New Report Claims India’s 12 New Nuclear Reactors Are Economically Unviable
A new report published by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis has concluded that India’s plans to build 12 new nuclear reactors is economically unviable.
According to the new report (PDF), published this week by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), India’s current plans to build 12 new nuclear-powered plants is not only economically unviable, but fraught with risk, as the plants are intended to be a “first-of-its-kind” design that is untested. As such, the development of the nuclear power plants would likely result in numerous delays and technical problems.
David Schlissel, IEEFA’s director of resource planning analysis, concludes that the proposed nuclear plants, designed by Toshiba-Westinghouse and General Electric-Hitachi, and planned for the Mithi Virdi and Kovvada complexes, “are neither economically nor financially viable.” The plans intend for the 12 plants to be built across two separate sites in India. Six would be sited at Mithi Virdi in Gujarat, and would use the new Westinghouse AP1000 reactor design — which Schlissel notes has already “run into technical problems and significant cost increases and schedule delays” in other locations where the design is already under construction. The other six new plants, intended to be developed in Kovvada in Andhra Pradesh, would use GE’s Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) design, and would be the first country in the world to develop this particular design.
“They would take much longer than expected to build, they would result in higher bills for ratepayers, and, if they are built, they might not work as advertised,” Schlissel said.
The report also noted that the development of the new nuclear power plants would come at the expense of solar, leading the author to conclude that India would do well to instead direct that money and effort into developing solar resources. “Investing in new solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity would be a much lower-cost, significantly less environmentally harmful and far more sustainable alternative to the Mithi Virdi and Kovvada projects,” Schlissel said.
Among the report’s specific findings:
- Capital costs of the 12 plants would far exceed those of comparable solar-energy projects and, barring long-term and probably unsustainable government subsidies, consumers will pay more for electricity from the plants than they would for solar energy
- The first new reactors in the expansions at Mithi Virdi and Kovvada will take 11 to 15 years to build, if approved, even assuming the projects manage to avoid likely delays. None of the new reactors at Mithi Virdi and Kovvada would generate any power for the electric grid until sometime between 2029 and 2032. The remaining units at each project are unlikely to be completed, if approved, until late in the 2030s
- Even without likely time-and-cost overruns, both projects would require massive investment over the next two decades, ranging from Rs. 6.3 lakh crores (US $95 billion) to 11.3 lakh crore rupees (US $170 billion). It is unlikely that the Indian government would be able to simultaneously support other electricity-sector expansions, including in renewable resources and energy-efficiency programs
- Both projects, if approved, would probably be slowed by lengthy land-acquisition delays, complicated liability issues, lags associated with new-technology difficulties and compliance with the country’s “Make in India” policy
“All of these can be expected to lead to substantial, and perhaps indefinite, delays and significant increases in capital costs, possibly even far beyond those we have assumed in our analyses,” Schlissel said.
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The two reactor design teams mentioned are now essentially Japanese. GE has essentially quit the sector, and there isn’t much left of Westinghouse. Areva’s new owners by shotgun wedding, EDF, wish they weren’t. Not a growth business.
But they had such a great marketing buzz. Renaissance. Apparently it only applies to solar and wind. There is a new word that applies to nuclear delays, cost over runs, and burgeoning decommissioning costs. Hangover.
The writing is on the wall for the nuclear industry.
🙂
It says “Stand here!”
and do nothing?
I suppose they could smoke a last cigarette.
When the fat lady sings – Independence Day
I think it says, “Please go stand by the stairs, so I can protect you.”
So will this be enough to end the project or will it go ahead even though it is idiotic?
India cannot afford idiocy. Idiocy is a luxury item, perhaps when their GDP catches up they will be able to afford at least lunacy.
What about the one proposed for Bangladesh. There is no way Bangladesh can afford it.
Lordy, Bangladesh, now there is a case. They should promise to pay about 100 years from now, since they will be underwater and it won’t matter.
IIRC, Russia is providing the financial backing and the construction.
That is (was?) the deal for reactors in Turkey.
After the way Putin has jerked Europe around with gas I’m having trouble figuring out why countries with good wind and solar resources would want to get involved with the Tzar.
One thing that generally gets overlooked is India will be a middle income country with a higher population by the time any of these new reactors could be producing power. And this greatly increases the cost of exclusion zones and compensation that can result from major nuclear disasters and so increases the cost of insurance that should be paid to cover the new reactors.
