The Sun is Shining

I had a wonderful 4^th of July reflecting and discussing how fortunate we are to live in this great nation of America, in spite of all its ongoing problems, and its more recent polarization.  This past week has been a major turning pointing for solar energy in California, and is likely to set precedent for the rest of the country.

The Southwest suffered through an incredible heat wave, which now appears to be subsiding.  Energy pundits were predicting disaster in the state; the two reactors at San Onofre were gone, one unit at Diablo Canyon developed a weld crack and was shut down, and low precipitation in the winter diminished available hydropower.  The loss of some 4000MW of electricity would plunge the state into blackouts, brownouts…industry, people would suffer.  It didn’t happen!  The availability, pricing, and dispatch of electricity is a very complex process, but here are a few things to consider.

The Cal ISO is responsible for keeping the electrons flowing in the wires.  The System Status page on their website is crucial to understanding what is going on.  http://www.caiso.com/SystemStatus.html

shows electricity use for the entire day.  At night, use is low, hitting a low of 24,000MW around 4am.  The peak usually occurs around 4-5pm, and is normally around 34,000MW.  When it is really hot, for the few weeks out of the year, the peak can reach 44,000MW, mainly due to air conditioning, as it did earlier in the week. This demand has to be met, but here are a few key points in this equation.  There was a 20% buffer…available electricity, which can be called upon when needed.  In the case last Tuesday, the amount of electricity available at peak was 55,000MW, 11,000 more than what was needed or used.  These small generators are called “peakers” and are usually small jet turbines that can be turned on/off in a matter of minutes.  They are expensive to run because they only operate for a short period of time when fuel costs are at their highest.  http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2013/jun/29/peaking-units/#axzz2XiYZW5H3

The main point is that we have a lot of generating capacity that is unused during most of a 24 hour period and during most of the year…all there to meet the peak demand when it is hot because the sun is shinning.

Scroll down the page, and look at the renewables contribution to the demand.  The state has about 2000MW from utility grade solar, and an estimated 1500MW from small-scale rooftop systems.  This made up for the loss of nuclear electricity, and because the fuel is free, was actually cheaper than running the natural gas peakers.

Solar is too expensive!  How often have we heard that?  How do we quantify the economics of solar…nuclear…any kind of energy.  That is a great mystery, but the basic economic principles account for Capital investment (design and construction costs), O & M (cost of fuel, operation, and maintenance), End costs (dismantlement, waste disposal, etc), and Profit (utilities are guaranteed a profit after they have paid taxes, insurance, depreciation, public programs, advertising, etc, etc.).  Solar has very low O&M costs (the fuel is free), minimal End costs, but has had high Capital costs.  All that is rapidly changing.  The recent rash of bankruptcies in the solar manufacturing industry worldwide has been due to dramatic reduction in the cost of the final product…the PV cell.  Major blame can be placed on China for “subsidizing” their solar industry, and now dominating the global solar market.

Here are some quotes from recent reading:

“The EIA has historically overestimated the cost of renewables, and underestimated the cost of conventional fuels. The new 50-MW Macho Springs solar plant under construction by First Solar in New Mexico will deliver power for $50.79/MWh (that’s 5 cents/kwh) under its Power Purchase Agreement (PPA), and other US solar projects have come in this year in the range of $70 to $90/MWh.”

“The price of power in the Mid-Columbia was $18.85 per megawatt hour last year (mainly due to cheap hydro), but Energy Northwest’s nuclear power cost was about $47.30 per megawatt hour, said Robert McCullough, of McCullough Research.”

“EIA suggests a minimum cost for advanced nuclear of $104.40, an average of $108.40, and a maximum of $115.30/MWh.”  PG&E’s Diablo Canyon nuclear electricity was 14 cents/kwh back in 2000 during deregulation…that ultimately resulted in their bankruptcy.
 “Three or four years ago, the solar industry was targeting one dollar per watt costs in 2013; today we are at 50 cents per watt.”
“The cost of photovoltaic solar panels is expected to drop to 36 cents per watt by 2017”
Today, solar is almost cost-competitive with grid-tied electricity, not only here in the US, but in Germany, Spain, and Italy, and soon in most parts of the world.  The key to its deployment is POLITICS and not economics. 

