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2011 Nuclear Issues Vol 34 No6
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Written by Nuclear Issues
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Wednesday, 01 June 2011 |
Blue Ribbon Commission does not sound encouraging
America’s Blue Ribbon Commission which was set up when the President when he decided to halt work on theYucccaMountain waste repository is scheduled to produce its first report before the end of July. The Comission has released extensive information on the points raised and arguments made to it and these have been set out in an article in Radwaste Solutions, an authoritative publication of the American Nuclear Society. The major task was to consider what is to be done with the huge stockpile of used fuel (spent fuel) which has built up at operating nuclear power plants and is held either in storage pools or in dry storage transport flasks.
Nuclear Issues has made no secret of its strong preference for this material to be recycled in mixed uranium/plutonium fuel (MOX) in present generation nuclear power plants. This would mean that a massive energy resource would be realised and that the plutonium would be in the safest place – back inside the core of an operating reactor.We have to say that the arguments presented in Radwaste Solutions do not look too good.
To start with the economics is considered unfavourable. “Most witnesses agreed that costs for currently available fuel reprocessing technologies are higher than for the oncethrough fuel cycle and that conventional recycle using current reactors produces relatively small reductions in the heat generation and long term radioactivity of resulting waste streams.” The Commission, which says that it visited France, Japan, Russia and the UK, would have got very different answers to these questions – at least with the possible exception of the UK which cannot decide about completing the fuel cycle.
France in particular has been reprocessing its used fuel and recycling MOX for years with no apparent cost disadvantage. But in the US it would involve the construction of a reprocessing plant which would be hugely controversial and very expensive. It is a pity that during visits to the UK they did not get the message that a large commercial reprocessing plant – THORP at Sellafield – was now completing its last contracts for Japan and could be made available to take on contracts for US utilities. Unfortunately the Nuclear DecommissioningAgency has different ideas and wants to pull THORP down as soon as it can.
Some of the advantages cited by countries like France include: greater use of the energy potential of uranium; reduced need for uranium mining and enrichment; a reduction in heat producing waste; the possibility of reducing risks of long term of potential weapons material; the possibility of conditioning waste directly into forms suitable for direct geological disposal. Against these the commission cite: an increase in short term proliferation risk (we are not quite sure how); additional large capital investment in building recycle facilities (eventually yes); demonstrably higher fuel cycle costs (we have already dealt with that); additional waste streams (we are not sure what from); increased risk of radiation exposure to workers (nonsense); the possibility of large releases of radioactive substances to the environment (equally nonsense).
Some people advocate waiting for more advanced fuel cycles such as the fast reactor which would use the much larger potential of uranium. This may be the solution proposed by Russia which has one large fast reactor operating and another in construction. But it does not look very likely in the US.
One of the big problems in the US is that the Government Department of Energy undertook to take all used fuel off the hands of the utilities some years ago and, of course, made the utilities had pay 1 mill per kWhr for this privilege.
Unfortunately it became obvious some time ago that the Government would not be able to fulfil their promise and the cancellation ofYuccaMountain made it even more remote. This has not stopped the government from collecting the money in the Nuclear Waste Fund.Witnesses have expressed a great deal of frustration and have called for the halting of collection or better use of the Nuclear Waste Fund for the purpose that was intended. Certainly the Commission will have to propose something that is more acceptable to the utilities before it can move on anything else.
But is Yucca Mountain really dead? Some are still suggesting that licensing procedure should continue. It might be better if some alternate proposals were also being considered at the same time. Yucca Mountain was after all only big enough to take existing nuclear waste and some were already urging that a second and third proposal should be considered. But the Commission does not seem to be very keen on going down this path. There is also the argument that some sort of long term geological disposal will be needed in any case. But this is considering things like actinide activity which is such a small volume that it could be put down in any of the thousand of boreholes which have been drilled in the serch for oil and gas.
No seismic problem
The Japanese reactors at Fukashima performed correctly when the worst earthquake in history occurred. The reactors shut down automatically and safely when the first tremor was detected. It was a hour later when the tsunami wave, 19 metres high, crashed ashore that the plant was damaged. It was only designed to withstand a 5.2 metre wave which is bad enough in all conscience.
The wave took out five of the six diesel generators on the site and did other structural damage. It is ridiculous for Germany, Switzerland and Italy to take dramatic anti nuclear steps when they have never seen, and are not likely to experience, such a devastating wave of water. How can Switzerland, a land locked country, experience a tsunami? Bah!
