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2006 Nuclear Issues v28 09 |
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Written by Nuclear Issues
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Friday, 01 September 2006 |
Nuclear Issues is also available as a pdf download
Sleepwalking to disaster
Faced with the intertwined problems of climate change and peak oil the
Government appears both unwilling and unable to take any direct action.
While climate change is at least recognised as a serious threat, the
peaking of world oil supply does not even seem to have registered as a
possile cause of concern. Both are directly related through energy use.
For both the problems caused could, in time, be alleviated by a large
increase in nuclear power output – the only substantial and secure
non-fossil source of energy that is at present available. Yet the
Government has limited the scope of its influence on energy policy to
exhortation, and the setting of unrealistic targets for renewable
energy which are left to others to achieve with the help of subsides
paid for by the electricity consumers, together with research grants
for some of the more remote renewable energy concepts. The target of 10
percent renewable electricity by 2010 still looks beyond reach; by 2005
wind power met only 0.7 percent total electricity supply with another 2
percent coming from biofuels, the total of ‘obligation’ renewables is
3.5 percent. The further target of 20 percent by 2020 has been
down-graded to an ‘aspiration’ while the numerically consistent 50
percent by 2050 looks like a dream, although it is still on the ‘green’
agenda. As a consequence the 60 percent reduction in carbon dioxide
emissions by 2050 also looks unrealistic. Carbon dioxide emissions are
increasing as the power companies turn to coal, which now meets half of
electricity generation as an escape from the rapidly rising price of
gas. Giving incentives to private companies may not be enough.
As the Energy Review made plain, while recognising the need for new
nuclear stations the Government, with a nudge and a wink that any new
construction would not be obstructed, is content to leave the
implementation entirely in the hands of the electricity industry, now
largely owned by the German companies EoN and RWE and EDF of France.
Yet these companies will give priority to their own national concerns
and the wellbeing of their shareholders – rescuing the UK from oil and
gas shortage and reducing carbon emissions may take second place. Also
in the light of the experience of British Energy any company
considering the construction of new nuclear generating plant in the UK
will seek cast iron assurances that the rules under which they operate
will not, at some future date, be changed. Given a reactor life of up
to 60 years such assurance may be hard to come by. All that the
Government has so far offered is to suggest that it might be possible
for some restrictive regulations on planning to be eased. It is left to
the private sector to propose what should be built and where.
Climate change
Again while the Government is prepared to talk about the longer term
consequences of global warming it seems reluctant to take any positive
action. Exhortations to change to low energy light bulbs only scratch
the surface of the problem. Experience with the EU energy trading
scheme shows how this complex and highly bureaucratic can be
circumvented by rigging national quotas. A simple and direct carbon tax
would be more effective, and easier to administrate. As the Government
looks on helplessly apparently unwilling to make the very drastic
interventions, going beyond the short attention span of politicians who
can see no further than the next election, that will be required to
reduce the impact of the, by now, inevitable rise in temperatures and
sea levels. It is left to the press and the environmental groups to
sound the alarm and make the running. The problem that then arises is
that their proposals, following a strictly ‘green’ agenda, loose
credibility.
A case in point is the recently published report “Living Within a
Carbon Budget” by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, which
was commissioned by the Friends of the Earth and the Cooperative Bank.
Although the sponsors emphasise that the Tyndall Centre maintained full
academic independence and intellectual freedom they will have been well
satisfied with final report which closely follows their own thinking.
The report does however have the value in setting out the scale of the
problem and scope of the measures that ought to be set in hand without
delay. The emphasis hitherto has been on the UK carbon-reduction target
of 60% by 2050 in line with proposals to keep the atmospheric carbon
dioxide concentration below 450 ppm, consistent with a temperature rise
to 2o C above pre-industrial levels; this does not take account of
cumulative emissions between 2000 and 2050. To stabilise carbon dioxide
concentrations at that level requires a cut in total UK emissions of
4.6 GtC for the period 2000 to 2050. We and others must take action
now. Matters cannot be deferred to 2040 when the higher temperatures
begin to bite. (The report however ignores the fact that global warming
is a global problem.
Any carbon reductions achieved solely by the UK, which is responsible
for only about 2 percent of global emissions, could be swamped by
increasing emissions from the USA, China and India.) The two obvious
means of reducing carbon emissions are to seek ways of providing the
services required at a lower energy consumption, and to substitute
fossil fuels by other energy sources. On the first the Tyndall report
makes a number of sensible suggestions: to increase the availability of
rail networks – rail travel is three times less carbon intensive than
cars and half that of buses; to curb the growth of international
aviation, now the most rapidly expanding source of carbon emissions,
with an inter-european air transport by a network of high speed trains
– Manchester to Rome (hardly likely with our fragmented and
dysfunctional rail system; and will the Channel tunnel be a
bottleneck?).