And China faces the problem that its reactors will spend most of their presumed lives operating in a developed country, with their decision to only build new reactors in less populated areas only a partial fix.
But I don’t expect either country to build too many new reactors. But I do think it is a mistake to build even one more. Even for reactors that are under construction it may not make financial sense to finish them.
Your expectations are wrong. Don’t know what India will do, but China for sure is to build quite a lot of new reactors. Unless there is some serious accident.
So my expectation that India will become a middle income country is wrong, or my expectation that China will become a developed country is wrong? Because those are the only expectations in my previous comment. I think your mind is writing expectations that reobservation can’t verify.
“But I don’t expect either country to build too many new reactors.” – if this is not expectation, there is no discussion.
Oh right, that’s an expectation too. Silly me.
China’s goal set a few years ago was to produce 6% of their electricity with nuclear by 2020. I’m not aware of any plans for past that date which have been announced.
One should contemplate what decisions might be made over the next few years as wind, solar, and storage prices continue to fall. The Chinese are pragmatic types, they might reconsider what nuclear is costing them. And they might appreciate how fast wind and solar can be installed. They are under pressure to clean up their air.
They wanted to have technical expertise in all areas of industry, including nuclear power. They have acquired it now and any status that coffers them in. Going forward be very surprising, short of a radical technological breakthrough the likes of which nuclear industry has never seen, if hey invest heavily. Fuel will become more expensive as the high grade ore runs out. Water is a big issue for China as the Himalayas dry out and nuclear uses lots of water c.f. solar and wind.
Earthquakes earthquakes earthquakes.
That’s my great fear with Chinese reactors. I don’t know how large the threat is for India. But India should have a better alignment of solar energy and population density than China. Both have to deal with typhoons.
Great!
Please do not build them. Or at least do not build them inland, using precious water.
A solar project can be designed and built in a year or less. There are no major security issues involved. It is better to stick to solar energy because in case of a meltdown it will be only a sunshine day.
I know, You know, common people know, planners know it but don’t act on it. Government are bullied by Nuclear corporations for orders.
Spend those billions instead on PV gigafactories so India can build their own clean future. Nuclear has never been on time by years on on budget by billions. Solar and wind are usually just the opposite.
India should just focus on cheaper wind and solar power. Offshore wind also could be an option, with their long coastline. The much higher cost, long lead times to build a reactor, and the storage of deadly radioactive waste for the next 100,000 years, make dangerous nuclear power, the worst option after dirty coal, they could try. The cost of wind and solar are plunging and can be built in only 18 to 24 months compared to 10 to 15 years for a nuclear power plant.
‘.. the plants are intended to be a “first-of-its-kind” design..’
There are four AP1000 reactors being built in China, and four in the USA. So hardly ‘ first ‘. China’s first two of the design should come on line in mid 2017 ( fuelling up at the end of this year ), with the next two about one year later.
They’re hardly radical departures from standard nuke either, just refinements of the light water reactors that have been used for sixty years, with hundreds of examples chugging away, making low carbon power in twenty countries, 24/7 – something solar and wind are not capable of.
These nuclear power plants will produce deadly radioactive nuclear waste, which must be stored for the next 100,000 years. Is the trade off for 24/7 power worth the environmental consequences to future generations? Storage can be used to provide baseload 24/7 power from solar and wind. As Germany and other countries have demonstrated, by scaling up wind and solar power, renewables can displace dirty fossil fuels without nuclear, dirty coal, or natural gas. After Chernble, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima, nuclear power is dangerous, and an unacceptable option.
Nuclear power is also very expensive. Wind and solar are dramatically plunging in price, so they are the better option, and are being used by countries around the world at record levels.
‘..As Germany and other countries have demonstrated, by scaling up wind and solar power, renewables can displace dirty fossil fuels without nuclear, dirty coal, or natural gas.’
So far in Germany, renewables have just replaced nuclear – they’re still burning plenty of lignite, and emissions of CO2 from the power sector are about the same as they were in 2009.
If nuclear waste is so deadly, how come it hasn’t killed anyone in fifty years? I used to read a lot about the spent fuel pool at Fukushima Daichi killing everyone in Japan if they touched two fuel assemblies together. Surprise – it didn’t ( and couldn’t.)
” and emissions of CO2 from the power sector are about the same as they were in 2009.”
Nice propaganda to use a year with 5% drop of GDP and industrial production as reference. 🙂
BTW if you actually checked the numbers you would know that REs have replaced more than NPPs. 🙂
If you count burning trees as ‘ RE’ maybe, but till a new forest grows the emissions match lignite.