Again, California leads the way.  “This week, Los Angeles started the biggest urban rooftop solar program in the country, with the goal of powering 30,000 homes. [LA Times]”   “The California Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee overwhelmingly approved SB 43, a groundbreaking new program that would give millions of Californians who currently don’t have access to renewable energy the opportunity to use 100% clean energy for the first time.”  These are major steps to empowering the up-coming solar revolution.

Up to now, there have two kinds of solar deployment.  Large-scale utility grid projects have been constructed out in the deserts feeding solar electrons into our wires.  True, these have been expensive, and have required a new learning curve for their integration into the system.  The other type of solar system has been on the roof of the individual homeowner…some providing stand alone power, and many being grid-tied, feeding electricity back into their local grid.  Most of these are/were expensive, required subsidies to make them affordable, and were limited to appropriate rooftops and clientele.

A new third type of solar system will be somewhere in the middle…accessible to the majority of residents wanting to use solar energy, but more importantly, now being able to do so with the fuss and mess of having to do it yourself; or if you are a renter; or if your don’t have the right kind of south facing rooftop.  Suppose you have $10,000 and you want to invest that money in a social and environmentally responsible instrument.  You could put that money into a company that is installing a large solar system on the roof of a local warehouse.  You either get electricity credit for what is produced, or get a payout from the sale of that electricity on the grid.  Most small systems today have a 7-8 year payback (that’s a 10% return on your money).  Larger systems are cheaper, and with the costs coming down, your investment will generate more interest than what is available in most saving accounts or CD’s.  You’re investing in a product that is necessary, and has value; and you will hopefully be bypassing the big-business big-money energy mentality that has worked so hard to strangle renewables for decades.  Their fight is now becoming more desperate, but their economic argument is slowly fading towards extinction.

The potential for smaller, local solar deployment is enormous.  Manufacturing jobs, installation jobs, sales and financing jobs, less costs and more efficiency for maintaining the huge grid system, less CO2 and other environmental problems…on and on. 

Besides the political blockade, there is a major issue/obstacle with solar…the sun doesn’t always shine.  We do have solutions for storing renewable energy, which is crucial for our future…more on that later.  But for now, we need to value the solar electricity that we can easily harness…a value that soon, even the fiscal conservatives will see as a money-making opportunity.

Apple (one of the world’s biggest companies) is heavily investing in solar, primarily as a means of reducing peak demand for the massive air conditioners they are running at their server sites in Nevada and North Carolina.  This will save them money, reduce the strain on the grid, and more importantly, provide a huge push for solar from the “big-money” players. 

Power to the people!  The best is yet to come.

Some interesting reads if you wish to follow up on this discussion.

1.      Apple’s solar projects  http://lasvegas.cbslocal.com/2013/07/02/apple-to-build-massive-solar-plant-to-power-data-centers/

2.      Heat wave in California   http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2013/0701/Heat-wave-tests-California-power-grid.-Why-no-blackouts-so-far

3.      Excellent energy article in Time magazine  http://business.time.com/2013/06/27/grid-politics/

4.      The “hard energy boys” strike out   http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/23/1218301/-ALEC-Strikes-again-by-Resolving-to-Free-Electrity

5.      Even Jim Cramer is beginning to see the light…just wait..  http://www.thestreet.com/story/11911544/1/solar-scores-a-big-win-over-nuclear.html?cm_ven=RSSFeed

6.      It’s the economy…jobs…  http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-green-jobs-20130319,0,2962980.story

7.      Cost of solar   http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/deutsche-bank--sustainable-solar-market-expected-in-2014_100010338/#axzz2LyRXuVHd

Economics Catching Up With the Nuclear Industry

2013 has so far been a very bad year for the nuclear power industry, culminating last month with the permanent closure of the San Onofre reactors in southern California.  The aging national nuclear fleet is now down to 100 plants, with the recent closure of Crystal River and Kewaunee.  None of these reactors have run through their 40-year license because major repairs and upgrades have been technologically unfeasible and/or economically unaffordable.  This opens a whole new set of questions and concerns regarding RELICENSING, which was deemed to be a given just a few years ago.

