NEI Nuclear Notes

Energy experts are at war over a radical assertion that by mid-century the United States will be able to meet all its energy needs with wind, solar and hydro power. The claim was made in 2015 by four academic researchers , led by Mark Z. Jacobson, for the continental United States, and it asserts that those renewables will replace not just the coal and natural gas used to make electricity, but also the gasoline and diesel that run cars and trucks, and the gas used in home heating. The paper is regularly cited by environmentalists who claim that the current fleet of U.S. nuclear reactors could close without any consequences to grid reliability. But last week, a group of prominent researchers, some from Stanford and UC-Berkeley, and others from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, Carnegie Mellon and other mainstream organizations, published a second paper that said that while they support the expanded use of renewables, Professor Jacobson et al. were dreaming....

The past two weeks have seen record temperatures grip the nation as a " heat dome " has descended over most of the continental U.S. While it isn't news that summer is hot, it is when the temperatures are 15-20 degrees higher than average for this time of year. But life must go on and the electricity must flow. Without the sort of reliable baseload power that nuclear energy provides , our electric grid would be in a tight spot, as grid operators would be forced to juggle intermittent source of energy (like wind and solar) with others that could be vulnerable to supply constraints (like natural gas). In California, the independent system operator recently asked consumers to conserve electricity in the face of high temperatures during a period where the supply of natural gas is constrained due to the Aliso Canyon methane leak . Put it all together and you could be looking at grid reliability being compromised, prices skyrocketing and electric utilities being forced t...

Here’s the bottom line on Germany’s drive to switch from nuclear energy to renewables: [T]he lessons learned in Europe prove that the large-scale integration of renewable power does not provide net savings to consumers, but rather a net increase in costs to consumers and other stakeholders. There’s more: Moreover, when not properly assessed in advance, large-scale integration of renewables into the power system ultimately leads to disequilibrium in the power markets, as well as value destruction to both renewable companies and utilities, and their respective investors. This is from a report prepared by energy consulting firm Finadvice (a Finnish company, though its web site and the report are in English) for the Edison Electric Institute and Finadvice’s European clients. Neither EEI nor Finadvice have any particular brief for nuclear energy (in this context) and are interested in studying the transition primarily as a case study in quickly ramping up renewable ...

Ceres has produced a new report called Benchmarking Air Emissions, which shows that the electric generating business has done a significant job in reducing a variety of greenhouse gases, notably nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide. Nuclear energy does not weigh heavily into the report because new nuclear power is still a few years away, so only uprates can have contributed to the report’s profile. Still: Among the top 100 power producers, Exelon had the eighth lowest CO 2 emissions rate in 2011, largely due to its large nuclear and renewable energy fleet, as well as its investments in nuclear uprates.  Even with a low level of emissions, Exelon reduced its total CO 2 emissions by 32 percent and its CO 2 emission rate by 40 percent between 2000 and 2011. It’s the “even with a low level of emissions” bit I want to focus on here, because it recognizes that nuclear energy has made a significant contribution. Southern Company reduced total SO 2 emis...

A Danish windmill - in Iowa Denmark’s current energy goal is much more easy to achieve than it would be for many other countries: The share of renewable energy sources in Danish power supply is set to rise from 40 percent in 2011 to 69 percent by 2020, Denmark’s Energy Agency said on Sept. 28. Why easier? Well, Denmark has about 5.5 million people, with 20 percent of them in or near Copenhagen, the capital. Still, given that hydro is tapped out, that leaves intermittent wind and solar energy to take up the cause. And really, they can’t. So what to do? Denmark is planning to link its electricity market to other countries as it prepares for the growing role of intermittent renewable sources of power. I suppose you could ding Denmark for taking the “green” route domestically while still getting the electricity it needs from its neighbors. It certainly makes the positive, feel-good profile of the plan murkier. The loss of coal generation will make Denmark particularly depend...

The U.K. government Tuesday published its long-awaited draft energy bill, which contains mechanisms and incentives designed to encourage around GBP110 billion investment in low-carbon energy such as offshore wind farms and new nuclear power stations. That sounds good. The Nasdaq story shows that the government really wants to sell it: "If we don't secure investment in our energy infrastructure, we could see the lights going out, consumers hit by spiraling energy prices and dangerous climate change," said U.K. Energy and Climate Change Secretary Edward Davey. The story doesn’t really make a case for nuclear – except that it is absolutely necessary if the country wants to achieve its emission reduction goals: The government needs to ramp up low-carbon power from offshore wind farms, nuclear power stations and gas and coal plants fitted with carbon capture technology to meet legally binding targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 34% by 2020 from 1990 leve...

