Green Car Congress: Energy Alberta Files Site Application for Oil Sands Nuclear Plant

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Energy Alberta Files Site Application for Oil Sands Nuclear Plant

28 August 2007

Rendering of the heat transport system in the ACR-1000. Click to enlarge.

Energy Alberta Corporation (Energy Alberta) has filed an application for a site preparation license for two twin-unit ACR-1000 CANDU nuclear reactors to provide power for the oil sands operations in Alberta.

Energy Alberta, a privately held company incorporated in Calgary in October 2005, plans initially to build one twin-unit ACR-1000 that will ultimately produce a total net 2,200 MW of electricity with a targeted in-service date of early 2017.

The chosen site is on private land adjacent to Lac Cardinal, approximately 30 km west of the town of Peace River, Alberta. Energy Alberta said it chose the Peace River region as its preferred site “because of the demonstrated support from the community, existence of essential infrastructure and support services, and technical feasibility.”

The ACR-1000 is an evolutionary, Generation III+, 1,200 MWe class nuclear power plant built on Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd.’s (AECL) CANDU nuclear technology. With a 60-year design life, the ACR-1000 reactor core consists of fuel and light-water coolant in pressure tubes with a heavy water moderator.

The ACR-1000 features low enriched fuel, higher steam pressure for increased efficiency, a smaller reactor core with improved stability to enable higher output, and much larger thermal margins designed for end-of-life conditions.

The ACR-1000 incorporates 80% of the technical specification from the proven CANDU 6 design such as the modular, horizontal fuel channel core, low-temperature heavy-water moderator, waterfilled vault, two independent diverse shutdown systems, on-power fuelling and a reactor building accessible for on-power maintenance.

There are currently 10 CANDU 6 reactors in operation worldwide, with one more under construction. The CANDU 6 is a 700 MWe class nuclear power reactor.

The project to build the new Peace River reactors will be subject to review under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

Two oil sands developers—Husky Energy Inc. and Total—have also indicated possible interest in using nuclear power for their operations.

Resources:

The ACR-1000: Operator-Driven CANDU Development

August 28, 2007 in Nuclear, Oil sands, Power Generation | Permalink | Comments (138) | TrackBack (0)

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Comments

The power plant delivers steam that gets injected into the oil sand to reduce its viscosity. The electricity is used to produce hydrogen so the heavy oil can be hydrocracked into lighter compounds. So, everybody wins, right?

Except for the people of the region, who are stuck with not just the dregs left over from oil sand mining but also a rapidly vanishing water table and a pile of radioactive bliss when the robber barons decide its time to move on.

The nuclear lobby must be licking its chops.

Posted by: Rafael Seidl | Aug 28, 2007 12:06:26 PM

What, what, what? Someone (Rafael?) has got to know whether this is actually worthwhile from more than just the economic perspective. We already use enough NG in extraction/refining operations to power an EV about the same distance as the refined gasoline takes a similar ICE propelled vehicle, provided of course the NG used in extracting/refining the oil was instead used for power generation.

I mean, at least now, it's kind of a wash, and we do use/need all the other refined products, so in some respects it's better to use gasoline constructively if we're gonna end up stuck with it anyway, even with all the additional pollutants associated with it, since we don't have much to replace all those other refined products. But this, I dunno... How much does this extra energy needed, that could be electricity in the consumer's home, favor an EV compared to all the pollution assocaited with an operation like this?

Posted by: yesplease | Aug 28, 2007 12:09:50 PM

Er... Welp, that was quick. :)

Posted by: yesplease | Aug 28, 2007 12:11:24 PM

Normally I find your posts rational and reasonable, Rafael. But I just don't understand your opposition to nuclear power.

Posted by: Cervus | Aug 28, 2007 12:34:24 PM

One insanity supplemented by another.

Posted by: jack | Aug 28, 2007 12:59:03 PM

By 2017 wind power will be far more economical than this nuclear facility. And then we get clean energy as well instead of nuclear power that would not be built if it was not for their exemptions from liability for accidents, terrorism etc. Also 2000MW by 2017 is nothing compared to the annual global production of wind turbines in 2017 that will be between 112000MW and 272000MW depending on whether the industry will grow at 20% pro anno from its present level or whether it will grow at 30%. The 2000MW of nuclear power compares to 5000 MW of wind turbine power because of a better capacity factor for nuclear power. If they need the power by 2017 they should just order 5000MW of wind turbines in 2015 and it will be ready at less cost and no pollution. The business case for nuclear power simply does not make any sense any more.

Posted by: Henrik | Aug 28, 2007 1:12:10 PM

This is more elegant than traditional nuclear power in that a waste product (heat) is used to supplement another process (oil sand extraction)...but it is still not a satisfying outcome. Sure, Saudi light sweet crude can be extracted for a couple bucks a barrel, and this process will never be competitive with that. However, at $70/barrel, they're going to extract from oil sands. They might as well use less carbon doing it.

I think a more interesting usage of nuclear power waste heat is to pump it into bedrock to make the bedrock a giant heat synch, that can be tapped in the winter for geothermal power...but that might be far fetched.

Posted by: HealthyBreeze | Aug 28, 2007 1:16:14 PM

There are some prominent environmentalists who are nuclear power proponents. Namely, Stewart Brand, who created the Whole Earth Catalog, and Patrick Moore, one of the co-founders of Greenpeace.

Posted by: Cervus | Aug 28, 2007 1:16:37 PM

If we're going to have a reactor, the CANDUs have a great safety record and are inherently much safer than other designs. Expensive yes, as the water coolant is also the moderator (heavy water) but if you lose the coolant you also lose the moderator and thus the reaction. Then you just have the waste heat to disperse.

Way safer than lumping graphite in there.. Steam explosion? Wigner energy and a whole load of other horrid complications. Graphite is cheap, otherwise it'd be banned.

Posted by: Ruaraidh | Aug 28, 2007 1:42:55 PM

Ya know, windmills take up vast quantities of land, especially to get the wattage you're talking about, plus you have to run A LOT of wires, and you loose a lot of efficiency doing it that way. plus nuclear power is reliable, wind isn't always blowing, but you can get a pretty constant stream of uranium coming in.

Posted by: Brad | Aug 28, 2007 1:50:45 PM

Ruaraidh,

the vast majority of nuclear power reactors use a water moderator. The reason why CANDU used heavy water is that the lower neutron adsorption cross section of heavy water allowed them to use natural uranium rather than enriched. Though IIRC current CANDU designs like this one do require enriched uranium.

Posted by: jb | Aug 28, 2007 1:58:01 PM

Expensive yes, as the water coolant is also the moderator (heavy water) but if you lose the coolant you also lose the moderator and thus the reaction.

Actually, the coolant in CANDU is ordinary water. The heavy water is in the calandria around the pressure tubes and is not itself at high pressure or temperature. This is actually a nice feature, since the large volume of pressurized water in a PWR contains considerable stored energy that has to be dealt with in accidents.

New generation CANDUs also use much less heavy water (about 1/4 as much, IIRC) to improve the economics of the system. Also, the Canadians have a new heavy water production technology (based on hydrogen-water exchange, using hydrogen either from reformed methane or from electrolysis) that reduces the cost of making heavy water well below that of the old Girdler Sulfide process.

Use of enriched uranium enables the reactor to operate with higher burnup, which reduces operating cost and the number of spent fuel elements.