Construction costs for a large number of nuclear plants built 30-40 years ago were generally under $1 billion each, and they were issued a 40-year operating license by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.  In most industrial environments, mechanical components have a 30-year life, after which repairs and replacement of components becomes almost mandatory.  In a lot of cases, a new state of the art facility is built.  Being that reactors have to be shut down for months at a time for refueling and other maintenance, this 40-year regulatory statute was well founded.  Several years ago, the industry, realizing that new construction was astronomically unfeasible, the concept of extending the operating license by 20 years was justified by plans to just repair, replace, and retrofit the existing plants.  The utilities would save spending money and continue to profit from the “cheap” old reactors.  Sort of like repairing that “83 Buick with 280,000 miles, and wanting to take it on a cross-country trip and back.  The problem is a nuclear power plant is very complex and radioactive, which makes any kind of maintenance difficult.

Crystal River in Florida shut down for refueling and repairs in 2009.  Its normal license would expire in 2016, but with relicensing, Florida Power was optimistic that it could run the plant until 2036.  Just this year, the plant was permanently closed due to an estimated repair price tag of $3.5 billion.  The Kewaunee reactor in Wisconsin was shuttered in early May after it was deemed uneconomical to try and run the plant until 2033.  The big blow came later last month, when Southern Cal Edison retired the two San Onofre reactors.  The difference here was that they had already spent close to $800 million replacing steam turbines that proved to be defective, and fixing that problem would lead to billions more. Lots of money wasted.

This all raises several major issues…what will happen to relicensing?  Will Prairie Island (proposing to spend $280m), Monticello ($600m), Vermont Yankee, Oyster Creek and the long list of other plants be willing to gamble that they can technologically and economically keep plants running beyond their legal time frame, when experience shows that the majority of retired reactors have failed to even run to their 40-year expiration.  One must remember that this is not really their money, but that of the ratepayers who automatically get stuck with the bill.

A second major concern deals with the construction of new nuclear plants.  The dream of a nuclear “renaissance” has faded with only five reactors currently under construction…two in Georgia, two in South Carolina, and a fifth being the completion of Watts Bar in Tennessee, where construction began in 1973 and was stopped in 1988 because of cost issues.  Just this year, two proposed plants in Texas and two in North Carolina were cancelled.  The fate of those under construction is certainly up in the air, since they could not be built without huge subsidies from the Federal Government, and are already way behind schedule, and way over budget.  Some economic analysts propose that it would be cheaper to ratepayers (and tax payers) if construction was abandoned and the costs written off…similar to what the Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS…oops) did back in the early ‘80s when they abandoned two partially built reactors and defaulted on $2.25 billion in bonds. Other analysts claim that if completed, the electricity produced would be so expensive that nobody would buy it without additional government subsidy.  The outrageous cost of all this is starting to come to light, and has even caught the eye of the Tea Party in South Carolina who is suing the utility for not considering cheaper renewable alternatives.

The third major issue concerns the future of the current nuclear industry.  While it is obvious that we will not be constructing new reactors to replace ones being retired, the industry will not just disappear.  We are beginning to comprehend the huge decommissioning costs facing us over the next 60-100 years.  Kewaunee says it will take 60 years to decommission; San Onofre claims it will cost them $2.8 billion, a price tag that is way under-estimated.  When the tiny Humboldt Bay reactor was shut down in 1976, the decommissioning cost was estimated at $95 million.  Today, with full decommissioning about half complete, the estimated cost is $1.082 billion!  We, and our children and grand-children, will cough up hundreds of billions of dollars bill to dismantle and deal with these radioactive facilities.  We will not benefit from these expenditures, since the electricity (cheap electricity) would have been long gone through our electric wires.  In addition, we will continue to pay to safeguard the tens of thousands of tons of high-level spent fuel, for which we have no feasible storage plan or cost estimate.

The nuclear power generating industry is once again teetering on its unsustainable fulcrum.  It is not safety issues, or weapons proliferation issues, or moral issues, but pure economics that will finally tilt it towards oblivion.  New modular reactors or new technologies will not save this dinosaur. It cannot/will not compete with the decreasing true costs and other advantages of renewables and, for now, natural gas.