My rock solid argument would be that places using nuclear have lower power emissions, and have cut CO2, faster than those trying to use unreliable power.
Take Switzerland and Austria – both get about half their power from hydro, both held referenda on nuclear power in the 1970’s. Austria voted no ( by about half a percent ) and burned millions of tons of coal. Switzerland voted yes, also narrowly, and fissioned a few hundred tons of uranium.
http://www.slideshare.net/SitraEnergia/kurnitski-clima2010-plenary
2006, Switzerland makes 6 grams of CO2 per kwh, Austria 206. Have they caught up since? Of course not, but they might if Switzerland shuts its nukes.
Switzerland is not India. Solar works better in certain parts of the world. Nuclear waste storage works better in a rich country with no earthquake faults and a long history of engineering tunnels deep into mountains.
But the future of the human race looks like India, not Switzerland.
Come on, John. Don’t troll the site.
You know the difference between CO2 from fossil fuels and CO2 from renewable sources.
A CO2 molecule from any source has exactly the same effect. The rationale for demonising coal and canonising ‘ biomass ‘ is supposed to be that as much carbon is absorbed by the plants growing as is released from the plants burnt. But if you start cutting down forests and burning them, there’s a net shift of carbon from bound in vegetation to free in the atmosphere. Trees don’t really grow any faster because you’re cutting them down elsewhere, in fact recent studies have shown that old growth forest packs away carbon faster than young trees – it’s certainly more biodiverse. In any case, the amount of energy used nowadays makes it very doubtful that biomass can make a meaningful contribution. England had destroyed its forests, for firewood and iron smelting, long before the industrial revolution started. After that, energy and metal use went up manyfold; now the population is ten times higher, and energy use per person probably more than that. The forests in New England were were also decimated by the nineteenth century – as were the world’s whales, for ‘ biofuel ‘ – oil, coal and gas has allowed both to recover, to some extent.
Drax power station in Yorkshire, Britain’s largest coal plant, converted some of its furnaces to biomass, but to feed the whole plant would have required plantations the size of Wales. Instead wood from the US and Canada was shipped in – until the Department of Energy and Climate Change refused to sanction some of the feed-in tariffs that made the whole scheme possible.
The US corn ethanol boondoggle, which boosted food prices for the poor and returns for midwest agribusiness, on the taxpayer’s dollar, and with minimal if any reduction in emissions, is another example of unintended consequences. EU subsidies for biodiesel from Indonesian palm oil, grown on cleared rainforest, was even worse. Methane from the peaty soil, and massive fires after it dries out, have had far worse consequences than burning ordinary diesel would have done.
“A CO2 molecule from any source has exactly the same effect”
I did not read past this initial sentence. You know that our problem is that we have extracted far too much carbon from underneath the Earth’s surface and placed in the above surface carbon cycle.
You should be ashamed of yourself, John. You damn nuclear zealots make asses out of themselves attempting to support a technology that has passed its stale date.
The rationale for demonising coal and canonising ‘ biomass ‘ is supposed to be that as much carbon is absorbed by the plants growing as is released from the plants burnt. But if you start cutting down forests and burning them, there’s a net shift of carbon from bound in vegetation to free in the atmosphere. Trees don’t really grow any faster because you’re cutting them down elsewhere, in fact recent studies have shown that old growth forest packs away carbon faster than young trees – it’s certainly more biodiverse. In any case, the amount of energy used nowadays makes it very doubtful that biomass can make a meaningful contribution. England had destroyed its forests, for firewood and iron smelting, long before the industrial revolution started. After that, energy and metal use went up manyfold; now the population is ten times higher, and energy use per person probably more than that. The forests in New England were also decimated by the nineteenth century – as were the world’s whales, for ‘ biofuel ‘ – oil, coal and gas has allowed both to recover, to some extent.
Drax power station in Yorkshire, Britain’s largest coal plant, converted some of its furnaces to biomass, but to feed the whole plant would have required plantations the size of Wales. Instead wood from the US and Canada was shipped in – until the Department of Energy and Climate Change refused to sanction some of the feed-in tariffs that made the whole scheme possible.
The US corn ethanol boondoggle, which boosted food prices for the poor and returns for midwest agribusiness, on the taxpayer’s dollar, and with minimal if any reduction in emissions, is another example of unintended consequences. EU subsidies for biodiesel from Indonesian palm oil, grown on cleared rainforest, was even worse. Methane from the peaty soil, and massive fires after it dries out, have had far worse consequences than burning ordinary diesel would have done.
