NEI Nuclear Notes

We’re now on our third week of posts seriously looking at Amory Lovins’ and the Rocky Mountain Institute’s latest paper that bashes nuclear energy. Today’s post deals with the paper’s claim that nuclear energy’s “true competitors” (according to RMI) are cheaper and therefore “produce” more “climate solution” than nuclear. I will show that RMI relies on weak sources, no sources, and cherry-picked data for their cost assumptions to exaggerate their claims. From page 19 in RMI’s paper (pdf): Every dollar spent on new nuclear power produces 1.4-11+ times less climate solution than spending the same dollar on its cheaper competitors. For a power source merely to emit no carbon isn’t good enough; it must also produce the least carbon per dollar… To come up with the above statement, RMI’s paper takes the cost assumptions for each technology from their graph below, inverts them to get kWh per dollar, finds each technology’s “CO2 emissions displaced relative to coal,” multiplies the kWh per d...

Two days ago I began a series that critically looks into Amory Lovins’ and the Rocky Mountain Institute’s latest paper against nuclear energy. Today’s post discusses the claim that small plants (termed “micropower”) are turning in a “stunning performance” and are the way to go. There are two parts to this post: exposing the flaws in their “micropower” data and discussing the differences of big plants and small plants. Does RMI’s data fit their definition? From RMI’s condensed version : Despite their small individual size, micropower generators and electrical savings are already adding up to huge totals. After reading and researching RMI’s data, it is still unclear to me what size power plants RMI counts as “micropower.” Here’s RMI’s definition on page 11 (pdf): 1. onsite generation of electricity (at the customer, not at a remote utility plant)—usually cogeneration of electricity plus recovered waste heat (outside the U.S. this is usually called CHP—combined-heat-and-power): this is...

Yesterday, I introduced a series of blog posts aiming to show you the errors and limitations in the latest nuclear bashing paper from Amory Lovins and the Rocky Mountain Institute. This first part (and the longest of this series) deals specifically with the graph below in the RMI paper (also found in their condensed version ). There are many details and flaws in the graph, so please bear with me while I walk you through them. If you get lost, don’t despair. Just take your time and if you have questions, please comment. Nuclear’s “true competitors” For years now, Amory Lovins and RMI have been claiming that nuclear power’s “true competitors” are not big coal and gas plants but energy efficiency, small scale renewables and decentralized cogeneration. From the condensed version : While nuclear power struggles in vain to attract private capital, investors have switched to cheaper, faster, less risky alternatives that The Economist calls “micropower”—distributed turbines and generators in...