The stupidity of politicians!
Surely these countries have some realistic engineers who can recognise the difference between a siesmic effect and flooding by seawater. And surely any goverment should consolt with its idistinquished engineers in such an event.
Merkel madness
German chancellor, Angela Merkel, used to be pro-nuclear but now due to a freak wave in Japan which damaged a plant but caused no deaths, she has turned around and is calling for a firm date when all German nuclear plants will be closed down. On the 2nd of May she also inaugurated an off shore wind farm on Germany’s modest Baltic coast where no tsunami has ever been seen. It has 21 huge machines each with a 2.3 MWe generator on the top of a ninety foot tower. Now how many of these would she need to replace German nuclear capacity? The answer is about 26 000. And there would be a need for 26 000 MWe of standby capacity – coal or gas fired – to call on when the wind chose not to be blowing.
It would occupy the whole of Germany’s share of the Baltic with a no fishing area. There would be no seabirds.
When we have seen wind farms we normally notice about one in ten of the machines shut down for maintenance. That means 2600 maintenance workers would be needed.
Last year on a visit to Germany we saw a giant blade, which would be one of three, on a transporter parked in a special area of a motorway service station. It was about the length of three large articulated trucks and would also have required police outriders while moving. Imagine 78 000 such transporters. They would clog up the autobalms nose to tail. Then there would be transmission lines to get the power produced to central and southern Germany not to mention tens of thousands of miles of underwater cabling to connect the machines together.
Surely Mrs Merkel has some technical experts who can play with these figures and produce similar silly answers.
Three months delay
The extreme conditions experienced in Japan are not credible in the UK according to Mike Weightman, chief of the UK nuclear inspectorate. None the less it is used as an excuse for putting back the safety review of the AP-1000 and the European Pressurised Water Reactor (EPR). These have now gone back from June to September. This is despite the fact that they are not even the same type of reactor. They are pressurised water reactors which have vessels which withstand twice the pressure of the boiling water reactor is Japan. This means that the reaction of steam with zircaloy would not have been a problem and there would be no production of hydrogen and no explosion.
It is no great deal and Mr Weightman should be able to include his latest finding following a visit as leader of an International Atomic Energy Authority team to the Japanese plant. But keep an eye on it. We do not want any more unnecessary delays because Japan had a totally unrelated accident.
Remember the safety review is supposed to give companies in the UK an acceptance of the use of standard reactors and to speed up the related licensing procedures.
More wishful thinking
One of the more sophisticated arguments against nuclear power is to suggest that its present contribution to world energy is trivial and, on the assumption that its share will not increase but rather decline decline, to argue that it is then of little significance. This line of argument is the basis of an article in the Independent ,(1st June) by Hamish McRae – “A Nuclear Rejection that invites others to follow.”
(The title is a reference to the recent proposal to phase out nuclear power in Germany with the assertion that – “Given the German thoroughness and attention to detail, they will presumably succeed.” But this assumes that the goal itself is worthwhile. This has not always been the case).
McRae’s starting point is the nuclear power supplies only some 6% of world energy. It is then assumed on the basis of a BP forecast that by 2030 nearly more than 80% of world energy will come from fossil fuels: nuclear and hydro would retain their share at about 7% respectively while the other renewables, wind, solar would have increased from 2% to 7%. In contrast to the growth of renewables he assumes that nuclear will go into a “slow but steady decline” to contribute only 4% to world supply in 2030 with the difference coming by increasing the share of fossil fuels to 84%. It is admitted that this is a step in the wrong direction as it will increase carbon emissions “but in the context of world energy supply it is not that huge” prompting the conclusion that “what we do here in Britain about our nuclear stations does not, in world terms matter one jot.”
Having dismissed nuclear power in this parochial way and ignoring its potential growth in much of the developing world McRae puts his trust in potential “game-changers” - radical advances in energy production that are “just around the corner but which at the moment we cannot see.” But since, as he admits, we cannot count on this he falls back on “faster-than-projected advances in energy efficiency …. to enable us to continue to grow without putting such a huge additional burden on the planet.”
It is difficult to understand why a respected commentator on economic affairs should resort to such wishful thinking. Instead of relying on magical and as yet unknown solutions it would be more rational to recognise that nuclear power is already the largest indigenous energy source for the EU (nearly 30% of the EU total) and to accept that sensible way to secure our energy future and reduce growing dependence on oil and fossil fuel supplies, with their problems of peak oil and carbon emissions, is to expand nuclear output.