Let the sun shine and the wind blow!  It’s free!  My next blog will examine the current economics of solar, and how this resource will displace/is displacing the incredibly true high cost of nuclear electricity.

Some good references for follow up reading:

1. A nice overview by Terry Tamminen, ex-Secretary of Resources for State of California

    http://www.cnbc.com/id/100825242?__source=yahoonews&par=yahoonews

2. A  piece by Mark Cooper in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

    http://www.thebulletin.org/nuclear-aging-not-so-graceful

3. San Onofre

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-10/san-onofre-seen-as-latest-setback-for-u-s-nuclear-power.html

4.  Matthew Wald on the aging of the nuclear fleet

     http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/15/business/energy-environment/aging-nuclear-plants-are-closing-but-for-economic-reasons.html?_r=1&

5.      A peek at the complex economics

http://qz.com/94817/the-real-reason-to-fight-nuclear-power-has-nothing-to-do-with-health-risks/

6.      New construction problems

      http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-05/scana-reactors-face-new-delays-and-200-million-additional-costs.html

7.      End of the renaissance

      http://blog.cleanenergy.org/2013/06/17/nuclear-renaissance-in-florida-crumbles-meets-economic-reality/

     

High Level Waste Disposal

As the global nuclear industry continues to struggle with technical issues in its aging fleet, and the cost overruns and delays in new construction, a renewed focus has turned to decommissioning and more importantly the disposal of high-level wastes.  Germany just appointed a new commission to examine their waste disposal solutions, something the US did a few years ago, and they will probably come up with the same conclusions:  There is no real solution to the spent fuel problem!  But we have to do something…so what do we do?

There are several courses of action we (and this is true of all the nuclear nations) can take.  The consensus is to eventually bury the canisters in a deep geologic repository.  Easier said than done.  We have spent 30 years and close to $15 billion culminating with Yucca Mountain, which we have scientifically deemed unsuitable for a variety of technical problems, which of course the politicos have reduced to just “plain politics.”  The truth is that the waste is highly radioactive, which means it releases heat…we cannot predict what the impact of that heat and radiation will have on the geology and hydrology of the site, and on the actual casks containing the waste.  This material must be isolated from the environment for a minimum of 10,000 years.  Lots of uncertainty.  So what do we do?

Most of the spent fuel rods are currently stored on site in pools at the power plants.  They are slowly being encased in huge dry casks, and placed on guarded pad facilities.  This is costly and spreads the waste over 40-50 sites in the US.  But it may be the best option until a central underground repository is built (if it ever is.) 

Another possibility is to move all these casks (they are about 20 ft tall, 8 ft wide, and can weigh up to 150 tons each) to a central retrievable location, where they will sit until a repository is open.  One such site is Skull Mountain on Native American reservation land in Utah.  Although this would relieve the utilities from responsibility of maintaining the casks, it would concentrate an enormous amount of highly radioactive material in one vulnerable place.  Current estimates of the wastes we would produce if we were to build no new reactors would fill some 6000 casks.  Handling and shipping this number of casks, storing them in one concentrated location, and maintaining them from weathering, corrosion, and most importantly from possible terrorist attack would not be easy or cheap.  The current casks are designed for a life 50-100 years, so they would have to be re-casked and moved again to a repository if it is built.  Lots of uncertainty!

Another option is the recycle/reprocessing route.  Although this sounds idealistic, it really not a solution, and would create an even bigger mess than we have now.  Best described by Edwin Lyman: “Reprocessing is the worst possible alternative to deep geological disposal because it greatly increases the cost, as well as the dangers, of waste management. Reprocessing increases the total volume of nuclear waste sevenfold over direct disposal; those multiple new waste streams present additional challenges for storage, transport and disposal. Even worse, reprocessing produces copious quantities of concentrated nuclear-weapon-usable materials, primarily plutonium. One large reprocessing plant can produce about 1,000 bombs' worth of plutonium each year. 

Adding insult to injury, this technological disaster costs a lot of money.”  Reprocessing has been a nightmare for England, France, and Russia, and even Ronald Reagan recognized this when he cancelled reprocessing in the US.