But when it comes to alternatives to fossil fuels the report
wholeheartedly adopts the policy of its sponsors and focuses entirely
on renewable energies. From this perspective the latest Energy Review,
“a disguised charter for nuclear power” is seen as “a misleading
distraction from alternative means of reducing carbon emissions.”
Having ruled out nuclear power Tyndall is left with nothing but
renewables and carbon capture.
They produce some wholly unconvincing figures for electricity supply in
2030 and 2050 – by 2030 renewables they say will produce 200 TWh to
meet 33 percent of electricity supply; by 2050 these figures increase
to 278 TWh and 50 percent. Given a predicted onset of Peak Oil by 2010
there must also be a considerable doubt over whether 57 percent of
primary energy demand in 2050 will be met from fossil fuels, including
28 percent from oil and gas. The successful development and
implementation of carbon capture and storage is also assumed to justify
the allocation in 2050 of 46 percent of electricity supply to fossil
fuels.
There is similar optimism on the introduction of the hydrogen economy.
Hydrogen is seen as meeting 17 percent of final energy demand in 2030,
increasing to 29 percent in 2050.
Some of these assumptions may turn out to be justified but they rely on
the outcome of further research. Although the Government is supporting
a number of initiatives including £500 million into a 50:50 partnership
with industry for a new Energy Technologies Institute and £50m for a
hydrogen, fuel cell, and carbon abatement technologies demonstration
scheme, it would be unwise to expect that all these new technologies
can and will be introduced on the large scale required, and in time. As
Tyndall pointed out the important figure is the 4.6 Gigatonnes
reduction in the permissible cumulative carbon emissions from the UK
required between now and 2050 to stabilise the global temperature
increase at 2o C above preindustrial levels.
Last year British Energy’s nuclear stations avoided the emission of
some 12 Mt of carbon while meeting just under 20 percent of UK
electricity supply. If, as a matter of urgency the UK nuclear
generation could be increased over the intervening years to the almost
80 percent of nuclear electricity already achieved in France, it would
make a substantial cut in the future emissions required to combat
climate change as well as provide enhanced security of energy supply as
peak oil begins to bite.
The future
Latest reports from the authoritative Hedley Centre suggest that the
effect of any changes in greenhouse gas emission levels will only
become apparent by 2040.
This opens the temptation to do nothing, knowing that the consequences
will only be borne by future generations. But we are likley to be saved
from succumbing to that temptation by the onset of peak oil which will
enforce reductions in oil and later in gas consumption. There will then
be a further temptation to substitute oil and gas by an increased
burning of coal – as has already happened in the past year in the
electricity industry as a response to higher gas prices.
Any increase in coal burning should be dependent on the introduction of
carbon capture and sequestration as a mandatory requirement for all
coal combustion if indeed it can be successfully developed in time and
at an acceptable cost.
Back-up for wind
Before pinning their hopes so firmly on wind and other renewable
energies the authors of the FOE’s Tyndall report should have consulted
a previous Tyndall report of July 2005 “Security Assessment of Future
UK Electricity Scenarios”. This examined the Government targets for
Renewables and CHP which it saw as making only a small (if symbolically
important) contribution to electricity supply.
These authors concluded that although penetration of wind generation
may displace significant amount of electricity produced by large
conventional plant there are , concerns over system security and
operation costs.
These are focused on whether wind generation will be able to replace
the capacity and flexibility of conventional generating plant, since
the capacity value of wind generation plant is limited. Wind generation
can only displace a relatively modest amount of conventional plant,
which means that in order to maintain the same level of security, a
significant capacity of conventional plant will still be required.
But since these conventional plants will be required to run either
occasionally and/or at part load when wind output is low they will
operate at less efficiently, at a higher cost and produce more CO2 per
unit of electricity.
There will also be problems with anticyclone “cold snaps” when, with
high electricity demand but with little wind anywhere in the country,
shortages of supply could occur reducing wind capacity credit to zero.
There are clearly problems to be solved before placing too high a reliance on intermittent renewable energies.
