
After all batteries are not spinning
The EC isn’t relevant either…guess it is if you like to read opinion pieces by political think-tanks.
One key issue I overlooked , frequency synchronization. A diesel generator using 1960’s technology could take 15 minutes to synchronize with the grid. DC-AC controllers (or converter/inverters) synchronize by design in real time.
For a pro-renewable comment. Smart grid technology, the ability to communicate with a controller, will allow EV and/or home batteries to serve as “highly dispatchable” or spinning reserve. This may have prevented the great American blackout in the 1990s which was stated by a HV transmission line failure.
But it was a childish debate, I know better. I did learn something by being wrong, Germany is moving away from fixed feed-in tariff rates to competitive bidding. That is a major issue with Hinkley, no competitive bidding.
Anyways, have a nice evening.
Batteries improve resilience. They also improve blackstart capabilities in grids with much thermal generation. PV and wind also improves blackstart capabilities.
Might be of interest for parts if the US.
It will be interesting to see how much large grid storage batterie banks can influence grid/frequenzy breathing once substancial capacity comes online.
Nuclear requires much more fast reserves than wind. And wind can supply “synthetic” spinning reserves. Sources like batteries need be only a fraction of the capacity of spinning reserves to supply fast response to frequency changes for example.
“Batteries in wind turbines are a method to reduce the need for spinning reserve.”
I agree, you are correct.
Pass that on to Bob who claims that spinning reserve is not required for wind turbine.
Read IEEE Power and Energy Nov Dec issue dedicated to renewables integration. The main article is about how wind and solar can be used to supply “synthetic” spinning reserve. In fact, grid services to support grid stability are far better and cheaper from fast sources like inverters and the current crop of converter based wind turbines.
Large masses of wind turbines do not need much battery or spinning reserve, they smooth output very well. The variation is slow. Unplanned outages of a multiple wind farms is practically nonexistent, so fast reserves are minimal.
It may seem like large amounts of storage are necessary but even as far back as 2010, NREL Futures Study showed that only about 10% storage was considered necessary to integrate 80% renewables. NREL did not anticipate the rapid inroads PV solar made,either.
http://cleantechnica.com/2015/04/13/80-renewables-by-2050-in-us-says-nrel/
Other researchers even suggest skip the storage, just use overcapacity, but storage has advanced so fast, that might not even be necessary by 2050.
You can add some open NG turbines that deliver in worst case 100% of power for a few hours per year, this is still cheaper than nuclear reactors, please get at least the basic economic fact straight. At the moment you are BSing.
Do you really want to claim that nuclear doesn’t require spinning reserve? If so, you are claiming there are no unplanned outages which is demonstrably false.
“PJM, the grid operator covering parts of Illinois and stretching east, has 3,350 MW of fast-acting reserves to guard against outages in baseload power plants. ”
http://midwestenergynews.com/2015/02/13/blowing-away-myths-study-says-wind-energy-could-be-even-more-reliable-than-baseload-power/
Wind needs only a fraction of that in fast acting reserves by comparison. Fast acting reserves are the most expensive.
“Baseload” is an outdated term. It’s a description of plants such as coal and nuclear which are difficult to turn off and back on and which are not good at load-following.
The issue is really delivering electricity to match demand. That can be done with a mix of renewables + storage + dispatchable generation as well as with a mix of nuclear + storage + dispatchable generation.
And for less money.
I like “inflexible” as the the term to frame coal and nuclear in the modern context where there is “fluctuating” but “predictable” renewables being preferred by merit order.
Flexibility only becomes an issue when nuclear reaches ~50% of total generation, just let them run at max capacity. Wind/solar are far superior concerning variable output, let them be ‘flexible’.,
I would be ecstatic if nuclear just replace coal in many countries. Pro-nukers are not greedy, we can share.
Nuclear’s inflexibility becomes a problem once output exceeds annual minimum demand which can easily be well under 50% of total generation.
In fact, if by total generation you mean total operational capacity the number is far below 50%.
Pro-nukers have a loose connection to facts.
Yes. The annual peak to minimum ratio is probably at least 3:1 if not more like 4:1. Day night is at least 1.5:1 alone. Seasonal may be 2:1, with some days in Spring with very light demand.
So its doubtful base load could ever exceed 33%. Operating it above that percentage in the mix means operating it at less that full capacity part of the time, making it an even more dubious economic proposition.
I could really use some examples of 3:1 or 4:1 ranges. I found a 2:1 day/night example but nothing concrete about seasonal range. I found a statement that the range is 3:1 in Ireland but no numbers.
