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2007 Nuclear Issues v29 02 |
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Written by Nuclear Issues
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Thursday, 01 February 2007 |
Nuclear Issues is also available as a pdf download
Consult, consult, consult ...
What a extraordinary suggestion. That the consultation process on
nuclear energy has been “misleading”, “seriously flawed” and
“procedurally unfair”. This is what Mr Justice Sullivan (Sir Jeremy
Sullivan) said in response to a case brought by Greenpeace.
There has been more consultation and debate on nuclear issues over the years than any other topic. This publication, Nuclear Issues, alone has published at least 1 ¼ million words on the subject but we don’t expect Sir Jeremy has ever heard of us. There have been extended public hearings, debates, reports, international studies and books written on every aspect of the subject. Now at last when a Prime Minister has made up his mind on the subject he is accused of lack of consultation. It may be that there has not been as much in the last year because everything has been said and heard – at least by those prepared to listen.
The claim of Sir Jeremy that information given on waste had been “not merely inadequate but also misleading” is strange in the light of the industry efforts to put out objective information on the subject. We, of course, go further than the industry by saying that over the past sixty years nobody has been injured by radioactive waste, that no environmental consequences have been caused by storage of both military and civil nuclear waste, that we can go on in the same way for at least another 300 years and that we have plenty of technical knowledge finally and safely to dispose of the waste in deep geological formations. But, of course, Sir Jeremy never asked us.
Since he became a judge on the High Court of Justice Queen’s Bench Division in 1997 Sir Jeremy has been involved in a number of high-profile cases and controversial rulings. It may be that recent government action seems a little strange but to say that it is due to lack of consultation is to ignore years and years of debate and discussion not only in this country but around the world.
There is a nice way of representing a period of consultation on a time chart. It is an arrow that turns back on itself and loops back to the beginning. It looks just like the mathematical symbol for infinity. The longer we go on trying to talk everything to death the sooner will come the day when we have to take emergency action and build nuclear power under a crash programme. In fact we would maintain that we have already reached that point – but nobody listens to us.
Big plans for South Africa
A plan for further conventional pressurized water reactors in addition to pioneering work on the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor have been announced by the South African government. As many as twelve large new PWRs – with the first of about 1 GWe being on line by 2014 – are envisaged in the Western Cape province and France’s Areva, which supplied the country’s first nuclear power plants at Koberg, is a strong contender with its large European Pressurized Water Reactor (EPR). But the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa (Necsa) is clearly keen to keep options open and has recently contracted the Russians to supply fuel for Koberg to 2020.
Meanwhile the country is pressing ahead with its advanced design of Pebble Bed Modular Reactors – the small modular plant in which the UK used to be involved but has now sold out to Japan. It is envisaged that a string of 24 of these plants could be built. In all, with PWR and PBMR, South Africa could have 27 GWe of nuclear capacity supplying 30% of electricity by 2030.
With such a large programme, and particularly the PBMR, there is also interest in keeping up activity in the nuclear fuel cycle and there is now talk of reestablishing interest in uranium enrichment. This was developed for military purposes in the past but after abandonment of that work it could be resurrected in a civil capacity to exploit South Africa’s uranium reserves more fully.
EPR prospect in US
The French company Areva has a likely partner for the building of its European Pressurized Water Reactor (EPR) in the US. Alternate Energy Holdings Inc (AEHI) says that “the technological advances, in both plant safety and performance, introduced by the EPR may be the solution to the concerns involved in reinstating commercial nuclear construction in the United States.” AEHI is based in Idaho and has recently signed an agreement with a farmer to purchase 1600 hectres of land on the Snake River in southeastern Idaho on which a plant could be constructed. The company has also been in discussion with Areva which has been making efforts to establish its 1600 MWe EPR in the US market place.
The EPR goes the other way to its main US rival, the Westinghouse AP 1000. Both use a more or less standard PWR as the main source of power but EPR uses evolution of existing technology to achieve greater safety while AP 1000 makes passive use of simple natural processes. Both claim to achieve the high third generation standard of safety but EPR achieves economics by scaling up the size of the plant to 1600 MWe – the largest reactor in the world – while AP 1000 uses a smaller 1000 MWe reactor and achieves economics by simplification of plant.