Posted by: Paul Dietz | Aug 28, 2007 2:06:30 PM

First, the proposed cost of this plant is $ 6.2 Billion, not to mention the cost of maintenance, fuel purchase and waste storage. Who said Nuclear fuel is cheap?
That's a lot of research that could go into solar cells and batteries.
Second, this proposed site is many 100's of kilometers away from Ft Mt Murray and the oil sands, so I doubt that the waste heat will be used.
Third, this site is remote and Alberta currently has trouble attracting and retaining a highly skilled workforce.
I don't think it will fly and if it does we should simply charge our plug in hybrids or EVs directly.

Posted by: Mark | Aug 28, 2007 2:19:22 PM

There are some prominent environmentalists who are nuclear power proponents. Namely, Stewart Brand, who created the Whole Earth Catalog, and Patrick Moore, one of the co-founders of Greenpeace.

So? Moore is an industry hack, so that leaves one.

People who are radical often swing the exact opposite direction at a later point in life. David Horowitz is a perfect example.

Still doesn't matter. Bad ideas are bad ideas. Doesn't matter who supports them.

Posted by: jack | Aug 28, 2007 2:31:04 PM

Jack:

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, though an ad hominem attack on Moore just doesn't cut it as a rebuttal.

Interesting that among those proponents is that radical of radicals, James Lovelock.

Posted by: Cervus | Aug 28, 2007 2:39:02 PM

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, though an ad hominem attack on Moore just doesn't cut it as a rebuttal.

Did you actually present Moore's arguments or simply use an appeal to authority fallacy yourself?

Interesting that among those proponents is that radical of radicals, James Lovelock.

That makes three appeals to authority.

Posted by: jack | Aug 28, 2007 2:48:42 PM

Jack:

I think it'd be best for all here if we just agree to disagree rather than engage in an endless verbal tennis match.

Posted by: Cervus | Aug 28, 2007 2:54:52 PM

"Perhaps new advances in technology will remedy the environmental and economic problems that plague the industry. If so, fine. Investors will respond with orders for new nukes and we'll have no complaint. But in the meantime, the feds shouldn't try to ram this technology down the market's throat.

In the final analysis, the nuclear industry is purely a creature of government. The administration needs to practice the free-market rhetoric that it preaches and put away its nuclear pompoms."

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=4290

Posted by: jack | Aug 28, 2007 3:18:19 PM

But I just don't understand your opposition to nuclear power.

Cervus, you're kidding, right? Does no one here care about sustainability? The near-universal once-through fuel cycle is a toxic joke. The U.S. has been piling up waste since the 1940's and still hasn't figured out where to put it.

If you can convince the governments of the U.S. and Canada to open a proper waste depository and/or build reprocessing plants, I'm all ears.

Otherwise, you're just pawning off today's energy problems onto tomorrow's children.

No freaking way!

Posted by: BlackSun | Aug 28, 2007 3:24:09 PM

BlackSun:

I view the waste issue as a solvable technological problem. IE: Reprocessing to squeeze more energy out of the available uranium. Hence my support.

Posted by: Cervus | Aug 28, 2007 3:34:56 PM

@Cervus -

my reasons for opposing nuclear power in a nutshell:

a) even in supposedly safety-conscious Western countries like Japan, Sweden and Germany, nuclear power stations regularly suffer minor accidents. Nothing unusual about that in a large industrial installation and, there are backup and containment systems for just about every conceivable scenario. Nevertheless, a little sloppiness / idiocy can go a very long way when it comes to radioactivity (cp. Chernobyl).

b) over 60 years after the first commercial nuclear reactors came on stream, there is still no viable solution for the long-term storage of waste or the safe decommissioning of the most polluted reactor components. Yes, only ~5% of the uranium is actually use so the waste can and should be reprocessed, if only to avoid depleting soures of primary uranium. And yes, robots can cut up the steel parts and safely ensconce them in glass. That's not the point. The point is no-one wants the stuff in their back yard (cp. Yucca Mountain).

c) the true economic cost of construction, waste disposal and decomissioning are often understated because the taxpayer often takes on huge liabilities in addition to overt subsidies.

d) if Western nations decide to get back in the business of building commercial reactors, what hope do they have of dissuading dodgy regimes from pursuing nuclear weapons under the cover of a purely civilian program? The dividing line between military and civilian uses for nuclear technology is quite thin and hard to detect if a country chooses not to co-operate fully and truthfully with international watchdog agencies. Attempting to contain a rogue government for what could be many decades is both risky and expensive.

f) countries that have nuclear weapons and nuclear-powered naval vessels need to make sure the scientists and engineers involved are kept busy even when no new military systems are needed. Idle hand make the devil's work etc. (cp. Pakistan's freelance nuclear industry). It is no coincidence that the world's nuclear powers all run large civilian programs as well.

---

Against all that, nuclear power's main selling point these days is that it doesn't produce any CO2. This is not a trivial advantage. However, as other commenters have pointed out, renewables achieve the same thing. Depending on how you count the true cost of nuclear power, it could well be the cheaper option. This is especially true if we get serious about conservation first. Energy is not just about ever-increasing supply.

Posted by: Rafael Seidl | Aug 28, 2007 4:49:14 PM

Rafael:

Thank you for your detailed answer. I can see where you're coming from. However, all those negatives must be weighed against CO2 issues and the shortcomings of intermittent renewables. Even if we doubled our efficiency through conservation or other measures, we would still need to replace the older reactors we have in operation as they come to end of life, if only to use safer designs like the CANDU or pebble bed.

Posted by: Cervus | Aug 28, 2007 5:04:39 PM

Who here thinks the nuclear industry gives one flying flip about CO2?

Part of the reason some old-hand environmentalists come out with (tepid) support of nuclear is because so many heel draggers didn't listen to them 30 or 40 years ago when we could have averted the much worse choices we face today. Inevitably, they all fall back on some false dilemma of "lesser of two evils" thinking, comparing it to coal.

I find it ironic that now the very same people who openly mock "hair-shirt environmentalism" (of which Mr. Brand, Mr. Lovelock, and Mr. Moore were one-time supporters of) now take their side when it fits their opinions. I also find it ironic that those very same people are of the type who got us into the mess we're in in the first place.

Posted by: jack | Aug 28, 2007 5:19:31 PM

@ Rafael:

If I might add: Yucca Mountain's reservations for nuclear waste space is full and it hasn't been completed yet (NPR).

Remember when President Bush announced that we were addicted to oil and then proposed the use of nuclear power and switch grass, along with the rest. I asked myself, "What's in it for his oil buddies?" Now I see the ties between the nuclear industry and the oil industry; feathering his nest from both sides. Still trying to figure out the switch grass connections. It might have been thrown in there just to convolve the alternative energy issues and mask underling motives.

Posted by: Lad | Aug 28, 2007 5:43:19 PM

Nuclear waste reprocessing would not only solve 90% of the waste problem but would also extend the usefulness of nuclear fuel greatly. I don't like tar sands oil but this is a better then burning huge amounts of natural gas. I hope they make electricity at the same time.

Posted by: hampden wireless | Aug 28, 2007 6:10:21 PM

I'm not absolutely opposed to nuclear power and would tend to agree with Rafael's points but two of them require clairifcation:

1/ Storage of nuclear material in glass is not as safe as once thought. Recent research has shown that the glass degrades at a much faster rate than expected. Don't ask me for a reference, I read it in the newspaper a few months back.

