When you work in the nuclear industry, sometimes it's easy to forget that much of the data we deal with every day isn't exactly common knowledge. That's why it's important to remind folks that one gram of uranium contains the energy equivalent to 6,000 pounds of coal, or that the natural nuclear reactor at Oklo has a lot to teach us about isolating nuclear materials over very long periods of time.
UPDATE: And don't forget what we know about safety.
Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Energy, Technology, Environment, Electricity, Okolo, Coal, Uranium, Yucca Mountain
UPDATE: And don't forget what we know about safety.
Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Energy, Technology, Environment, Electricity, Okolo, Coal, Uranium, Yucca Mountain
Comments
But another point should be that the costs of uraniumoxide are extremly low compared to other energyfuels.
As far as I know 3-5% of the costs of running a NPP consist of costs for uraniumoxid. This means that if the price for "Yellow Cake" would jump from 40$/Pound to 400$/Pound the enduser would hardly notice the difference ( (4% x 10) +96% = 136%)
As the prices per kWh would rise by only one third in the generation of electricity, the prices at the meter would probably end up rising even less, since the calculation of the transmission prices and other overhead costs can also be regarded as fixed costs which lower the percentage of the fuelprice variable. (Who would not love to pay just the generation costs of electricity?)
But lets compare this to coal where the price of coal makes up 40% or Gas and Oil where the price makes up 75% of the overall generation costs.
coal: (40% x 10) + 60% = 460%
oil: (75% x 10) + 25% = 775%
A price increase in the fossilsector of this magnitude would lead to shocks not only at the gaspump but also at the meter at home. (Say Goodbye aircondition and "Can I afford my fridge?".)
Fortunately such increases may stay a bit in the future a little while longer but his example shows just how indispensible nuclear energy really is.
Oh and have I told you about the above 85% capacityfactors of NPPs on average?
This is quite a bit better than coal and so much better than windenergy.
Windenergy has between 20% and 25% capacityfaktor.
10 NPPs + 1.5 NPP in reserve capacity are enough to deliver 100% of the time the capacity of the NPPs.
10 WEP + 40 to 30 Windenergyplants are nessesary to get to the same amount of powerproduction. To get to the same availability factor you will also need a storrage facility that is capabale of storing enough energy for the less windy days. Unfortunatedly there are even yearly changes in the amount of windenergy produced which means even more uncertainty in the energyproduction.
One should keep in mind that windenergy farms that produce 1000 MWh of electricity cost about 1000 USD per kWh. Even without a storagefacility you would have to pay for 4000 to 5000 windenergyplants just to harvest enough windenergy to get as much work done as a theoretical powerplant that works 24h 365 days a year and has 1000 Mwh of capacity.
The price tag for this is a hefty 4 to 5 billion USD.
This does not include the price for a storage facility which again is about 1000 USD per kwh in construction cost (another billion down the drain).
And finally you would have to factor in the expected livetime of the WEPs. 25 years maybe - but 60 years certainly not!
Hm - I think nuclear power is cheaper than windenergy.
Btw. At 400$/per Pound of uraniumoxide every exotic source for Uranium suddenly becomes cheap enough for exploitation. Be it uranium from seawater or the widespread use of fast breeder reactors... nevermind that the conventional ressources will probably explode at that pricelevel... (Yes, more than enough uranium for every possible nuclear useage scenario. One thing less to worry about.)
greetings from (sadly) phaseout policy Germany
Sp.
References:
Fuelcycle:
Fuelcycle costs between 12-17 % following a Webcast of the IAEA and NEA in Montreal 2005. I took a conservativ 20 %. (Webpagelink: http://unfccc.streamlogics.com/unfccc/agenda.asp Look for: 02 Dec. 2005 - 13:00 Side Event - "Global status and outlook for nuclear power")
Uraniumoxid as percentage of Fuelcycle
costs:
Not easy to get. All the experts I asked (VGB (Dr. Staudt), WKK, BMU (Dr. Alter) If you want to know) agree with these figures though.
The first Website is a bit unusual since it is essentially an anti - nuke Website - but the numbers seem to be sound. Nuclear Fuel Cost Calculator: http://www.wise-uranium.org/nfcc.html. To get uraniumoxid as percentage of Fuelcycle costs one has to just put in 1 tonne of Uranium and check out the relationships of the whole pricestructure. You will get 20% of the fuelcycle costs as the amount you have to pay for the uraniumoxid.
The second Website is from the WKK which is an organisation of the producers in the nuclear fuelcycle. Here is the website: http://www.kernbrennstoff.de/zahlenundfakten/kosten.html - The essential part is this one: "16 Prozent Uran und Konversion" which is easy enough to understand.
Again I took the more conservative 20%.
Nuclear Capacity Factors:
You can find the german Capacity Factor on this PDF: http://www.vgb.org/data/vgborg_/DBs-Statistiken/KKW/Betriebsergebnisse/Tabelle%201_05.pdf . The first 18 - last column. Overall capacity Factor for 2005 was a bit over 85%. (Add the first 18 Capacity factor numbers and divide by 18).
Costs per Windenergyplant:
This is the Website: http://www.wind-energie.de/de/themen/kosten/ and this is the essential sentence "1.000 Kilowatt – Leistung kostet dementsprechend 890.000 Euro". Which means basicly 1000 kw Power cost 890 000 Euros - Which translates to a bit more than a million USD.
Windenergy and other capacity factors:
See DOE Paper: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/analysis/nuclearpower.html
References I do not have handy:
1. Costs of Coal and Gas/Oil as percentage of total generation costs.
2. Costs per kwh of Storage facillity
But those numbers are to the best of my knowledge
Nuclear reactors are only enriched to about 3-4% U-235. A typical fuel pellet (about 6 grams) contains the same amount of energy as almost 1 ton of coal, 17,000 cubic feet of gas and 149 gallons of oil.
You may be right. The only figures I have paid attention to are for U-235 in regular PWRs and BWRs.
-DarrellH