There is a much stronger case for assuming that it is the renewable energies that are more likely to decline. The UK has already failed to meet its target of 10% for renewable electricity by 2010 – only 2.5% from wind out of the total of 6.5% from renewable energy sources despite the massive subsidies from the consumers amounting to approximately £5 billion in the period 2002 to 2010, and £1.1 billion in 2010 alone. Offshore wind now receives a subsidy of £105/ MWh. Will consumers continue to support an increasing offshore wind capacity which is not only expensive but brings with it the problems of coping with an intermittent supply? The probability of meeting the 2020 EU Renewable Energy Directive target for 15% of Final Energy Consumption - which would require at least 30% of UK electricity to be generated from renewable sources looks increasingly remote.
Penalty or subsidy
The UK has set itself the target of cutting carbon emissions by 34% by 2020 and at least 80% by 2050. An important means of assisting in this aim is the carbon tax which, as its name implies, is a penalty levied on those operations which emit carbon dioxide. Regrettably instead of choosing a fixed, straight forward tax on the quantity of carbon dioxide emitted the tax is collected through the complex EU Emission Trading System with its formation of a carbon market and the buying and selling of permits under whichthe price of carbon emissions can vary widely according to the market conditions. This clearly causes difficulties for long term planning in the power generation industry.
To alleviate this problem the Government have proposed setting a floor price for carbon. This will obviously penalise the burning of fossil fuels in new coal or gas-fired plants, as it is intended to do, while giving some support to the more expensive renewable energies, - wind, solar, tides etc which do not emit carbon dioxide. But, apparently to the chagrin of the parliamentary Energy and Climate Change Committee, nuclear power another carbon-free energy source would also benefit.
With the high investment costs of nuclear and the longer operating life of the stations the assurance of a known and stable carbon price is a significant factor in financing new plant. This is then denounced as a subsidy for nuclear which is contrary to the declared statements by the Government that nuclear should not be subsidised. To see a penalty on one (less desirable) form of electricity generation as a subsidy for a (more beneficial) competitor shows a determined anti-nuclear bias.
There is now little possibility that the Government carbon reduction target for 2020 will be met.With the delays in building new nuclear capacity it is also unlikely that there will be any significant new nuclear plant in operation by that date. This leaves only an expansion of on and offshore wind, which will not only be very costly for electricity consumers – already being faced with the steep rises in energy costs which have just been announced with the inevitable rise of fuel poverty – but will bring the problems of intermittency with large swings in price and costs of new transmission. The other leg of the Government policy, to hope that large increases in energy efficiency will reduce energy consumption with its associated carbon emissions, may be an illusion. Increasing efficiency of use is more likely to result in an overall increase in consumption.
The IEA has already observed that despite past efforts energy-related carbon emissions rose to a new height in 2010 with 44% coming from burning coal, 36% from oil and 20% from gas.
Energy efficiency
Faced with the high costs and inefficiencies of wind power and the slow implementation of new nuclear capacity, increasing the efficiency with which energy is used in the belief that this will reduce the amount of energy required is widely seen by most authorities as the only remaining means of reducing the carbon emissions from burning the increasing amounts of fossil fuels that would otherwise be required. Unfortunately this need to be seen to be taking some positive initiative to reduce emissions outruns the probability that the policy will be effective. While avoiding wastage and increasing the efficiency with which energy is used is always sensible and desirable there are grounds to believe that increasing efficiency in any one usage will lead to an overall increase in the total energy used.
The latest EU Energy Efficiency Action Plan (2011) seeks to save at least 20% of energy consumption by 2020 with longer term goals for 2050. It is claimed that this will save about €200bn annually in 2020 from reduced imports; create new business opportunities; and benefit the economy as a whole creating up to two million jobs as well as reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 740Mteq annually by 2020 – all highly desirable aims.
But as an EU assessment report (SEC 277 of 8.3.2011) itself points out “Gains in energy efficiency do not automatically translate into an overall reduction of energy consumption. Even though the products and processes are continuously becoming more energy efficient, our total final energy consumption continues to grow. This is due to the fact that with higher disposable incomes the level of comfort rises, the number of households increases, more appliances are bought, longer distances are travelled with bigger cars and planes and homes become bigger and are better acclimatized to the seasons.” This is the direct rebound effect. There is in addition an indirect or economic rebound effect which occurs “because people have more money available and spend it partially on more energy consuming activities.” These ‘rebound effects will reduce the savings of increased efficiency.