Again, John, I’m not going beyond your first sentence.
“The rationale for demonising coal and canonising ‘ biomass ‘ is supposed to be that as much carbon is absorbed by the plants growing as is released from the plants burnt.”
Carbon from plants used for biofuel is carbon already above the Earth’s surface. If biofuel is what we need in some circumstances to allow us to keep from extracting more carbon from below the Earth’s surface and increasing our problems that is a good thing.
It the biofuel comes from rapidly growing plants (switchgrass, hybrid poplars) then we have very little net gain in atmospheric CO2. What we burn is quickly replaced with new growth.
And don’t forget. Plants sequester carbon as they grow their root structures.
‘..Coal ( substitution ) is a somewhat different story. Although substituting biomass for coal in electric generation substantially reduced greenhouse gas emissions, it would come at a high cost to domestic consumers. Using coal, it would cost $31.03 to generate each megawatt of electricity, but using switchgrass briquettes would cost $154.62, and switchgrass cubes would cost $156.52.’
‘http://agresearchmag.ars.usda.gov/2013/mar/switchgrass
‘..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.’ ( Bob Wallace )
Same rules apply?
I don’t think anyone is talking about replacing coal with biomass except where the biomass is very low cost ‘waste’ from lumber mills.
” Assuming a cost of capital of 10%, the LCOE of biomass-fired electricity generation ranges from a low of USD 0.06/kWh to a high of USD 0.29/kWh.”
https://www.irena.org/DocumentDownloads/Publications/RE_Technologies_Cost_Analysis-BIOMASS.pdf
The low end range depends on inexpensive timber industry waste.
Aside from where low cost can be achieved by burning waste one place where biomass burning with specially grown plants might make sense it ‘deep backup’. Those few times per year when wind and solar input is low for a few days in a row.
I do not dispute that a longer live of some German NPPs would have reduced the emissions more than the current approach, but this does not help you when we are talking about new capacity.
I was pointing to the fact that you use an outlier as trend, that is shitty methodology. The better starting point are the years 2006/7. And the high percentage of exports should also taken into account.
And you do not provide any evidence that with the current prices NPPs are for NEW capacity an alternative, they are not for very basic reasons. The chance that this will change is low. So what should France do? The logic approach would be wind plus more transmission lines.
The Hollande government’s stated target is to keep the same amount of nuclear generation capacity as now, but reduce the proportion of it in the generation mix from 75% to 50%.This would entail ramping down power plants that are already paid for, and whose fuel costs are only a few percent of their running costs, to make room for unreliable power sources like wind and solar, not yet built, which will always need backup available, and whose associated CO2 emissions are on a par with nuclear ( for wind ) or higher ( for PV ). Ségolene Royale, Hollande’s minister of energy – and the mother of his children – was the Socialist candidate for president herself a few years ago. During the campaign, she insisted, on national tv, that it would be easy for France to dispense with nuclear as it only provided 14% of the country’s electricity. ( At the time it was closer to eighty percent.) Her latest bright idea is to install 1,000 km of PV-paved roads. Cost unknown. The engineers who built France’s power grid must be spinning in their graves.
France’s reactors average 30 years old, and can have their service lives extended to 60 for far less than a whole new system.
http://www.expatica.com/fr/news/EDF-says-can-extend-life-of-French-nuclear-reactors-by-20-years_445583.html
The current government wants to shut its oldest plant, Fessenheim, when the new reactor at Flamandville is completed. Fessenheim has already had 2 billion Euro spent to modernise it, and has the most advanced control systems in the whole fleet. Areva is also working with Lightbridge to use metal fuel, instead of uranium oxide. This would allow the plants to run for two years without refuelling, instead of eighteen months, with a ten percent power uprating.
”The logic approach would be wind plus more transmission lines.’ From Morocco ? Or Egypt ? Western Europe mostly blows or calms all together.
http://transnational-renewables.org/Gregor_Czisch/projekte/Risoe200305.pdf
http://euanmearns.com/wind-blowing-nowhere/
“and can have their service lives extended to 60 for far less than a whole new system.”
Sorry, most reactors can not be used for 60 years, that is the issue. The few that are used for a long time were usually research reactors, not ones which run at 100% for most of their time.
France must replace many of her reactors and the EDF has not the money.