Areva is trying to get US Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval of its European design while AP 1000 already has it. EPR is being built in Finland and France with several other prospects around the world.
AP 1000 has recently obtained six orders in China and has many prospects in the US.
Wind is a nuisance
A recent bit of promotion distributed on DVD by the nuclear industry had background pictures which half the time showed a large French nuclear plant and the other half had a few wind generators turning off shore.
The message given in the commentary was fine but the impression was given that nuclear power accepted wind as some how complementary. It is not. It is a downright nuisance.
On a breezy summer day the trickle of electricity from the wind has to be purchased by the national grid even though it is five times more expensive than nuclear.
On a cold still day replacement generation has to be provided again at accost disadvantage probably from gas fired generation. The impression of these huge machines being a benefit because they offer a little bit of replacement electricity is put into perspective by comparison with the nuclear plant which was the 2800 MWe Chooz plant. It would need at least 4800 large wind generators to produce the same amount of electricity.
The Chooz site is not the most impressive nuclear plant being located in shore and requiring two large cooling towers like coal or gas fired plants. The concrete of the towers and reactor containments has weathered rather poorly. But the alternative of four thousand eight hundred wind generators extending far into the distance covering an area the size of the Isle of White is grotesque. If built off shore the under sea cable use to link them together would be enough to cross the channel several times and link us to French supplies of electricity – 75 percent nuclear and 25 percent hydro.
It is said that each wind generator could supply 1400 homes. It can not! It feeds its intermittent trickle of electricity into the national grid where it causes more trouble than it saves.
Just 18 more needed
A plan for 270 wind turbines in the Thames Esturary just North of Margate is claimed to be one of the world’s biggest wind farms. Well if that is the case it shows how inadequate wind is for the large scale supply of electricity.
At a cost of £1.5 billion – about the same as a large nuclear plant – 270 turbine spaced out over 152 square miles (245 km2) would, its designers say, supply enough electricity for a quarter of London homes. They tend to prefer this inaccurate statement to the more established MWe though later they do claim that it could produce 1000 MWe. That means machines of 3.7 MWe each which is a good deal larger than anything built before.
The critical feature is for what percentage of time they would be producing at this impressive rate. The wind industry is very wary of quoting capacity factors but we think they work on a remarkable figure of around 30%. Experience with large off-shore turbines is nothing like this figure but perhaps they have some new and better machines which don’t shut down if the wind is too light or too strong. But even at 30% they would only produce a total of 330 MWe while a modern nuclear power plant could produce 1600 MWe at 90% capacity factor – that is just under 1300 MWe on average. However the 10% of time that the nuclear plant is off line is mostly for planned maintenance which can be scheduled for periods of low demand.
The 70% – or more – of time when wind is not available is completely at random so there must be some other source of generation on standby all the time.
To meet the target of 10% of UK electricity from renewables – such as wind – will require 18 of these massive new wind farms – at least. Yet the one in the Thames has been planned since the end 2003 when the government announced massive plans for wind energy.
It still faces objections from the Port of London Authority which sees it as a considerable hazard to shipping. Wild life groups are opposed because of the effect it would have on bird life – it would scare them all away. By sitting the 245 square kilometres of wind generators 20 km off shore it is said to eliminate the eyesore but under water cabling to all the generators will run into 100’s of km and could alternatively provide another cross channel link for cheap, clean and safe nuclear power from France.
Romania going for 30%
As the fuel loading of Romanias second nuclear power plant at Cernavoda-2 is completed the Minister for Economyand Trade, Varulan Vosganian has confirmed plans for a 28 to 30% share of electricity production from nuclear.
Vosganian said that geting going on Cernavoda- 3 & 4 was a major economic target for 2007. Unit 1 has been a very successful project and account for 10% of electricity. The second unit is now readyto double that and unit 3 & 4 are likely to achieve the 30% target.
Cernavoda uses Canadian Candu type reactors which were ordered several year ago but have suffered many delays over the years.
One of the two grumpy old men who produce Nuclear Issues has unfortunately had to have an operation for a cataract so we have to appologise for a short version this month. |