There is in addition a possibly larger effect which the EU analysis ignores. This is a Keynesian effect of the growth in the economy from the promotion of energy efficiency which comes from measures resulting in new jobs and new businesses. The two million newly employed will now enjoy a higher standard of living than when they were previously unemployed. They will have more money to spend on food, clothing, and other items and the ripple effect of this increased expenditure will spread out into the wider economy. Shops and businesses will see more trade and consequently order more from their suppliers who will in turn…and so on. The creation of new business opportunities will have a similar effect.
Increasing the efficiency of energy use, while always desirable will, through the effect of this stimulus to the economy added to the rebound effects, lead to an increase, not a decrease in energy consumption.
Safer than wind
The number of recorded fatalities from the start up of the commercial wind industry in 1975 up to 2010 is given in a report from the Centre for Sustainable Energy – “Common Concerns about Wind Power” (May 2011) as an average of 0.054deaths/GWe/year. For the conventional fossil fuel industries the figures are much higher ranging from 15.058/GWey for liquified petroleum, 6.921/GWey for coal and 0.197/GWey for natural gas. Nuclear power is the lowest with just 0.058 deaths /GWey due to accidents; the report however suggests that there could be ‘latent mortality’ if something went wrong, but there is no reliable evidence that this has ever occurred in that time period. Indeed it is admitted that nuclear is “an impressively safe industry.” Figures for the OECD show an even lower figure at close to 0.02 deaths/GWey. For hydropower the figures are distorted, by a single dam failure in 1975 which killed 26 000 people from the immediate flooding, to just over 10 deaths/GWey. (These figures are in part based on studies by the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland.)
The report points out that the safety of wind plant has been improving, dropping tenfold since the first expansion of capacity in the 1980’s. It is however recognised that wind turbines “continue to suffer from faults which pose potential hazards to workers and the public. The problem of blade throw has been around for some time, and efforts by the industry to downplay this issue can only be detrimental.”
This evidence showing nuclear power as the safest means of generating electricity is quite contrary to the public (mis)conception largely brought about by the fears associated with radiation and the very long life of some radioisotopes. But it is a consequence of the very high energy density of nuclear fission.Asingle 1000MWe nuclear plant will generate as much electricity as about 1000 wind turbines (depending on their capacity and load factors) where the potential for accidents would be much greater.
This picture of nuclear power safety should not be significantly altered by the events at Fukushima. With the largely precautionary evacuation there have been no reported deaths among the local population and none are expected. The undoubted inconvenience of living in temporary accommodation and the heavy financial losses of plant and property are however very small compared with that suffered in the coastal towns and communities which were completely devastated by the natural disaster of the tsunami itself.
Ninety percent
The capacity factor of 104 nuclear power reactors in the US is still at an impressive level near 90 percent. It saw the smallest of falls to 89.67 for the period 2008 to 2010 but the important fact is that the plants have maintained this level for the past ten years.Another impressive statistic is the bottom quartile of plants which has further improved and is now close to the top quartile – 87.06 compared with 92.95. The whole fleet of reactors is showing the same trend to better performance. The top performer, Comanche Peak-1, is an incredible 99.21 percent.
Another country showing the way is Taiwan. They have six nuclear power plants which for the fourth year had record output with average capacity factor of 92.32 percent. Yet another record was that there were only five abnormal events recorded at the six plants and no automatic scrams.
Compare these figures with wind generators which were on average only available for less than 25 percent of the time. In addition the more than 75 percent of time when they were not producing was due to the temperamental weather which could not be predicted in advance. For nuclear plants a high proportion of the 10 percent non-availability was due to plants shut down for the prescribed relentless maintenance and the outage time is carefully planned to coincide with a period of low demand for electricity.
Why don’t politicians and the media quote a few of these figures when they are talking about nuclear power rather than brooding on one plant in Japan which experienced a uniquely massive tsunami wave.
Flight of fancy
One of the reservoirs near Heathrow bursts its bank. Flood water takes out terminal five and kills several thousand people. A plane coming in to land is hit by the wave but there are no deaths. The automatic system gets it down. But the plane is severely damaged.
Oh dear says German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, these airliners are nasty dangerous things. Issue an order to Lufthansa to ground all its flights. No it does not matter that there are no reservoirs near German airports. They will have to go back to using those zeppelins things that we used to fly around in.
This is roughly equivalent to what Angela Merkel is doing to the German nuclear industry because a uniquely large tsunami wave caused by the largest earthquake in history hit a nuclear plant on Japan’s east coast. |
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