2/ Nuclear power is far from CO2 neutral. Building the plants requires thousands of tonnes of concrete and concrete manufacture is just about the most CO2 intensive manufacturing process on the planet apart from aluminium. Uranium mining and processing is also very C02 intensive. As demand for uranium increases and miners start to turn to lower grade ores then the energy intensity will increase.

The reactors in the post are said to have a 60 year lifespan. Many believe we have about 40 years supply of high grade ore left. After that you're stuck with some extremely expensive and toxic stranded assets.

Having said all that there may be a case to be made for an emergency program to switch from coal to nuclear generated electricity for the sake of the clmate if serious attention is given to solving the problems. Anythings got to be better than burning coal.

Posted by: critta | Aug 28, 2007 6:42:35 PM

Alberta does not have many other acceptable options.

NG is running out.

Using fuel extracted from tar sands would compound the GHG produced by the total process and reduce end product quantities.

Using local low quality coal could even be worse.

Wind or Sun power does not have the required continuity.

A combination of Nuclear + Wind turbines + Solar farms may satisfy most requirements on a full time basis without adding too much GHG.

Regarless of which combination is used, Nuclear seems to be indicated for core energy production.

Posted by: | Aug 28, 2007 8:39:52 PM

Most fears of nuclear power power don't take into account new design like Pebble bed reactors and sub-critical reactors that are not only melt down proof but actually eat existing nuclear waste. Solar/wind/water are inconsistent forms of energy that need a continues back up like nuclear to insure regularity. Fears of nuclear power usually don't consider how much damage has been done by non-nuclear sources of energy like fossil fuels, which in fact is far greater. The small amount of radioactive waste and even the nuclear accidents is nothing compared to the millions and billions of metric tons of CO2, SO2, carcinogenic particulates, thorium and uranium spit up by burning coal. In fact more people have probably died from coal based air pollution then from nuclear contamination. Fear of nuclear power is often irrational and based on the image of a mushroom cloud.

Posted by: | Aug 28, 2007 9:03:04 PM

Industry mouthpieces out in force, as always.

Posted by: jack | Aug 28, 2007 9:16:50 PM

"Solar and wind are inconsistent. Fusion would enable a constant source of power.

It makes sense to invest in both (renewable & fusion) at the same time but regardless of how much money you throw at it (fusion research), you still need the time and knowledgeable researchers to advance the technology."

I hear an echo.

Posted by: jack | Aug 28, 2007 9:18:52 PM

"Nuclear has much to offer: Particle bed reactors are melt-down proof, 55% efficient and use fuel in silicon carbide coconuts so tough that there is no need for a containment dome and once spent all that needed is to bury the nuts somewhere. Only problem is people's irrational fear of nuclear power despite the fact that coal has pumped up more radioactive material (thorium and uranium in coal ash) and cause far more damage world wide to public and environmental health."

Another echo.

Posted by: jack | Aug 28, 2007 9:27:21 PM

Nuclear mouthpieces love using the word "irrational." Reminds me of Gingrich's list of "contrasting words." Same phraseology, over and over.

Posted by: jack | Aug 28, 2007 9:29:29 PM

Jack,

You are not being constructive. Your shouts of "nuclear mouthpiece" at anyone who dares to speak in favor of nuclear power is juvenile tantrum throwing, and doesn't belong here.

Posted by: | Aug 28, 2007 11:05:55 PM

Cervus, I mentioned reprocessing, and I'm all for it. But the industry is not doing it because it's against current government policy (courtesy of Carter). They need to build the reprocessing plants first, then we'll know they're serious about sustainability. I don't see it happening. It's a 5-10 year lead time even if they had the permits now, which they don't and it's not even being discussed.

Posted by: BlackSun | Aug 29, 2007 12:22:29 AM

The tar-sand companies use natural gas (NG) to get hydrogen for upgrading the crappy, dirty tar. Why not start setting up wind turbines for hydrogen electrolosys to supplement the NG? Add capacity gradually and gain experience with reliability.

One of the virtues of hydrogen (supposedly) is that it can be stored. You only need enough storage to smoothe out the intermittency of wind power, and/or supplement with NG.

Tar-sands production seems to me like exactly the kind of business that can accomodate a minor intermittent energy input.

Posted by: Thomas | Aug 29, 2007 1:42:25 AM

"Most fears of nuclear power don't take into account new designs like Pebble bed reactors and sub-critical reactors that are not only melt down proof but actually eat existing nuclear waste. "

PBMRs (pebble beds) do not eat existing waste. they are based on the same wasteful once-through fuel cycle as the rest of the industry. Subcritical reactors are just that, designs, one has never been built. the costs involved are unknown but expected to be very high and the technical challanges remaining are considerable.

For those tossing around James Lovelock as an appeal to authority, they should read "Revenge of Gaia". There he posits that 80% of the current world population will be wiped out very soon, and the survivors will have to retreat to the Poles to survive. Basically, it's Mad Max 4. I'm not saying he's a loon, but....

Posted by: gavin | Aug 29, 2007 6:13:33 AM

not being constructive
shouts of "nuclear mouthpiece"
juvenile tantrum throwing

Ah, you're a troll. Makes sense now.

Posted by: jack | Aug 29, 2007 6:22:54 AM

@Lad- "Still trying to figure out the switch grass connections."
Big Biomass Lobby? Nuclear energy definitely has its place, and I can tell you exactly where it is: Somewhere other than my backyard.
But in all seriousness, nuclear is certainly going to be part of the mix, on a global basis at least, for a long time. France, for example, gets upwards of 80% of its power from nuclear. But this need not be the case in North America. We get less than 20% of our electricity from nuclear plants, most of which are pretty old, and unlike some parts of the planet, we have a wide variety of alternatives from which to choose, not the least of which is all the energy we can potentially conserve. Considering our current position and lack of inertia in the domestic nuclear industry (at least before the current administration), I would think the common sense approach would be to expand conservation programs and renewables, invest in cleaning up coal, and leave other nations to deal with the headaches of nuke-you-lar. Westinghouse can make nice profits oversees installing modern nuclear plants. If we ever get in a crunch for power, we have a nice large stockpile of aging nuclear weapons, and nuclear waste that can be reprocessed using technology which will have been field tested abroad, and in the meantime, we can make some cash exporting Uranium to countries like France who depend on it, instead of using it in old, inefficient plants.

Posted by: Bob Bastard | Aug 29, 2007 7:10:06 AM

Thanks to Rafael for constructively laying out common reasons for opposition to nuclear power. We see that these objections are political and economic problems and are therefore soluble problems: the world *will* solve them when the situation becomes desperate enough.

And it will become desperate, because the world's energy problem is precisely about increasing supply while containing global warming. Sustaining nine billion people at a modern standard of living at a Western European/Japanese standard of energy efficiency will require increasing the world's energy supply by about a factor of four. It is physically impossible to conserve our way into that future of economic justice. No known feasible technology permits capturing and sequestering for a usefully long time enough CO2 to prevent global warming (in 2005 burning coal alone released ten thousand cubic miles of CO2; we would have to capture and semipermanently hold more than 1,000 cubic miles of CO2 every year in order to halt anthropogenic global warming). Quadrupling energy supplies with renewables alone would be much more expensive than doing it with safe, clean nuclear power.

The sooner we accept the scale of the problems involved the sooner we will accept the necessary solutions. We should do this before we drown the world's coastal cities and create half a billion refugees.

Posted by: richard schumacher | Aug 29, 2007 7:23:27 AM

Quadrupling energy supplies with renewables alone would be much more expensive than doing it with safe, clean nuclear power.