Biomass
The production of bio-fuels from energy crops is now the fashionable
concept as a substitute for the oil used in transport after oil
production peaks. The FoE-Tyndall report allocated 13-20 Mtoe to
biofuels – 11 to 15 percent of their assumed primary energy demand in
2050. Much of this would have to be imported into the UK. The 2006
Energy Review pointed out that “Transport dominates the UK’s use of oil
with 74% of supply used to power the cars, planes, buses, trains and
lorries that we depend upon.
This produces 42 million tonnes of carbon (MtC) per annum or around a
quarter of all current UK carbon emissions.” It then proposed a
Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation to be introduced in 2008/9. This
will require suppliers of fuel to ensure that a proportion of their
sales is from renewable sources, with the obligation level rising to 5%
by 2010. The Energy Review estimated that this alone will save one
million tonnes of carbon in 2010, A further rise to 10% by 2015, would
save up to another million tonnes of carbon a year.
There are however two problems with biofuels, firstly they require land
for the production of the raw material, and secondly that the energy
consumed in the production and transformation may be at least nearly
equal to or even more than the energy they deliver. For land use
biofuels, from corn or rape seed oil, are in direct competition with
food crops. This is an issue which has already split the environmental
movement where some leading figures have denounced biofuels as “a
global environmental disaster”.
G Monbiot (Guardian Nov 2005) claimed that, on the basis of a
production of 1.45 tonnes of transport fuel from rapeseed per hectare
of arable land, some 29.5 million hectares would be required to meet
the UK transport needs, yet the total arable land in the UK is only 5.7
million hectares. He concluded by saying “If the production of biofuels
is big enough to affect climate change, it will be big enough to cause
global starvation.” In the US the World Watch Institute estimates that
to fill the tank of a typical SUV would use enough grain to feed one
person for an entire year.
All these doubts come at a time when there are growing fears of falling
crop production at a time of global warming and an ever-increasing
world population to be fed.
Using arable land to grow fuel crops poses an ethical food or fuel
dilemma which would weigh against any large-scale production of ethanol
from corn or RME (rapeseed methyl ester) from rape. There are however
alternative biofuels which, by using wood, forestry wastes, straw and
other farm wastes and some industrial wastes, avoid this problem; one
of the more promising of these is DME (dimethyl ether). These however
may come up against the second problem facing biomass fuels – the
energy efficiency of their production.
EROEI
This acronym, “energy return over energy invested”, is a measure of the
value of fuel production. Oil is said to have had an EROEI of around
100 in the 1930’s when oil gushed out of the wells but this has been
falling ever since. The EROEI from large conventional oil fields is now
put at about 60, with an average for all oil fields, many of which are
using secondary recovery techniques, as about 15-20, and this average
is expected to fall further. Tar sands and oil shales, often proposed
as large potential oil reserves, require a very considerable energy
input in mining and extracting the oil to give an EROEI of just over 1.
Biofuels from corn based ethanol are below or at best about 1, i.e.
they would act as energy sinks or just about break even. It has been
claimed that an EROEI below 5 is not viable.
On this view we must now be approaching the point referred to by J
Tainter in the Collapse of Complex Societies (See NI August 2006) when
a society begins investing in a strategy which returns less. Collapse
is then the only sensible response.
The question is whether nuclear power could provide a way out. One
valuation by the Swedish State Power Board, based on the Forsmark
nuclear power station in Sweden, indicates that for present water
reactors using uranium fuel enriched by the more efficient centrifuge
process – now becoming much more widely adopted – the energy input over
a 40 year life is 1.35 percent of output. Other valuations give figures
for nuclear stations of 1.7 percent. These correspond to EROEI values
of 60 - 70. This high figure should not be surprising. The physical
quantities of materials in the nuclear fuel cycle are very small,
whereas the biofuels require the gowing, collection, transport and
processing of very large quantities of materiasl of low energy density.
It can also be noted that the energy content of hydrogen production by
splitting water will inevitably be less than that of the energy
consumed in the process. Unless based on solar heating a hydrogen
economy will not be viable.
Number crunching
Wind power generation: 2 908 GWh Electricty import: 11 160 GWh Total
electricity supply 408 846 GWh These figures for the UK for 2005 are
from DTI energy statistics. They show that electricity imports from
France, mainly from carbon dioxide free sources – 78% nuclear and 11%
hydro – are almost four times the total generation from wind power – 2
505 GWh on land, 403 GWh off-shore. Rather than continuing to spoil
more of our scarce countryside with wind farms, built with heavy
subsidy from the electricity consumers and only able to supply when the
wind blows, it would seem more sensible to install another
cross-channel cable connection with France which could be put in place
relatively quickly. The start of construction of a new 1600 MWe EPR at
Flamanville on the Normandy coast would provide an obvious opportunity
to draw on a carbon-free electricity source which is close at hand. But
the initiative for a new cable would appear to be an internal matter
betweeen the EDF parent in France and its English company supplying
London and South East England.