‘..have not been..’ doesn’t mean ‘ ..can not be..’. The reason the expected service life was set at thirty years in the first place was because nobody knew enough to be sure it could be extended.With forty more years of experience, including putting samples of pressure vessel steel in high radiation research reactors, it is clearly possible. Pressurised water reactors usually need new steam generators after thirty years; boiling water reactors don’t have steam generators. Canadian heavy water reactors need their pressure tubes replaced, currently being done in Ontario. Only the UK’s gas cooled reactors, and the Russian RBMKs, still soldiering on thirty years after Chernobyl, are a doubtful prospect, as you’d have to replace hundreds of tons of graphite in each. With improved knowledge of metal alloys, Rosatom is designing its new plants to last 120 years.
Maybe no direct deaths, but how many indirect deaths and born children with terribles disabilities that are borderline mutilated?
Feel free to move near Fukushima or Chernobyl and live in a contamined area. Let’s see how good your health will be in 10 years. I dare you.
I agree. John, if nuclear waste is so exaggerated as you claim, go to Fukushima, or the Chernobyl site, and live in a tent for two days. Soak up the radiation. If nuclear waste is no big deal as you claim, then move next to a repository that stores nuclear waste.
Nuclear waste has actually made quite a lot of people extremely sick over the years, but I suppose you’ve never read the histories of the people involved with the Manhattan Project or any of the associated factories.
The Manhattan project was military. Most of the problematic waste is also military, generated in rushed projects to win WW2 and the Cold War – Hanford, Mayak, Sellafield. Spent fuel from power reactors is 95 percent pretty inert, non soluble uranium dioxide, and to affect anyone it first has to get out through layers of concrete and steel, then find its way into the biosphere. Back when U235 was more common, and after oxygen built up in the atmosphere, Mother Nature managed to assemble and run water-moderated nuclear reactors, which sputtered away for hundreds of thousands of years. That was under a rain forest in equatorial Africa – not the first choice if someone was looking for a waste repository now – yet in two billion years the fission products have hardly moved from where they were generated. What nature managed by chance shouldn’t be too hard to better by design.
Ok not the Manhattan project, look from the Mound plant (just outside of Dayton) to Cincinnati. Yes part was military, but it was the slow safe part. Ask why the clusters there are some much higher than even other part of the mid-west. Or old north west territory, if you don’t count Ohio as mid-west.
Got a link for that?
Anyone (honest and rational) looking at France vs German electricity costs and CO2 output will be able to draw pretty easy conclusions.
If we want to eliminate fossil fuels at todays costs rather than be economically crippled, nuclear it the only way to do it for the vast majority of countries,
Wind and solar account for only 3.5% of Germanys total primary energy consumption, yet the system costs are already ruinously expensive. And they only get higher with greater penetration.
That’s the reality. Those Countries that cave into irrational hysteria over nuclear radiation will pay the price.
And yes, I certainly wouldn’t mind living next to a NPP or Fukushima in preference anywhere downstream of a hydro plant, or near a PV factory. And I would rather work in a NPP than on wind turbines, or installing PVs on roofs.
Sorry, you are very poorly informed when it comes to energy costs. Even France is in the process of closing nuclear plants and installing renewables.
Nuclear is very expensive. Wind and solar now cost a fraction what new nuclear costs. You confuse what Germany spent in order to bring down the cost of solar panels with the current cost of solar.
Let me show you a graph of what has been happening to Germany’s wholesale cost of electricity as they’ve added renewables to their grid. Note that the wholesale cost of electricity in Germany is now lower than both nuclear and coal.
Wholesale and retail prices in Germany have been going in different directions, till last year. Half-yearly household prices, 2015 France 0.162 Euro/kwh, Germany 0.295. Eighty two percent higher. For industry, France 0.101, Germany 0.151. Forty nine percent higher.
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/File:Halfyearly_electricity_prices_(EUR_kWh).png
CO2 emissions for German electricity production are about six and a half times higher than for France.
http://www.rte-france.com/en/eco2mix/eco2mix-co2-en
( For some reason, the French give out their CO2 emissions in real time, but it’s quite hard to track down for Germany! )
Retail electricity prices in Germany are high for two reasons.
First, recovery of renewable energy subsidies. Payment of the cost of the FiT programs which Germany used to build their renewable energy industry. (And which created such a large drop in the price of solar.) All those charges are put on retail customers. Industry enjoys the dropping price of electricity while paying nothing toward the renewable program which is lower their electricity cost.