Safe! Clean! Too cheap to meter! We need to quadruple energy output!

Signed,
The 50s

Posted by: jack | Aug 29, 2007 7:31:08 AM

From the article:

2,200 MW
60-year design life

From Mark:
"First, the proposed cost of this plant is $ 6.2 Billion ..."

From the Canadian Tire catalog:

View larger image

Deferred Payment

See More Wind Energy

Whisper 100 Wind Turbine
$2,999.99 = $3K
950W of power at 45km.hr winds

120W Solar Panel
Delivers 120W of power in peak sunlight
$1,099.99 = $1.1K

Now in a large installation economies of scale would cut these prices in half, so:
turbine@950W = $1.5K
panel@120W = $0.5K

Compared to this nuclear plant that generates 2200MW:

2,200,000 KW / 0.95 KW = 2,315,789 turbines
2,200,000 KW / 0.12 KW = 18,333,333 panels
(NOTE: I am using PEAK output so I am being VERY generous)

2,315,789 turbines x $1.5K = $3473683.5K = $3.5B for turbines
18,333,333 x $0.5K = $9166666.5K = $9.1B

So this nuke @$6.2B is in between turbines and solar panels.

However, nukes clearly have a much higher maintenance and fuel costs. On the other hand, both turbines and panels have very high upfront land costs, infrastructure costs (wiring, transformers, etc) plus some maintenance (damage from the elements).

In fact, no one anywhere in the world has demonstrated the ability to acquire such a large chunk of land and actually deploy so many turbines/panels without any regulatory or other legal problems. On the contrary I keep reading about land owners complaining and fighting against turbines all the time (much smaller installations too).

I am the biggest fan of turbines and solar panels. However, they simply cannot provide a steady supply of power at such a massive level (MWs). No way no how. It just cannot be done today.

Of course, installing smaller capacity systems consisting of turbines and panels would be good, but would not remove the original problem - lack of massive amounts of power these projects need.

As others pointed out nukes have problems as well, such as waste. Still it is a lesser evil compared to coal and other alternatives, which are limited in Alberta.

So stop dreaming about turbines and panels. They won't server industrial users any time soon. They will work well for residential use, households that generally have much more modest needs.

In the meantime oil industry has few choices - nukes, coal, natural gas. Anything else?

Posted by: q | Aug 29, 2007 7:45:13 AM

Lesser evil! Massive amounts of power! Dreamers! Steady supply!

The "lesser evil" argument is fallacious on its face. There are more than two choices.

The mere fact that we're processing tar sands is insane -- a reflection of our unceasing addiction to unsustainable energy (ie, anything not renewable, including nuclear).

It is not "dreaming" to know that we can live well and live sustainably.

The "steady supply" argument is negated by grid compensation and storage mechanisms. It's the dumbest argument out there against renewables.

As for the economic questions, we've faced multiple fold increases in energy prices in a few short years, yet the world economy didn't collapse. Yet people will come here and shave pennies while ignoring the extreme differences in environmental effects/legacies of the choices they support.

Our grandchildren are going to hate us if we chose to give them a very damaged world because we couldn't pony up a penny or two.

Posted by: jack | Aug 29, 2007 8:04:25 AM

Wow, what a collection of hoary old fallacies, from both sides.

over 60 years after the first commercial nuclear reactors came on stream, there is still no viable solution for the long-term storage of waste

Surface or near-surface storage in armored casks is quite viable, even for long-term storage. You should take the glacial pace of deep geologic storage in the US as evidence that it isn't really needed.

Nuclear power is far from CO2 neutral. Building the plants requires thousands of tonnes of concrete and concrete manufacture is just about the most CO2 intensive manufacturing process on the planet apart from aluminium. Uranium mining and processing is also very C02 intensive.

The actual numbers show that nuclear would have similar CO2 emission per unit of energy produced as 'renewable' sources, and much lower than fossil sources. Beware of biased analyses that assume the use of inefficient gaseous diffusion enrichment and that assume (for no honest reason) that such plants must be powered by electricity from coal.

Many believe we have about 40 years supply of high grade ore left.

And many believe that much larger sources will be brought online, and that seawater uranium extraction can be commercialized at a cost per unit of uranium not much above current spot market prices. This produces no mine tailings and will last for many centuries, even without reprocessing.

But the industry is not doing [reprocessing] because it's against current government policy (courtesy of Carter).

No, they're not doing reprocessing because it's economically ludicrous. There was a commercial reprocessing plant in the US that shut down after six years because it couldn't make its business case close. Uranium would have to become much more expensive than even the recent elevated spot market prices in order for reprocessing to start to make economic sense.

Posted by: Paul Dietz | Aug 29, 2007 8:18:57 AM

Well of course we are selfish and have unlimited appetite for things, including oil. Sure, we are doing all kinds of damage to environment, etc. The fact remains that there is not way today to tell people in Alberta not to mine for oil. There is no way to stop them building coal based power planets. etc.

I DO think that at some point as the proce of oil continues to climb we WILL change our habits and switch to hybrids, even start installing turbines and solar panels. However it does seem to be taking a long time. Worst of all we seem to find it easier to wage wars (Iraq) for oil than seek better answers (solar).

My point is that instead of fighting wars (Iraq) or building a bunch of new coal plants (Texas util) Albertans are at least going with the least offensive and least polluting option - nukes.

Simply stating that everyone should go solar is not a realistic option.

Posted by: q | Aug 29, 2007 8:19:11 AM

The fact remains that there is not way today to tell people in Alberta not to mine for oil. There is no way to stop them building coal based power planets. etc.

No way? So Canada doesn't have a government that sets the terms of its society? I didn't know that.

Simply stating that everyone should go solar is not a realistic option.

"Irrational"
"Juvenile"
"Feasible"
"Realistic"
etc

Like I was saying about Gingrich's list.

No one is saying that solar alone is the solution. Please don't construct strawmen.

Posted by: jack | Aug 29, 2007 8:37:34 AM

The actual numbers show that nuclear would have similar CO2 emission per unit of energy produced as 'renewable' sources

Where are these "actual numbers"?

Posted by: jack | Aug 29, 2007 10:37:43 AM

Opinions on nuclear power are too polarized to be able to have a reasonable dialog in a forum like this. Rafael, at least, knows what he's talking about, but so does Paul Dietz--and they come out on opposite sides of the issue. I was a little disappointed to see Rafael raising the Chernobyl spectre; the Chernobyl reactors used a design that was singularly dangerous, and has never been used outside the FSU. A repeat of Chernobyl is simply not a credible scenario for any of the designs that are candidates for new reactors.

One comment regarding the PBMR fuel cycle: although it's a "once thru" cycle, it has a much higher burnup ratio than older reactor designs. As the reactor operates, a significant fraction of the non-fissile U238 gets converted to fissile PU239 and then fissions. The "breeding ratio" is less than 1.0, so there's no net accumulation of plutonium. Spent fuel is not reprocessed. But it does obtain substantially more net energy per pound of uranium than older "once through" cycles.

Posted by: | Aug 29, 2007 11:22:54 AM

No, they're not doing reprocessing because it's economically ludicrous. There was a commercial reprocessing plant in the US that shut down after six years because it couldn't make its business case close. Uranium would have to become much more expensive than even the recent elevated spot market prices in order for reprocessing to start to make economic sense.