So, as the Nuclear Waste “Blue Ribbon Commission” reported a few years ago, “No currently available or reasonably foreseeable reactor and fuel cycle technology developments - including advances in reprocess and recycle technologies - have the potential to fundamentally alter the waste management challenge this nation confronts over at least the next several decades, if not longer."  We all just wind up kicking the can down the road.

A few references to the above:

Three “experts” opinions

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324789504578382722051659686.html

http://www.dw.de/nuclear-waste-to-find-a-new-home/a-16733434

I’m just about finished going through “Uncertainty Underground” edited by Allison MacFarland, the new head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.  Everything and more that you want to know about nuclear waste, geology, hydrology, thermohydrology, volcanism, colloidal transport…whew!  Articles written by the very well qualified scientists who studied Yucca Mountain, and come up with the conclusion: UNCERTAINTY!

Cheap nuclear electricity!

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Decommissioning Cost Update for Humboldt Bay

We had our quarterly meeting last night with PG&E on the nuclear decommissioning going on at Humboldt Bay.  As in past meetings, I continue to be stunned by the complexity and scope of work being done, and most vividly, by the number of dollars being spent on this back end of the nuclear cycle.

Six months ago, I was elated about the decision to do a complete cleanup, although it would have raised the total decommissioning cost from $600 million to $800 million.  The new estimate is now $1.081 billion on through 2025!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  A lot is going to happen in the next 6 years when the project is estimated to be completed, and the six years for spent fuel storage; and I humbly predict (my guesses have been right on since 1978 when I first got into this game) that the final cost may well be $1.5+ billion.  This is for a 63MW plant. The current $1.081billion makes the electricity this nuclear unit produced in its 14 year life cost 21 cents/kwh just for decommissioning…let alone the initial capital costs and O&M costs over the past 50 years.  YIKES!

This is real life…in the jaws of the dragon…and very different from the continued propaganda coming from the nuclear industry.  Just today, an article in Chemical & Engineering News cites a cost estimate of $400 million for decommissioning a typical plant. (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/acs-aar040313.php )  An outright lie!

The current estimate for Diablo Canyon is $3 billion, and San Onofre is $4 billion…right…Humboldt was once $95 million.  Those costs may be 2-3x+?? higher down the road

There are 100+ US reactors that are just beginning to reach the end of their lives, and even with license extension, they will eventually have to be decommissioned.  We’re looking at half a trillion + dollars down the road…and that’s not even estimating what to do with the spent fuel, or what that would even cost. Guess who pays????

A non-nuclear accident at the plant in Arkansas the other day killed one worker and injured 8 others.  The stator on the generator was being removed when the crane failed, and the 500 ton equipment crashed through the floor, severely damaging the turbine building.  That plant will probably not be repaired (huge expense) and will have to be decommissioned.  The fate of Crystal River, Kewaunee. Vermont Yankee, San Onofre are just a few immediate sites of concern…nobody’s really talking about all the others.

Mark Cooper, an energy economist who has been right on in the past, is encouraging the state of Georgia to abandon the two Vogle plants now being constructed.  Writing off the $2 billion already spent will be a lot cheaper than finishing the plants at huge taxpayer subsidy, and then having to eventually fund decommissioning in the future.  The Western Public Power Supply System  did that in the early ‘80’s in the state of Washington, when they defaulted on the two partially build reactors in Clatsop.

And things are not boding well for the nuclear waste side either.  Major problems at Hanford with leaking tanks, and more recently the technical failure of the vitrification plant being built by Bechtel (half built, $12 billion spent, 12 years behind schedule), and now with huge technical problems, most likely will not be completed.  (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/03/science/earth/treatment-plant-for-waste-in-nuclear-cleanup-has-design-flaws-panel-says.html?_r=0 )  So much for reprocessing!

In the rest of the world, decommissioning costs, and waste costs and issues are beginning to come to light in England, France, and South Korea.  China forges ahead, but then, they are China and oblivious to reality...at least for the time being.

Meanwhile, we are very near the time when solar and other renewables are at grid parity…the same cost, if not cheaper, than coal and nuclear (even at its grossly underestimated cost.)