It takes some amount of bravery to admit you need what you do not like and you will suffer it for as long as you need to : The lifespan of Germany's nuclear power plants must be extended "modestly" in order to gradually reach the country's goal of having renewable energy as its main source of energy, German Vice-chancellor and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Wednesday. Which must mean that Germany is very close to that goal, yes? In 2008 the gross electric power generation in Germany totaled 639 billion kWh. A major proportion of the electricity supply is based on lignite (23.5 %), nuclear energy (23.3 %) and hard coal (20.1 %) . Natural gas has a share of 13 %. Renewables (wind, water, biomass) account for 15.1 %. These numbers are – not attractive – if the goal is to shut off 23 percent of the clean air electricity produced in the country when nearly 44 percent – 57 percent when you add in natural gas – emit impressive amounts of carbon ...

The current British government is a coalition between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, an awkward marriage considering that the Conservatives favor increased use of nuclear energy and the Liberal Democrats most definitely don’t. As part of the coalition agreement – or compromise – the liberals got much of what they want in energy policy, as laid out by new Energy Minister Chris Huhne (who is a Liberal Democrat): The UK is blessed with a wealth of renewable energy resources, both on and offshore. We are committed to overcoming the real challenges in harnessing these resources. We will implement the ‘Connect and Manage’ regime [this has to do with connecting off-the-beaten-path energy sources to the electricity grid] and I am today giving the go ahead to a transitional regime for offshore wind farms. Ah, wind. And a little more: We also need incentives for small-scale and community action. We are currently consulting on a new micro-generation strategy. I am today...

Even though VPIRG is considered a research group, based on the coalition’s critique of their report , looks like much research wasn’t done at all on how to supposedly power VT without VY. Meredith Angwin from Yes Vermont Yankee sums it up : I belong to a group, Coalition for Energy Solutions . We are all local energy professionals : one physicist, one chemist (me), and four engineers. Some of us have active careers and companies, some are semi-retired. At any rate, we felt that this VPIRG report [pdf] overstated the ease of replacing Vermont Yankee with renewables, and understated the costs. (Actually, they didn't state the costs.) We began doing research for a report on the costs and engineering feasibility of their recommendations. It has been a long road, in which we evaluated the capacity factors of wind farms in Maine, called foresters to assess the sustainable yield of our northern forests, and tried to assess the costs and reliability of cow power . And of course, ...

Continuing on Friday’s critique of Amory Lovins’ latest study , our following post delves into discussing if wind and solar are baseload technologies. Funny enough, Lovins’ rebuttal of this myth completely misinterpreted what Stewart Brand said about baseload in his nuclear chapter and apparently ended up agreeing with Brand in one case. The “baseload myth” Here’s the quote from Brand’s book that the Lovins study has a problem with (p. 80 and 81): “’Baseload,’” she [Gwyneth Cravens] explains in the book, “refers to the minimum amount of proven, consistent, around-the-clock, rain-or-shine power that utilities must supply to meet the demands of their millions of customers.” … Wind and solar, desirable as they are, aren’t part of baseload because they are intermittent—productive only when the wind blows or the sun shines. If some sort of massive energy storage is devised, then they can participate in baseload; without it, they remain supplemental, usually to gas-fired plants. This claim ...

Just wanted to bring to your attention probably one of the best, most complete, and credible sets of data on new power plant costs I've come across so far. The data comes from the Energy Information Administration's Annual Energy Outlook 2009 and the chart and table below were created by the Institute for Energy Research . The only other source I've seen that comes close to a credible comparison on cost data is Lazard (pdf). In the past, I hardly used EIA's cost data much, partly because their capital cost estimates for nuclear were always too low (the estimates are much more realistic this edition), but mostly because they only presented their cost assumptions that feed into the NEMS model (pdf). They never showed a levelized, unsubsidized, balanced set of cost data for nearly all technologies. Here's IER's explanation of the data : To determine the most economic technology for the type of demand (base, intermediate, or peaking load) for which new capacity ...

Via the Green Inc blog : Worried that an important loan-guarantee program has ground to a standstill, renewable energy industry associations sent a letter Wednesday to President Obama urging him to speed the program along. The signers represented virtually every type of clean energy — wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, nuclear, combined heat and power, and biomass — and reflected the industry’s concern that a loan guarantee program for clean energy projects approved in the stimulus package was stuck in the federal bureaucracy, as has been a similar loan program that predates the stimulus. The letter, seen by Green Inc, cited “disagreements” between the Department of Energy and the Office of Management and Budget over regulations to carry out the loan guarantees. Three months have gone by since the stimulus packaged passed, the letter stated, “and we have little confidence that ongoing discussions between D.O.E. and the Office of Management and Budget over these regulations will produce a ...

National Journal's Blog asked a group of experts if the Obama Administration is focusing too much on the jobs created by renewable energy: The federal government is funneling billions of dollars into renewable energy projects. When evaluating those investments, should the main criterion be the number of jobs "created" by the project? What other standards should be used to evaluate those projects? Is the Obama Administration focusing too much of its attention on renewable energy projects, to the exclusion of traditional sources of energy? So far five experts have responded, NEI's CEO Marv Fertel, being one of them : Nuclear power plants provide more jobs than any other source of electricity. Based on jobs per 1,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity, nuclear plants create 500 new jobs, compared to 220 for coal plants, 90 for wind plants and 60 for natural gas-fueled plants, according to Ventyx and the Energy Department. ... In the last three years, private inv...