Paul, I can't believe you're actually making that argument. If reprocessing is uneconomical, then nuclear power is uneconomical. Current policy allows plant operators to store vast quantities of waste on their premises near populated areas. This is insanity.

Things only make sense when viewed from a sustainable perspective. The only reason nuclear power ever seemed remotely like a good deal is because the users of the power weren't paying for the cleanup--and they still aren't. Even burial is not a completely sustainable solution. Who pays for monitoring for 10,000 years? The only way it makes sense to run nuke plants is if we are will to pay the full costs of a complete closed-loop reprocessing operation.

Anything else is old, conservative, bleed-the-planet-dry, let-our-kids-pay-for-it thinking.

Posted by: BlackSun | Aug 29, 2007 11:25:26 AM

A Canadian friend of mine mentioned to me in passing some time ago that Canada is actually "reprocessing" some old US nuclear weapons. Does anyone know anything about this?

Posted by: Bob Bastard | Aug 29, 2007 11:37:26 AM

Why not use particle accelerator driven subcritical reactor to transmute the waste? Oh because it more economical to just store the waste then to design a new reactor to destroy it, got it.

Posted by: Ben | Aug 29, 2007 11:39:35 AM

"Irrational"
"Juvenile"
"Reasonable"
"Realistic"
"Feasible"

Signed,
Anonymous Coward

YAWN.

Posted by: jack | Aug 29, 2007 12:58:28 PM

aaah didn't you say that jack?

Posted by: Ben | Aug 29, 2007 1:27:07 PM

No, the list of derogatory terminology used by nuclear apologists is growing. Just wanted to catalog the propaganda a bit.

Posted by: jack | Aug 29, 2007 1:41:05 PM

Jack,

Why can't you just agree to disagree and cease with the endless conspiracy plots. If it isn't against Big Auto, Big Oil, Big Utilities, its against Science for contradicting your pet nostrums for un-economic anti-science technologies, and Doomsday prophecies. Your ad hominem attacks grow wearisome.

The world uses 90 Quads or so of energy per annum. Despite all the urgings from pseudo-environmental know-nothings, less than 1 Quad comes from "renewable" wind and solar sources.

So please desist with "Lets substitute renewables" or "it will be profitable someday soon," or "Do with out".

YOU sir, do without. FIRST.

Wind and solar cost almost 5 times what Nuclear or fossil coal does per KWH. That isn't changing. End of Story.

"No reprocessing" used to be the mantra, but that was adopted to pacify the anti-science "enviros". The Yucca Mountain repository will hold all the US high level waste. When not if, reprocessed, all the US will produce for another century too. If the US doesn't build reprocessors, we'll get it done overseas, where others will or are doing it. Eventually we'll let the US government, probably the TVA, build an Actinide Burner power reactor; and the resultant waste going into the Yucca Mountain will be radiologically safe in a couple hundred years.

You complain of limited uranium supplies; and I agree, we only have 10,000-100,000 years worth of known reserves or so, including the oceans. The supplies when taken from the oceans don't lead to concentration of power in dangerous regimes like the mid-East. We won't be using fission for more than another hundred years, so that is essentially unlimited, I suspect.

Patrick Moore and I were environmentally actually doing something to improve the world for decades. I was pushing for a revaluation of commercial nuclear fission long before the green shirts started carrying signs and mindlessly chanting "No Nukes!". I'm proud to stand with him, Stewart Brand, and James Lovelock and other rational and genuine environmentalists, rather than the PR flacks, lawyers, and cynics in it for the boodle.

Present Nukes have destroyed more nuclear weapons and permanently burned up the PU fissile material, than all your ridiculous friends campaigns that only served to warm the atmosphere and have not removed a single gram from the inventory.

I can't give you a precise figure but its easily over 1000 warheads have been permanently and irretrievably been "beaten from swords into plowshares". this was done in commercial power reactors, the only real incinerators for fissile bomb-making material.

Posted by: Stan Peterson | Aug 29, 2007 3:01:24 PM

I fully support this project and believe it to be environmentally benign (except that it does produce a fossil fuel for consumption). There are several other additional reactors, probably similar advanced CANDUs, under consideration in Canada for more conventional electrical generation. Canada is developing a long term geologic repository roughly analogous, but technically superior to, Yucca mountain.

Anon. has, I believe, a technical error: He states that pebble bed reactors do not accumulate plutonium.

All thermal spectrum reactors, LWRs, HWRs and PBs, accumulate plutonium if they use natural or low enriched uranium for fuel. A majority of the Pu-239 created will be fissioned. A small fraction of the Pu-239 will absorb a neutron, not fission, and become Pu-240. This isotope is not fissile and will accumulate proportionally with burnup.

Pu-240 can be made to fission but requires a fast spectrum reactor. On a long term basis, fast reactors will be required to replace the current and the new thermal spectrum reactors being planned. Fast reactors can address the long term waste issue by burning the transuranics as fuel. They are also much more fuel efficient than thermal spectrum reactors since they can also burn U-238 directly. Fifty years from now we need to be commercially deploying fast reactors.

Posted by: Bill Young | Aug 29, 2007 3:02:21 PM

Some things in here are correct. Some are not. Some missing some info.

Present CANDU reactors use heavy water as both coolent and moderator. The ACR in question still uses heavy water as a moderator but not as a coolent. This reduces the cost of the reactor since lesser amounts of heavy water are used but necessitates the use of slightly enriched (1-2%) uranium due to increased neutron absorbtion. Interesting thing about the PDF was that it left out the capacity factors for the older Pickering first gen CANDU-6 (515MW)

The history of the pebble bed reactor is somewhat mixed and saying that accidents won't happen is somewhat false. One of the original test reactors of this type in germany was shut down due to one of the fuel element balls getting stuck. Although thermal expansion creates negative feedback on the reaction, it's still a 1000+ Celsius operating machine. No nuclear reactor has ever had a melt down but you don't need a meltdown to create a dangerous accident. Also 55% efficient? In what respect? Thermally? With secondary heat uses/product? There are many different ways to define efficiency.

Nuclear reprocessing does happen. It happens in Germany and France. Japan continues to send its used fuel to Europe to be reprocessed and is building its own reprocessing facilities. I've never heard of a case of fuel reprocessing in the US or any company trying to do this. It has usually come down to the arguement of Carter and nuclear proliferation.

Nuclear cost of 6.3 billion sounds good for a 2.2GW station. Problem is, can they do it? Last nuclear stations built in Ontario were CANDU 9's at Darlington. Delayed about a decade they ended up being 7 billion over budget (total 14.4 billion). The delay was due to various problems including decreased demand for electricity. The 2 Candu-6 reactors built in Qinshan were on time and on budget. Japan's GE boiling water reactors at Kashiwazki were built on time and budget but then look at Finland's Olkiluoto 3 which is over a year behind schedule. Without streamlining procedures who knows? And this would be a first of type with the typical learning costs.

In a Montreal apartment project, solar heat is created and pumped into the bedrock so that it can be taken out during the winter.

Patrick Moore's actual contributions to Greenpeace and environmentalism should be taken with a big grain of salt. You just have to look at the opinions of other founding members to see that. He's more known now more as an industry paid spokesman then anything. Just look at his forestry opinions.