Let the sun shine and the wind blow.  My next piece will look at the state of the renewable industry, and its very rosy outlook for the future.

 

Fukushima Two Years Later

FUKUSHIMA  March 2013

Two years after the earthquake, tsunami, and catastrophic accident at the four reactors in Fukushima, things remain grim.  Here is a synopsis…

“Radioactive contamination levels on site remain extremely high, making the decommissioning of the plant a Herculean task for plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco). The conditions at reactors 1, 2 and 3 remain too severe for workers to enter.  After surveying inside the containment vessels of reactors 1 and 2, the company found radiation levels high enough to kill a human within one hour.”

"What we need to do is isolate, remove and store the damaged and broken nuclear fuel safely," said the 56-year-old plant manager Takeshi Takahashi. "This work will take 30 to 40 years to complete."  This is just to deal with the fuel.  The demolition of the remaining components, structures, and buildings will take many more years after that.

“Tepco is planning to move the undamaged fuel rods from the Reactor # 4 pool to a newly constructed common fuel pool in an operation that is expected to start in November and take a year to complete. The nuclear rods will remain in the common pool for four or five years before being placed in safer dry casks being built at a site further away from the sea front. The common pool, capacity 6,800, already holds 6,300 rods. Therefore Tepco is planning to move out some of these rods once the construction of the dry casks is finished to make space for the rods from the pool in reactor 4.”

“Tepco faces the unprecedented job of having to remove the melted nuclear fuel - including the highly toxic MOX fuel (a mix of plutonium and uranium) from reactor #3 - from the other three damaged reactors as part of the decommissioning. This work is expected to begin around 2022. The exact location inside the reactors of the melted fuel remains unclear, according to Asahi Shimbun. It is expected to be scattered within the pressure vessel, containment vessel and piping system of the reactors.”

“The process of keeping the fuel cool, both inside and outside of the reactors, is yielding roughly 440 tons of water every day, raising the issue of what to do with the contaminated liquid.  Over 700,000 tons are already stored in tanks, and slowly being treated.”  Also, there is approximately 400 metric tons of groundwater leaking into the reactor buildings, and they are building a bypass system to try to stop the groundwater flowing from high ground into the buildings.”  The concern, of course, is contamination of the ocean and fisheries.

This “cleanup” will cost many, many billions of dollars (yen), and as in Chernobyl and Hanford, will probably never really be completely cleaned up.  Add to that the toll to tens of thousands of people who have lost their homes and livelihood, and the impact on the environment, and one has to question the benefits of nuclear power. 

http://atimes.com/atimes/Japan/JAP-01-080313.html

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/08/17234000-rare-tour-of-fukushima-reveals-colossal-decontamination-efforts?lite=

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/08/us-fukushima-disaster-delays-idUSBRE9270A820130308?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&rpc=76

http://www.nirs.org/fukushima/crisis.htm

Nuclear Update

Things are not going so well with the “nuclear renaissance,” not only here in the US, but worldwide.  Again, politics, safety, and proliferation aside, the underlying issue is the economics of these large and complex plants.

Here close to home, the issues with the San Onofre plants are ongoing.  How much will it cost to repair the defective steam generators, and what is the replacement cost of electricity for Southern Cal Edison?  (1)

On the other side of the continent, Florida is in a massive state of confusion with the Crystal River plant.  Repairing it would cost more than what the utility could get out of it, and the whole fiasco is billed at about $3 billion, and that does not include decommissioning and waste disposal. (2)  Other nukes treading on unsound economic ground are Palisades, Pilgrim, Prairie Island, and of course, Vermont Yankee.

What is really happening is the 103 reactors in the US are quickly reaching then end of their useful lives.  Utilities have tried to extend their operating licenses by another 20 years; and some plants may be able to do that.  However the danger of banking on that scenario is not wise, since there is a greater likelihood of a serious malfunction in the future.  Repairs are very expensive, and in some cases, not worth the investment.  It’s sort of like having a 1980 Oldsmobile with 200,000 miles on it and wanting to continue keeping it running.