Jason Ribeiro at Pro-Nuclear Democrats wrote an excellent, fact-based piece on why President Obama should have included nuclear energy in his not-the-State-of-the-Union speech last night . As well, Ribeiro includes some data Obama needs to see that explains the limitations of several of his proposed "innovations" on energy: The important thing to understand about this graph is the line on top is hydro energy. Wind generation would have to increase at least 5 times to start to reach the output of hydro. But with a 25% or less capacity factor we also know that such an expansion of wind power requires a 4x build redundancy for a given output, so the actual build out expansion would be over 20x for wind to approach hydro. Thus, doubling from what it is today won't do much at all. In addition, adding the needed power transmission lines to and from windy areas to population centers will cost a bundle. The lower green line is solar, but since it has a lower capacity factor and...

William Tucker, author of Terrestrial Energy (his latest book "about nuclear energy, global warming and the threat to the environment"), shared his thoughts at the American Spectator about what it means to be renewable as well as what renewable mandates may do to the country . Here are a few nuggets: What is a renewable portfolio? Well, it's what we used to call an "unfunded mandate." The premise is that the government has perfect foresight on where our energy future is going and as good legislators it's their responsibility to hasten its arrival. Corporations and utilities, you see, are generally too greedy and stupid to perceive the future so they have to be prodded on their way. In their wisdom, the legislators will mandate that by 2000-whatever the state or nation shall derive XX percent of its electricity from "renewable sources." It's up to the utilities to do the job. California pioneered this strategy in the 1990s but 26 states have n...

Today might be the day we find out if $50B in loan volume for the existing loan guarantee clean energy program makes it into the final "stimulus" bill. The Conference Committee members are supposed to meet at 3 pm today to iron out the details. As promised last week when I explained how the loan guarantees were scored , below is page 20 (out of 69 pages) from the Congressional Budget Office's detailed version of the Senate's final "stimulus" bill. A summary of the costs of the stimulus bill can be found here (pdf). What I'm going to discuss below is what's in the table above. (Click on the image to expand.) The "Account Total for Title 17 innovative technology loan guarantee program" shows $9,000M in Budget Authority (BA) for all energy loan guarantees. A week ago it was $10B but was one of the provisions that changed to get the votes of three Republican Senators. Right above the "Account Total" is the "Supplemental Emerge...

We had a little fun with the Heritage Foundation earlier today, but at least it was in the context of some good ideas they’re putting forward. We thought we’d try a little balance and see what’s up in the environmental activist sphere – an inexact match, since environmentalism is hardly the sole province of liberals. But while the Heritage Foundation couches their arguments in a comfy cocoon of ideological certainty, Friends of the Earth charges across the room blasting a shotgun in all directions. But that doesn’t mean they hit the target : Senate appropriators voted yesterday to add a preemptive, up-to-$50-billion bailout for the nuclear industry to economic stimulus legislation. The move was strongly criticized by Friends of the Earth President Brent Blackwelder. “The nuclear industry has given millions of dollars to politicians, an investment that appears to be paying off,” Blackwelder said. "Senators are supposed to be fixing the economy but instead they’re of...

Honestly, we come not to ding wind power : One of the firms participating in the London Array project, under which the world's biggest offshore wind farm would be built in the outer Thames Estuary, has questioned the scheme's economic viability. The Financial Times reported at the weekend that Paul Golby, chief executive of E.ON UK - which owns 30 per cent of the Array venture - says that "the economics [of the Array] are looking pretty difficult". This is due to the extra expense of setting a wind farm off shore. Naturally, this caught our eye: The FT quotes energy major Centrica as estimating the cost of offshore capacity at £3m per megawatt, more than double what it costs to build nuclear stations. Once you’ve got a nuclear plant built, the running costs are relatively minimal. Nuclear energy can generate power nearly all the time while a wind farms tops out at about 30% of the time. (This fact musters this comment: “Thus, it costs more than...

This is my final post (and the longest) in the series that discredits Amory Lovins’ and the Rocky Mountain Institute’s “Nuclear Illusion” paper (pdf). Hopefully this series has opened many eyes to the flaws and inconsistencies of RMI’s claims. Let me briefly summarize the previous posts. Part One found that “micropower” is primarily made up of decentralized coal and gas plants, the generation from “non-biomass decentralized co-generation plants” (RMI’s main plants for “micropower”) was grossly exaggerated, and the “stunning performance” of nuclear’s “true competitors” was not backed up by RMI’s own sources. Part Two showed that RMI’s “micropower” data don’t fit their own definition of “micropower”. Not only that, small plants aren’t the only way to go especially since bigger power plants in general yield greater efficiencies and economies of scale. Part Three explained that energy efficiency and “negawatts” will not necessarily reduce demand and in fact strong evidence suggests it ...