Can nuclear help avoid the worst effects of climate change?
The International Energy Agency recently provided a roadmap for nuclear power, detailing how the technology could help keep global temperature increases within a 2-degree scenario. According to the IEA report, between 2015 and 2050 total installed nuclear power capacity around the world would need to more than double from 396 gigawatts (GW) to 930 GW.
To get there, the IEA says that the world will need to see an additional 20 GW of new nuclear capacity each year, a scenario that from today’s vantage point seems highly unlikely. The IEA admits as much, and says several key things must happen in order for the industry to ramp up in such a rapid fashion.
The need to train a skilled workforce, greater standardization, more public acceptance, and a resolution to long-term nuclear waste storage feature among the key objectives. There are good reasons to believe that these problems could theoretically be addressed, albeit with great political difficulty. Related: China’s Nuclear Power Gamble Is Mind-Boggling
Critically, however, the IEA notes that the nuclear industry is going to need to demonstrate that it can build new power plants on time and within budget. On this objective, the industry is failing miserably. Nuclear power plants have often suffered from cost overruns and delays, one factor (among many) that put the industry into a decades-long lull beginning in the early 1980’s. The so-called “nuclear renaissance” was thought to put an end to these problems with a new generation of designs and modular construction. So far, it hasn’t played out that way.
One of the showcases of the nuclear renaissance was a reactor to be built by Areva in Finland. Using a new generation technology, the reactor would boast enhanced safety systems and demonstrate lower cost and more timely construction. However, after starting construction in 2005 and slated to be completed in 2009, several delays have pushed off its completion and dramatically inflated costs. Areva now hopes to complete the project by late 2018, more than a decade behind schedule and perhaps at double its initial estimated cost.
In the United States, President Barack Obama has placed a lot of faith in the nuclear renaissance, granting loan guarantees to two new nuclear reactors now under construction in Georgia. The reactors will use the Westinghouse AP1000, a new design that promises simplification and safety that will cut down on construction times “The innovative technology used in this project represents a new generation of nuclear power with advanced safety features and demonstrates renewed leadership from the U.S. nuclear energy industry,” Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz said when announcing the finalization of the loan guarantees. The two new reactors in Georgia – Vogtle units 3 and 4 – are flagship projects for a new nuclear era, and the renaissance hinges on the success of these “generation III+” reactors.
Unfortunately, in January 2015 Southern Company, the owner of the Georgia reactors, announced that their completion would be delayed by 18 months and cost an additional $720 million. The reactors could end up being completed of three years behind the initial schedule. As the first newly licensed nuclear reactors in three decades, the inability to complete the project on time could put a chill on the already moribund construction queue. Even Southern Company’s CEO, who has been a big proponent of nuclear power, downplayed the possibility his company would expand beyond Vogtle. “Before we move forward on new nuclear, I think it makes sense for us to resolve these issues,” Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, referring to Vogtle’s delays. Related: Europe And Iran: The Nuclear Dispute And The Syrian Crisis
All hope is not lost – largely thanks to China, as there were 72 nuclear power plants under construction worldwide at the beginning of 2014, more than at any time in the last 25 years. But even in China reactors are being delayed. China’s most advanced reactor project announced its second delay in January. The project, using similar designs to the AP1000, may not be completed until 2016, three years behind schedule.
Meanwhile, a tidal wave of nuclear reactors will close down over the next 20 years as their operating licenses expire. There are 98 GW of nuclear capacity operating in the U.S., many of which will see their lives end by the 2030s. And there are only about 5 GW under construction at this stage. In that context, there are huge question marks about the long-term viability for nuclear power in the United States.
A massive build out of nuclear power in China is where the nuclear industry’s best hopes reside, but it is unclear if even China can make up for the shrinking industry presence in the West, let alone meet the IEA’s ambitious scenario for 2050.
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By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com
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invoked deliberately.
The black magic that thwarts the mild pro-nuclear-power tendencies of the public, and the strong ones of scientists, seems to be to the benefit of cynical government employees, contractors, and subsidy recipients. Kharecha and Hansen review the literature and find nuclear energy, over the decades and worldwide, to have kept 64 gigatonnes of CO2 out of the atmosphere and 1.84 million people out of untimely, fossil-fuel-dug graves.