This all leaves a major problem the industry has been trying to avoid for a while, and that is decommissioning…the very long, complicated, and very expensive process of basically getting rid of the plant.  A lot of utilities do not have the necessary funds in place for the decom costs, which usually are way more than it cost to build the plant in the first place. (3) The other major caveat is that the industry is in total denial as to what the real costs will be, and literally keeps assuring the public that everything is fine.  To top tht off, we really haven’t begun to address the costs of long term waste storage. (4)

Around the world, big economic and technical issues are arising in power plant construction and in waste issues.  China aside, new plant orders are falling by the wayside.  In Finland, the “crown jewel” that Areva is building has proven to be almost a laughing matter in Europe. ”Commercial production at Finnish nuclear reactor Olkiluoto 3 is likely to be delayed until 2016…the reactor was originally scheduled to start operations in 2009, but has been hit by repeated delays and soaring costs.” (5)

The technical realities and costs of waste disposal are just beginning to come to light in Europe.  Sweden, which everyone praised for having “figured out” how to store waste underground in copper canisters, was delivered a recent blow.  These canisters “may not” hold up for 10,000+ years. (6) DUH!

England is also realizing that back end cost of their various nuclear programs are getting very, very expensive.

This does not bode well for the construction of new power plants.  Even the new generation of small modular reactors, which are many years away from actually being developed, tested, and licensed, will prove to be very expensive…especially compared to the decreasing cost of the various renewables. (7)  A very interesting statement came out of China the other day.  The magic number of 50 cents/watt has been the benchmark for the cost of solar cells to be competitive with fossil fuels and nuclear.  We are close to that today, and China says that they will get it down to 47 cents/watt within two years. (8)

Too bad, the US has lost its competitive edge, and will have to rely on imported Chinese “energy,” just as we have been dependent on Middle East oil. 

I’ll leave you with two little quips…the first a headline from the Christian Science Monitor:

 “Georgia nuclear power plant could be Solyndra redux.” (9)

Check out what the waste heat from a power plant can do:

Nuclear power plant causes freak snow storm in Pittsburgh

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2267718/Pittsburgh-nuclear-power-plant-caused-freak-snowfall-moist-air-crystallized-freezing-temperatures.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

Here are a few sources of information:

(1)  http://articles.latimes.com/2013/feb/15/local/la-me-0215-san-onofre-20130215

(2)  http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/duke-energy-announces-closing-of-crystal-river-nuclear-power-plant/1273794

(3)  http://www.pottsmerc.com/article/20130203/NEWS01/130209867/nrc-exelon-execs-hid-1-billion-shortfall

(4)  http://washingtonexaminer.com/sacramento-utility-gets-35m-in-nuclear-waste-case/article/feed/2068631?custom_click=rss

(5)  http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/02/11/teollisuudenvoima-olkiluoto-idUKL5N0BB9RX20130211

(6)  http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/world/swedens-planned-nuclear-waste-storage-faces-problems-346787.html

(7)  http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/01/28-3

End of 2012 Summary

As 2012 draws to a close, here is my synopsis of the status of nuclear power and renewables.  At the suggestion of several of you, I am changing my format.  I will give you my opinion, and then footnote the appropriate references at the end.  Back to my old school days!

Overall, this has been a bad year for nuclear.  In the US, the “crown jewel” project of the twin reactors in Georgia has fallen behind schedule and over budget.  The new projects in South Carolina and in Florida are on hold; and construction has resumed in Tennessee on a reactor started over 20 years ago.  It will be at least 6 years before we see any of this unaffordable and subsidized electricity. (1)

In Japan, the news is equally grim.  In spite of the “conservative” element being recently elected to power, 50 out of the 52 available reactors are out of service, and will probably remain dormant for 3 or 4 more years…if ever they will come back on line.  The loss has had an impact on Japan’s economy, BUT they are not back “living in the cave” as some have predicted, and in the next few years other options, mainly renewables, will be developed for new electricity generation…maybe not cheap, but definitely cheaper than the nuclear option.