Then, taxes put on retail electricity which have nothing to do with the generation or distribution. Sales taxes, if you will, that go into the government’s general funds. This is the larger portion of the total tax/subsidy burden placed on retail electricity rates.
No one argues that Frances does not have a low CO2 output when it comes to electricity. France has reactors it built decades ago and have been paid for. That gives them better priced, low carbon electricity. For now.
France’s wholesale cost of electricity is rising due to the rising costs of upgrading and maintaining their aging reactors. France has decided to close about a third of their reactors due to the rising cost and replace them with wind and solar. Not with new nuclear.
Looking at LCOE or wholesale prices doesn’t give us the costs to Germans, because they don’t include subsidies or the system costs.
High subsidies and preferential grid access has saddled EON and RWE’s shareholders with debts of over £40bn.
France is only installing more renewables because of EU Law and arm twisting by the Germans and domestic Green politics.
If wind/solar really were cheaper then there wouldn’t be any subsidies, or preferential grid access and the system costs would be internalised.
But we don’t just have to rely on the Germans to see how wind and solar effect costs. In the EU, countries with higher penetrations of these energy sources have higher costs.
If nuclear was expensive France wouldn’t have among the lowest costs.
BTW, wholesale electricity is cheaper in France than Germany.
It is correct that the wholesale price does not tell the truth. However, to assume that the LCOE are a bad metrics is silly. Hint: You confuse costs and prices.
The current cost of nuclear electricity in France is higher than the wholesale price of electricity in Germany. As you can see from the graph above by 2012 the wholesale price of electricity in Germany had fallen below 4 euro cents.
In the graph below you can see that as of last fall the price of year ahead contracts had dropped below 3 euro cents.
France, however, is reporting much higher costs for the electricity they produce from their paid off nuclear reactors.
“Production costs from the existing fleet are heading higher over the medium-term,” France’s Cour des Comptes said in a report to parliament published today.
The report, which updates findings in a January 2012 report, said that in 2012 the Court calculated the cost of production of the current fleet for 2010, which amounted to EUR 49.5 per megawatt-hour.
Using the same method for the year 2013 the cost was EUR 59.8/MWh, an increase of 20.6 percent over three years.
http://www.nucnet.org/all-the-news/2014/05/27/france-s-state-auditor-says-edf-s-nuclear-costs-are-increasing
EUR 59.8 = $81.37/MWh $0.082/kWh About $0.08/kWh
.
“Anyone (honest and rational) looking at France vs German electricity
costs and CO2 output will be able to draw pretty easy conclusions.”
While I partially accept your emission argument, the electricity price argument is nonsense: Even EDF admits that the French price is too low to cover the costs for new capacity. You compare apples (cost covering price) with oranges (subsidized price).
I thought Germany paid over 20bn Euro subsidies a year to renewables?
What subsidies in France are you talking about?
And how do the French EDF expects to replace their NPPs? They do not earn money, sorry.
That the Energiewende costs at the moment money is undisputed, however, the projection of differential costs is not that bad. 🙂
What is with a 20 year horizon better?
Expected life of wind turbines and solar panels is 20 years. NPPs were given 40 years when they were built, but the Hollande government is now supporting life extensions to sixty years. All three technologies are front-heavy – most of the CO2 associated with their power production is produced when they are constructed – so it makes environmental sense to use them as long as possible.
No, John, that is wrong and I’m pretty sure you know it is wrong.
We don’t know how long solar panels will last. 20 or 25 years is the common warranty limit. Our oldest array is now approaching 40 years old and had lost less than 5% output at age 35.
We’re now replacing our 30 year old turbines at Altamont Pass wind farm. Partly because maintenance costs were rising and partly because turbines with higher hub heights will generate a lot more power plus be safer for birds.
Newer turbines should last significantly longer. Embedded sensors will alert technicians before maintenance needs develop into major problems. Better material selection and designs that allow for easier swapping out of bearing surfaces should greatly increase usable life.
France is extending the life of some of its reactors. But closing about one third. They are getting too expensive and are being replaced with wind and solar.
Here is an article for the 40 year old solar array. Don’t worry, there’s also an english translation 🙂
http://www.presse.uni-oldenburg.de/download/einblicke/54/parisi-heinemann-juergens-knecht.pdf
“Expected life of wind turbines and solar panels is 20 years.”
That is nonsense. PV is expected to work >30 years and the new wind turbines too.