But through most of those decades, in many countries, there have been grand nuclear plans that fell through, sometimes after huge investments. How many lives would *those* reactors have saved, and for each of those lost lives, who gained, and how much?
Other than the possibility of more nuclear power, we know that electric transportation, robust and secure electric grids, and electric storage are very much needed.
Much cheaper, smaller and less complex than current reactors, building ADSRs to serve even small metro areas will be possible and achieve the dream of abundant, cheap, reliable base load energy.
The future is bright.
The Post-Fukushima Nuclear Industry: A Case Study in Institutional Self-Deception
http://nf2045.blogspot.ca/2013/07/the-post-fukushima-nuclear-industry.html?m=1
snip:
At the recent International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Ministerial Conference in St. Petersburg (June 2013), director general Yukiya Amano repeated the familiar platitudes about Fukushima that deflect and deny the heavy responsibility of the IAEA and the Japanese nuclear establishment for having failed to prevent the catastrophe – one that every anti-nuclear group in Japan had been warning about for years.
So the first few reactors will take time to build, but once built, the rest will be easy.
Global warming is serious issue and 2014 was the worlds #1 warmest year.
The Korea UAE project based on the Korea's Shin Kori units is on time on schedule, as are numerous Russian units. The last 7 Candu 6's built to 007 were all on time, on schedule, following delays and a 30% cost overruns on the first units.
Delays with American AP1000's are nearly all caused by the Obama administration Big Oil funded antinuke agenda headed by Obama's appointee and antinuke zeolot Gregory Jazcko following a long tradition of Democrat appointments of anti science foes to the NRC. Fortunately the budget's are out by only small amounts.
Nearly all the Chinese delay was due to the Fuku reassessment process.
Large first of a kind civil engineering projects, particularly with regulatory implications, are often over budget and delayed.
Note that the long overdue and many times over budget Boeing 787 is now flying nicely.
With today's interest rates at historic low levels even in the US with ponzi scam gas priced at 30% its cost of production, new public power nukes are half the cost of any alternatives, cheaper even than the operating cost of existing fossil plants giving them a pass for the tens of thousands murdered by air pollution annually.
France was able to go from near zero to 75% nuke in a little over 10 years a few decades ago at half the cost of fossil fuels, while German engineers joke about achieving the same standard 40 years from now using wind and solar. The more than a 100 million that will die from air pollution while waiting for this miracle and the possible billions that will lose their lives if the wait drags us over an AGW precipice, seems like a reasonable sacrifice to the renewable religious nut or fossil energy scammer.
Because we now live in a far different country than we did several decades ago, we are now at the mercy of elected officials that support whatever is best for their BIG Donors, most of which represent Old School Energy Producers.
Happily, Public opinion is shifting and we are now seeing large numbers of both investors and ratepayers that are demanding better from their Utilities. These Utilities must now pay attention to this demand if they are to convince investors and ratepayers that they don’t need to install their own Solar Energy generating systems, which now threaten the profitability of Big Utilities bottom line as never before.
Big Utilities must now cope with decreases in Energy generating costs that make long term investments in Old School energy generation like new Nuclear, something that is becoming ever harder to justify, since Solar (of all flavors) cost is decreasing almost monthly and storage battery technology is going to dramatically change the Energy Generation/Storage equation in the very near future.
Here is one just one example of what is coming very soon to the Energy Marketplace:
LOOK OUT NUCLEAR PLANTS ===> Putting the world’s largest and most powerful gas turbine to the test
http://www.gizmag.com/ge-harriet-gas-turbine-test/36176/
Just imagine what will be “online” in 10 to 30 years from now at much less cost than using Nuclear…
I believe that turbines this size and even larger ones which will follow will be used to maintain Large Capacity Grid Storage batteries in various locations across the USA and make sharing Energy an even better deal, once the Grid gets upgraded.
Is There Any Hope Left For Nuclear Energy?
Is N?