Pollution of solar compared to nuclear:
"Life cycle greenhouse gas emissions are now in the range of 25-32 g/kWh and this could decrease to 15 g/kWh in the future.[42] For comparison, a combined cycle gas-fired power plant emits some 400 g/kWh and a coal-fired power plant with carbon capture and storage some 200 g/kWh. Nuclear power emits 25 g/kWh on average; only wind power is better with a mere 11 g/kWh."
From : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaics

The oilsands produce about 30 million tonnes of CO2 annually on production of about 1 million barrels daily. "...40 kilograms of carbon dioxide per barrel of oil production. In-situ underground extraction methods generate emissions of 65 to 80 kilograms per barrel. Synthetic-oil upgrading makes 75 to 90 kilograms of greenhouse gas per barrel"
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/business/story.html?id=2047675e-321e-4fb1-b3af-51e9ca9d78ae&k=21298
Actually I think these figures are low but wtf.

Based on an editorial comment in Aug or Sept Scientific American, no one source should dominate the electrical grid (based on capacity) according to best practices but here we are arguing to do just that. Do I want solar and wind? Yes. In this case, is it appropriate? No. The plants are being built to supply heat primarily and electricity secondarily. And we are talking massive amounts of heat. Could you put up solar and wind and generate electricity to carry to that point to generate that heat? Yes, but this would be wasteful to say the least. Electricity is a useful form of energy, heat isn't. Can wind/solar provide base power? On it's own, I don't believe it can. I read a Japanese study where the solar capacity installed had to be 7x the replaced capacity. Also,there needs to be a high degree of grid control needed which I don't think presently exists as well as storage problems and uneven production. Maybe with car to grid tech and a large number of HEV or EV's but that too is a control problem. On the other hand will these reactors be used to just to supply power to Alberta? No, I think there will be a large excess of power to be sold primarily to the US market and secondary to other provincial grids. They are not saying it because it most likely will be paid for partially by provincial and federal loans, and this linkage to usually volitile US electrical markets will not be liked. According to the following document,"CANDU for oilsands", a reduction of 2-4 million tonnes of CO2 can be avoided using these reactors. Do I want the oilsands developed? Yes and no but it's not up to me. I already use public transportation and my bike. I belong to a car co-op if I really need a car. Yes, the oilsands is a very large local resource and only by developing it can economic and safe methods of extraction be developed and we will continue to need oil in some form for the forseeable future. No, its getting out of control polluting the environment and using the water. Canada can actually meet Kyoto if you take out oilsands production. It's that large. The million barrels a day basically goes south into the US with plans to try to move it up to 5 million barrels. The US must put in policies to reduce it's own consumption. Canada is just following the US. If the US started pushing higher efficient vehicles, oil demand would be lower and there wouldn't be this rush to develop the oil sands. Six billion dollars could buy 200 000 EV/PHEVs at $30 000 each which would save a lot of fuel. Averaging 1 gallon a day usage (assuming 30MPG), that's 167 600 tonnes of CO2 saved by not using gasoline not including the CO2 produced in the production of the oil for the gas. With this push though, people and gov'ts are pushing for known short term solutions. Given the choice of just burning NG or using a nuclear reactor, which would I prefer? Unfortunately, it's the nuke. To fully get around oilsands CO2 production of 5 million barrels a day though, would require around 50 nuclear reactors, which is very scary and not something I or many other people would like to see.

I personally would like to see a progress transfer tax to put money into alternative developement and production on old production methods and techniques.

Support documentation of CANDU for oilsands
http://www.computare.org/Support%20documents/Publications/Nuclear%20oil%20sand.htm

Lastly, in a funny sort of turnaround premiere Ralph Klein scoffed at the idea of using an ACR used for oilsands production when introduced to it a couple of years ago.

Posted by: AYM | Aug 29, 2007 3:02:27 PM

AYM,

Commercial reprocessing was performed briefly in the US. It was shutdown by Jimmy Carter because of proliferation concerns.

The prohibition on recycling has been recinded but, with uranium prices in the single digits, it has not cost effective. The US utilities have little incentive or inclination to recycle. They pay a relatively small fee per kwh to the government for accepting used fuel so fuel disposal is not an operational concern.

Even if uranium prices were to stay over $100, it would not be attractive based on risk/benefit analysis.

The standard process today is the Purex or slightly modified Purex process which was developed for plutonium production during WW2. It is a complex wet process with nasty liquid streams. Newer dry processes under development should be far superior.

There is a nifty limited reprocessing scheme developed primarily in Korea which has both LWR and CANDU reactors. It is called the DUPIC process and takes used LWR fuel and, after minimal processing and repackaging, burns it in CANDU reactors. It almost doubles the burnup of the fuel. It is near commercialization.

Posted by: Bill Young | Aug 29, 2007 4:15:58 PM

Looks like Stan is trying to weasel out of his bet already.

Posted by: jack | Aug 29, 2007 4:20:14 PM

"Why can't you just agree to disagree and cease with the endless conspiracy plots. If it isn't against Big Auto, Big Oil, Big Utilities, its against Science for contradicting your pet nostrums for un-economic anti-science technologies, and Doomsday prophecies."

cf.

"Patrick Moore and I were environmentally actually doing something to improve the world for decades. I was pushing for a revaluation of commercial nuclear fission long before the green shirts started carrying signs and mindlessly chanting "No Nukes!". I'm proud to stand with him, Stewart Brand, and James Lovelock and other rational and genuine environmentalists, rather than the PR flacks, lawyers, and cynics in it for the boodle."

The truest sign of insanity -- the ability to fervently hold two contradictory beliefs. Big Oil does it for the common good, the scientists do it for the "boodle." LOL.

You crack me up, Stanlee.

Posted by: jack | Aug 29, 2007 4:29:43 PM

Canada does not reprocess nuclear material. It is in the same boat as the US. What canada has done is test various levels of MOX fuel in Candu reactors, which they have done successfully.

As an interesting side note though, the south Koreans, who have a CANDU reactor, have been experimenting on using the CANDU as a final stage to wring out the last dregs of power from the waste of some of their LWRs. With greater neutron efficiency, it was hoped that the lower level fissionable material LWR "waste" could be used in the CANDUs. The last time I read that was 2 years ago in a feasability study, so what became of it I don't really know.

As for burning reactors. Well, so far they have proved to be less than feasible looking at the track record of the super-pheonix in France.

Part of the cost of nuclear produced electricity does go into a fund for permanent storage. At least in most western countries that I know of. Of course whether that amount is too low is another matter.

Quoted lifetimes of commodities are usually stated at a price point. As commodity prices go up, more expensive sources get tapped. You usually don't "run out" but you do use up the easier to access cheaper resource sources. Thorium is 5 times as plentiful as Uranium and is thought to be a feasible fuel cycle replacement.

All forms of production has advantages and disadvantages and niche areas where they shine. Nuclear shines in large scale base production. Alternatives, in local production and scalability and safety. Solar output matches peak power needs. So what if it costs 5 times as much when in today's world we are building gas fired plants doing the same thing at the same price. All have a place. It's a greyish area. We all have ours pet theories and likes and dislikes and things change with scale, time and perspective. One should look at consumption and infrastructure as well as just production. Focusing on production obfuscates and in many cases supports the real problem which is old style large scale, and in some cases wasteful, consumption. Do people believe that the consumption is the source of economic prosperity or wealth? Or is it in the process in which the needs get provided for and satisfied.

I like to think of myself as green and I don't think it's contradictory to support both technologies. For the no nukes protesters, they brought up questions that needed to be answered and that still need to be answered. Some of them are just people who are NIMBY types and would support it if it was far away. Looking back, I think people should have listened more to the environmentalists so that we wouldn't be facing these more costly changes.