Fukushima remains a complete economic and technical mess, almost two years after the disaster.  They are nowhere close to just stabilizing  reactor #3, and the safe cleanup of the 4 reactor sites will take years…decades… and billions of dollars.  Just like Chernobyl, where a new huge dome is being constructed just so they can begin to slowly decontaminate and dismantle the failed reactor.  Again, billions of dollars and a lot of time. (2)

In Europe, the prize reactors in Flamanville and Olkiluoto are both in financial and timeline troubles.  Major reactor vendors are pushing their way with small non-free market countries to build reactors, and even though there is a lot of talk with Arab nations and Brazil, we’ll just have to wait the 5 or so years to see if any of this really happens.

Meanwhile, the renewables, IN SPITE of everything that is continuously being thrown at them, continue to thrive and grow.  The most startling announcement comes from the American Wind Energy Association which stated that they would like an extension of the Wind Energy Tax Credit, and phasing that credit out over 6 years.  In 6 years, wind energy will be more than cost competitive with any new electricity generation technology…it is very close to natural gas now! (3)

Two last bits of info.  There are many things that go into establishing the “COST” of electricity.  The first is the capital investment in constructing the generating facility; the second is the cost of fuel and operating and maintaining the facility; and then there are other costs…taxes, infrastructure, profits, decommissioning of facilities, etc.  For years, the nuclear industry has claimed (and they still do) that nuclear is the cheapest way to produce electricity…based on “production costs.”  Here is a recent quote from the Nuclear Energy Institute: “Nuclear power is the lowest-cost producer of baseload electricity. Nuclear production costs have remained steady for more than 10 years averaging 2.19 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2011. This includes the costs of operating and maintaining the plant, purchasing fuel, and paying for the management of used fuel.”  So what does this mean, and how does this relate to solar and wind energy?  First, the renewables have no cost of fuel…no uranium mining, enrichment, fabrication, transportation, and waste management ( the waste management fee cited for nuclear is way, way to little as we have seen with the failed Yucca Mountain project.)  Although wind does have O&M costs, most PV solar systems have minimal costs.  In 1989, my college and I visited two 1MW PV facilities in Southern California.  Each was operating at full power on a sunny day, and yet we could not find anyone to give us a tour or talk about what was going on…all we saw were locked gates, and arrays of panels slowly moving and following the sun.  This was over 20 years ago…things have gotten better. We just passed a wind farm in Yolo County on our way home from Christmas, and I didn’t even see a truck parked at any of the turbines.  The capital costs of building these facilities are way cheaper than constructing a nuclear power plant by a factor of 3x.  So, the only thing true in above claim is “baseload” electricity.  The sun does’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow…but our new technology can/will deal with these intermitencies in the new smart grid. (4)

One last bit of homework for you.  The US energy data for 2011 has been analyzed again by LLNL.  I always found this chart a huge fountain of information…at least it is good bathroom reading! (5)

Happy New Year, and may the sun shine and the wind blow…hope for fewer big storms…but then again, that’s a whole other topic!

(1)   Nukes

http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/metro/2012-12-04/vogtle-loan-guarantee-extension-sought?v=1354614875

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-24/eon-to-withdraw-from-finnish-fennovoima-nuclear-reactor-project.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-06/edf-france-reactor-cost-rise-may-pressure-u-k-power-price-talks.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/04/enel-edf-idUSL5E8N4DIJ20121204

http://www.foxbusiness.com/news/2012/12/13/areva-again-raises-estimate-cost-olkiluoto-reactor/

http://www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2012/highlights33

(2)   Japan

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201212180087

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/28/us-japan-nuclear-idUSBRE8BR02T20121228?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Reuters%2FworldNews+%28Reuters+World+News%29

(3)   Renewables

http://www.wptz.com/news/money/Wind-industry-OK-with-giving-up-tax-credit/-/8869718/17851060/-/nk1n7d/-/index.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-21/wind-power-generation-beating-natural-gas-in-u-s-in-2012.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/02/us-climate-qatar-solar-idUSBRE8B10AC20121202?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews

(4)   Nuclear Energy Institute

http://www.nei.org/Key-Issues/reliableandaffordableenergy/economicgrowth

(5)   Energy use chart

http://blog.opower.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Estimated-US-Energy-Use-in-2011-97-quads.png