It now seems that, with the Government ‘hands-off - leave it all to
private enterprise’ attitude towards nuclear power, decisions affecting
the security of our electrcity supply, with potential reductions in
carbon emission, are now left to the commercial policies of the French
and German companies which now own much of the UK distrubution
networks. Any nationalistic concerns that this may raise however can be
alleviated by the thought that it would be difficult for these
companies to make a worse mess of energy supply than both Conservative
and Labour administrations.
Why not Virgin nuclear?
So Richard Branson wants to spend about £1.5 billion of Virgin profits
over the next ten years on measures to combat global warming. By far
the most effective way would be to build a Virgin nuclear power plant.
This would save more carbon emission than from all the his airlines,
produce electricity to drive his trains and make a considerable amount
of new money from sales of clean, cheap and safe nuclear energy. All
other alternative fuels have been studied and none so far look
promising. Throwing more money at these nebulous sources of energy
seems likely to be disappointing.
Sweden comes round at last A new Christian Democrat led coalition
government in Sweden seems to be far more positive towards nuclear
power and support in parliament for continued operation of existing
plants is near the general public’s level of 80%. The Liberal and
Centre Parties, also in the coalition, have also changed their view in
favour of nuclear power. It looks as if there will be no more premature
closures as were inflicted on Barseback in the past but there is no
immediate prospect of new nuclear construction during the coalitions
first term.
The several reactor upgrades, which in total are equivalent to a new plant, are however still going ahead.
Flamanville orders
Electricite de France has placed the first large orders for the
Flamanville-3 nuclear power plant which will be one of the huge 1600
MWe European Pressurized Water Reactor (EPR) similar to that already
under construction in Finland.
A 350 million Euro contract has been placed with Alsthom for the
turbine which will be the largest of its Arabelle design ever built.
The 1750 MWe machine will produce at least as much electricity as 3000
of the largest wind turbines.
Another 300 million Euro contract has been placed with Bouygues
Construction for the entire civil engineering works for the plant.
This plant is just across the water from the Channel Island. It is
being built somewhat ahead of EDF’s requirement as a lead station of
the new design which will be needed in the future to replace France’s
massive commitment to nuclear. If somebody had the gumption to build a
new cross channel link it could be supplying EDF customers in the UK in
a shorter time than anything that might be built over here.
Alarmist?
An article in the Vancouver Sun for 30th September on dwindling oil
supplies based on an interview with Professor Aleklett, the president
of ASPO (Association for Study of Peak Oil) painted a bleak picture of
future oil supply with production peaking perhaps as early as 2008. It
folowed this with an even bleaker assesment of what the deficit might
amount to in 2015 according to University of B.C. civil engineering
associate professor Robert Millar.
Projected annual shortfall in oil supply by 2015: 22 million barrels
per day, or eight gigabarrels per year, an amount that is equivalent to
current total US oil annual consumption.
That shortfall is also equivalent to: 13 times the projected 2006-2015
production increase from Alberta oilsands (according to Canadian
Association of Petroleum Producers, 2005) or: 220 large (100 000
barrels per day) refinery plants converting coal into liquid fuel. or:
10 times the global vegetable oil production that could be converted to
biodiesel fuel or: 1 500 one-gigawatt nuclear power plants.
Russia on the move
The Russian utility, Rosenegoatom, is planning to start construction of
nine large nuclear power reactors in 2007. The company already operates
31 reactors at ten power station sites around the country. They will be
using the third generation VVER-1200 pressurized water reactor which is
a natural evolution of the well proven VVER-1000.
Meanwhile Russia is pressing ahead with its advanced BN-800 sodium
cooled fast reactor at Beloyarsk-4. Regional Gosvenor, Eduard Rossel,
said that the 1billion roubles ($40 million) allocated in 2006 would be
increased to 6 billion roubles ($220 million) in 2007 and 8 billion
roubles ($300 million) in 2008 while he expected 15 billion ($560
million) to be available in 2009 and 2010. Commissioning of the 880 MWe
reactor was now feasible in 2012, Rossel said. In addition plans are
progressing for an 1800 MWe fast reactor to join BN-600 and BN-800 at
the Beloyarsk site. |
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 03 October 2006 )
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