Alberta has no nuclear power presently, 5% comes from hydro. Wind power presently is negligible. They should at least replace fossil fuel baseline generation and if they can use the thermal waste for something useful, good for them. A certain percentage though should be set aside for wind power generation and infrastructure improvement. Diversification provides stability and resiliance to changing conditions. Wind power would also be fairly cheap in windy Alberta and could be used locally to displace aging generation and lower peak requirments for infrastructure by lowering the peak grid capacity.

Posted by: AYM | Aug 29, 2007 4:39:16 PM

Holy crap, Stan.

=======

"[The Democratic] Party that has no real Blacks in positions of power except as tokens?"

+++

"Any Scientist reading the Scientific paper of the '70s and '80s would be inclined to think there was some validity to Global Warming theory. Any Scientist reading the scientific papers of the '90s and even more so in the 21 century, would not tend to hold ANY GW basis at all."

+++

"The Republican/Conservative approach is producing valid science. Only the Abortion political lobby that seeks justification for the principle the Eugenically it is all right to kill someone, for his body parts, to give to more important others. Sanger and Hitler saw eye to eye on that, and both tried tot empty the homes for retarded and other useless people like blacks, Jews and gypsies."

+++

"I don't know if prosecuting the NYT is worthwhile but justice should always be proportional.

I recommend that the US simply declare it cannot defend everyplace, and must prioritize, which we all know, and that any defense of 229 West 43rd St NYC is likely to be aborted by leaks.

So we will no longer attempt to do so.

Besides those who work there do not believe they are in any danger since there is no GWOT.

We are merely publicly acknowledging that we a "redeploying assets" to where they might more usefully be utilized.

We announce this because "...its the public right to know". It only incidental that Al Quedists now know they can plan operations against the facility at 229 West 43rd St New York without fear of interference. If some are in danger its the same as the NSA and SWIFT exposures."

+++

"Environmentalism has abeen captured by the Socialist wartermelon crazies."

+++

"I don't hink we need to liquidate them as they would do to us, ruthlessly given a chance. Tom Clancy had the Solomonic answer to these loonses in one of his novels. Drop them miles from anybody, stark naked, in the middle of the Amazon jungle and let them "Commune" with Nature."

==========

You're a true wacko!!

Posted by: jack | Aug 29, 2007 4:40:42 PM

Jack,

Your personal attack on Stan is both annoying and off topic.

Posted by: Bill Young | Aug 29, 2007 5:33:07 PM

AYM,

Fast reactors are not as economical to operate as LWRs or HWRs in the current market structure. That doesn't mean they are impractical.

Phoenix continues to operate in France. Japan and Russia both operate fast reactors. Super-phoenix was shut down for political reasons, not technical.

In the US, the Gen IV experiments have 2 different fast reactors and one epi-thermal (half-fast) unit.

Posted by: Bill Young | Aug 29, 2007 5:41:28 PM

Your personal attack on Stan is both annoying and off topic.

Actually, you're incorrect, Bill. Stan started discussing conspiracies, yet clearly he believes in them.

Thanks for your input, though. Keep nukehuggin', bud.

Posted by: jack | Aug 29, 2007 6:05:34 PM

Waste - not solved
Safety - not solved
Proetction from terrorists - not solved
Proliferation risks - not solved
Economics - heavily subsidized, ergo not solved
Nonrenewable - not sustainable
CO2 - not neutral (despite claims to the contrary)
Centralization risk - not solved
Capital intensive/long construction window

This is a loser technology, rejected by the market in the US. It only survives by cynical co-option attempts with appeals to dealing with global warming and through promises of extreme subsidies from the federal government. The libertarian Cato Institute opposes it.

It appeals to the geekery of engineers, however, as well as power/control fantasies. The idea of a robust, decentralized renewable energy economy is dismissed as "impossible" by such people.

Posted by: jack | Aug 29, 2007 6:12:35 PM

Jack,

You are quite right in one regard: If it were not for global warming (and other noxious emissions) nuclear power would not be considered for electricity generation when coal is convienent. It is either conscience (improbable) or anticipation of carbon taxation (probable) that is motivating the utilities in the US to consider expanding the use of nuclear power.

Coal is the lowest cost electric power source in the US, except for hydro. Without carbon taxation of some sort, it will remain so.

Posted by: Bill Young | Aug 29, 2007 7:52:26 PM

It is either conscience (improbable) or anticipation of carbon taxation (probable) that is motivating the utilities in the US to consider expanding the use of nuclear power.

It's the thought of billions in free taxpayer money which is motivating them.

The issue, in the end, is not about coal v nuclear, but about the rapid and full evolution to a truly sustainable energy economy. We have the technology, it's been driven down to cost-effective levels, and we have all sorts of means to approach things from the demand side as well.

The one and only reason we don't get what we should get is because a relatively small number of people would no longer be able to make a mint off of extracting things from the ground and combusting them and keeping us all dependent on that.

Posted by: jack | Aug 29, 2007 8:24:08 PM

Waste - Solvable using a ADSR.
Safety - Impossible for a Particle Bed and ADSR designs to melt down.
Protection from terrorists - even if terrorist were to crash a plane into a particle bed reactor all they would do is spread around thousands of easily retrievable silicon carbide "coconuts".
Proliferation risks - They tried refining from particle beds but once in their casing it was to hard to get the fuel back out.
Economics - As fossil fuels get more expensive anything become more economical.
Nonrenewable - with hundreds to millions of years when considering U238 and thorium it practically renewable.
CO2 - as carbon neutral as it is to build a large sky scraper.
Centralization risk - particle beds are small and modular
Capital intensive/long construction window - It would be quicker to make them if there was more investment in making them, catch 22.

Posted by: Ben | Aug 29, 2007 8:39:28 PM

Waste - Solvable using a ADSR.

Using a non-commercialized experimental technology with uncertain economics? Like I said, not solved.

Safety - Impossible for a Particle Bed and ADSR designs to melt down.

Melt downs aren't the only safety issue. Not solved.

Protection from terrorists - even if terrorist were to crash a plane into a particle bed reactor all they would do is spread around thousands of easily retrievable silicon carbide "coconuts".

Another experimental technology, and it isn't bulletproof, either.

"While silicon carbide is strong in abrasion and compression applications, it does not have the same strength against expansion and shear forces. Some fission products such as xenon-133 have a limited absorbance in carbon, and some fuel pebbles could accumulate enough gas to rupture the silicon carbide layer. Even a cracked pebble will not burn without oxygen, but the fuel pebble may not be rotated out and inspected for months, leaving a window of vulnerability."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor

Nonrenewable - with hundreds to millions of years when considering U238 and thorium it practically renewable.

Economic viability goes out the door compared to real renewable options, all without the risks.

CO2 - as carbon neutral as it is to build a large sky scraper.

Irrelevant comparison.

Centralization risk - particle beds are small and modular

Really? I can install one in my house?

Capital intensive/long construction window - It would be quicker to make them if there was more investment in making them, catch 22.

If it's such a great energy source, why isn't the investment flowing to them without massive government intervention? Even if the capital is there, implementation times are tremendously long compared to distributed, small-scale energy sources and demand-side solutions.

Posted by: jack | Aug 29, 2007 8:55:55 PM

Jack,

Coal is exactly the question. Over 70% of the electricity in the US (50% coal, 20% gas)is from fossil fuel. This is the biggest source of CO2 emissions.