Operating nuclear above demand means storage is needed (cost). And reducing output (load-following) increases the price of electricity produced.
http://www.renewablesinternational.net/files/smthumbnaildata/lightboxdetail/5/6/5/8/6/0/Easter1.png
“Over the Easter weekend, power demand in Germany fell from a normal workday peak of around 60 GW down to around 45 GW during the day – but closer to 30 GW at night. With wind power production exceeding 20 gigawatts and solar also kicking in at above 10 gigawatts on Easter Sunday, conventional power generation was pushed dangerously low for a full 15 hours last Sunday.”
http://www.renewablesinternational.net/easter-weekend-knocked-out-german-conventional-power/150/537/94688/
Run this load curve for the year. It leaves a grayed out area. The minimum demand is about 8 or 9 GW. The max is 27GW. Thats proof enough of 3:1.
In CT article.
http://cleantechnica.com/2015/12/16/how-the-grid-works-why-renewables-can-dominate/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQpsQx_r1as
Onshore wind is chaeper, even with backup. Why NPPs?
Your argument is like selling masturbation as the real thing.
BTW you should check how France (58 GW nuclaer capacity) covers her 103 GW peak demand in winter. 🙂
“Onshore wind is chaeper, even with backup.”
That is a brilliant analysis, you don’t even specify what type of backup but with magic, you know the cost!
France is a double edge sword, electric heating in the winter reduces NG and fuel oil use but does produce a huge spike during record cold snaps (the 103 Gw peak day).
Replace the nukes with wind and France could be importing ~100 Gw instead of ~50Gw when a high pressure system is parked over the EU.
You could use wind plus open NG turbines with <1000 FLH, this still comes cheaper than NPPS, you can do the math yourself, it is not that complex.
You have to show that extreme cold days are correlated with no wind and sun. 🙂
Again, the point was that NPPs require a huge backup too, whether I add more in case of wind does not make a real diffrerenc as long as the FLH of the backup are low. With 400 EUR/k for NG turbine it does not really matter whether you have 30 GW more or less, especially in a European context. NPPs are economically dead.
Emergency diesel are also an option, and the increase of more cross border transmission line is the elephant in the room, when we are talking about higher share of REs.
“you can do the math yourself, it is not that complex.”
No, it is complex. France would have to build 40 Gw of natural gas capacity which is operate at far below it’s capacity.
You still miss the point. Even 100% back-up at low FLH with open NG turbines adds only less than 0.01 EUR/kWh with 500 EUR/kWh, 5% interest rate and 20 years.
Therefore, as long as the costs of a kWh from wind turbine is around 0.06 EUR and from NPP around 0.10 EUR, there is no reason to build NPPs.
Operating cost of gas plants running at low FLH, overnight capital investment for the plants (? $40 billion for just the turbines) and minimum amount of electric sold is missing from your calculation.
You could be right but you are missing alot of numbers to make your case. It is a complex financial analysis. You need to include rate of return and capital depreciation.
You have to pay 8% of the costs per year to cover 5% interest and repayment in 20 years. That is claer and was used.
You have already many gas power plants which can be supplemented with more turbines, the impact on running costs in minimal.
The overall effect you could calculate is that this backup is indeed realtively cheap and, again, 50% is need in a nuclaer scenario too. 🙂
The cost of NG is as high as the payments for wind power, no added costs here, sorry.
It is obvious that this backup (there are cheaper alternatives) increase the price of electricity by less than 0.01 EUR/kwh. It is an unelegant worst case for me.
Or: As long as NPPs generate electricity that is more han 0.01 EUR/kWh moer expensive than onshore wind they are not competitive.
Why don’t you read about how renewables can be integrated up to 80% and beyond first, then comment. If you don’t read the scientific papers, you come off as uninformed.
And yes the economics have been done, too. The update to NRELs Futures Study concluded that renewables could be 80% by 2050 at business as usual costs .
I won’t provide the reference because you have not shown that you have read the previous reference to NRELs Futures study yet.
Given the price trends of renewables and storage, any delay is a death bell for Hinkley.
Also with delays, even if the current politicians won’t cancel it, the next lot probably will.
My God. Even when the reactor contractor itself says that the project is a bad idea and needs to be delayed, the pro-nuke trolls swarm in and try to drown out that news.
It looks like the cult the nuclear industry cultivated has gone rogue. Dr. Frankenstein is on the run.
Even assuming there were no issues with the design, or safety, or cost; which of there are. Why would you want one plant to provide 7% of your countries power. It will have planned and unplanned times when it does not produce power. Which means you need that much extra reserve to support it.