Lovins/RMI would have us reduce coal by increasing natural gas consumption. He wants small distributed natural gas plants rather than large ones. Natural gas is in short supply and still emits CO2.

Hydro is pretty well tapped out in the US. That leaves solar and wind. Both of these technologies are more capital intensive than nuclear. Wind in unpredictable and not suited for baseline power. Solar, while predictable, only operates intermittently.

Posted by: Bill Young | Aug 30, 2007 4:19:01 AM

Commercial reprocessing was performed briefly in the US. It was shutdown by Jimmy Carter because of proliferation concerns.

It was performed for six years in the US, and stopped reprocessing in 1972, well before Carter became president. It shut down because costs had been grossly underestimated and it wasn't profitable. The experience in reprocessing outside the US has been similar, with reprocessing surviving only when it is heavily subsidized, or for extraction of Pu (not from commercial spent fuel) for military purposes.

Carter's policy, btw, made plenty of sense, both at the time and in retrospect. Given that reprocessing was an economic loser, and was expected to remain so for the forseeable future, why accept any proliferation risk, however minor? There was no benefit to offset the cost.

Posted by: Paul Dietz | Aug 30, 2007 6:22:43 AM

Nuclear reprocessing does happen. It happens in Germany and France. Japan continues to send its used fuel to Europe to be reprocessed and is building its own reprocessing facilities.

Reprocessing most certainly does not happen in Germany. Reprocessing of German spent fuel has been banned since 2005 (before that, they could reprocess in France, I believe).

Japan stopped sending used fuel to France some time ago, and received the last load of reprocessed material in 2004. The Rokkasho-mura reprocessing plant is scheduled to begin operation this year, I believe, but its economics appear to be very bad, producing Pu for a cost estimated as high as $1 million/kilogram.

Posted by: Paul Dietz | Aug 30, 2007 6:47:08 AM

Waste - Well its solvable at the very least, and nuclear does not come in billions of metric tons and does not contribute to global warming.

Safety - and windmills kill birds, coal cause cancer and asthma, solar cell manufacture produces a variety of toxic chemicals and heavy metal waste, everything is technically unsafe.

CO2 - why? the only CO2 producing is from construction, if mining equipment is electrically powered (whcih if will have toe be after peak oil) there is no emissions.

Economic viability - Then why hasn't solar and wind supplanted fossil fuel yet? Most of all the prices of solar and wind do not factor in back up power sources and grid energy storage, Which for now have been coal and NG power plants.

Centralization risk - Can you install a 50MW wind farm at your house? I'm not against solar but your going to need to store the solar power, this is going to cause demand for backup power plants or battery plants which will be able to centralize, the price of every house having back up batteries is far more then one large Na/S battery station supplying a small town.

Capital intensive/long construction window - its not in major production because of public fear of it, public fear makes increase restrictions against it and increased hassall to try to bring it to market.

Posted by: Ben | Aug 30, 2007 8:08:13 AM

Coal is exactly the question. Over 70% of the electricity in the US (50% coal, 20% gas)is from fossil fuel. This is the biggest source of CO2 emissions.

In the US, yes.

Lovins/RMI would have us reduce coal by increasing natural gas consumption. He wants small distributed natural gas plants rather than large ones. Natural gas is in short supply and still emits CO2.

Natural gas is 1/2 the CO2 intensity of coal, isn't in that short of supply, and Lovins doesn't argue for permanent dependence on it. It's just that NG is far a far better fuel for smaller, cleaner, more distributed power generation and is a great segue fuel until renewables (with proper storage) and efficiency combine for a full transition to sustainable energy.

Hydro is pretty well tapped out in the US. That leaves solar and wind. Both of these technologies are more capital intensive than nuclear.

Really? How much capital is required to put a solar array with grid intertie on an efficient house? Under $20K, before tax breaks. What's the cost of a nuclear plant?

Wind in unpredictable and not suited for baseline power. Solar, while predictable, only operates intermittently.

The tired objection that neglects networks (wind is always blowing somewhere and solar matches peak use times both daily and seasonally), as well as storage mechanisms (V2G, batteries, hyrdogen, pumped water storage, etc). It also neglects the lower losses of local sourcing, control over fuel price inflation and government control, as well as solar thermal and geothermal applications. Plus, all of those technologies keep getting more efficient and cheaper, which the traditional centralizaed sources can't claim.

Posted by: jack | Aug 30, 2007 8:09:42 AM

Waste - Well its solvable at the very least, and nuclear does not come in billions of metric tons and does not contribute to global warming.

Theoretical solutions are not solutions, they are guessing. And nuclear contributes heavily to global warming if you start looking at mining, people driving to plants and extraction points, construction, decommissioning, and waste storage.

Safety - and windmills kill birds, coal cause cancer and asthma, solar cell manufacture produces a variety of toxic chemicals and heavy metal waste, everything is technically unsafe.

So, an occasional bird dying (the old "canard" against wind) is on par with a suitcase nuke going off in a city? Try selling that one to the public. Very poor logic with that one.

CO2 - why? the only CO2 producing is from construction, if mining equipment is electrically powered (whcih if will have toe be after peak oil) there is no emissions.

Mining electrically powered? More guessing. And construction creates a huge amount of CO2 -- concrete alone is one of the bigger sources of GHGs. Plus people still need to drive back and forth to the plant, to the digging site, for transport of materials, to forever watch over the waste, and so on. A lot more things would need to fall into place than a transition to fully renewable energy would have to go through for your scenario to even be partly correct.

Why hadn't the computer supplanted the typewriter in 1982? Only now are the economics on par with other sources, and that's why we're seeing astronomic growth in renewables and declines in nuclear output.

Centralization risk - Can you install a 50MW wind farm at your house?

Red herring. I can put solar on my roof and easily power my home and even a vehicle or two.

I'm not against solar but your going to need to store the solar power

During the transition period, intertie is the way to go. As efficiencies go up, and storage technology matures (particularly vehicle batteries), this is easily solved.

this is going to cause demand for backup power plants or battery plants which will be able to centralize, the price of every house having back up batteries is far more then one large Na/S battery station supplying a small town.

One could just put up a few water towers or resevoir as a pumped storage mechanism. Easily solved even today.

Right - if in doubt, blame the greenies. Oil companies fall back on that one when their massive profits get questioned and people wonder why they don't expand refining capacity. Just saw today how we have higher than average oil supplies, but somehow gasoline supplies are lowe and refinery capacity utilization failed to come close to expert expectations of what they should be this month. So even as oil prices have declined, the price of gas has gone up recently. If you look at oil company financial statements, they've seen a tapering in profitability from upstream and huge increases in downstream profitability. Easy to keep that scam going, because they can always blame "fires" and "maintenance" and clap when a natural disaster comes along. When none of those are available, they just blame the treehuggers and people swallow it whole.

That small digression is simply to illustrate that nuclear energy's failings are its own, and without massive government assistance, has failed in our mostly free market system, and continues to shrink in importance while renewables and efficiency grow like gangbusters.

Posted by: jack | Aug 30, 2007 8:26:22 AM

Energy Alberta is only doing what any privately held business would do and that's making as much profit from their product. Like the tobacco companies did back in the 70's they ramped up their R&D on making their products more addictive while pushing production limits through the roof to make as much money in a market season that was coming to a close in North America (smoke free health education.

My point here is that CO2 emissions from producing petroleum products from the tar sands is a result of these companies racing for the finish line before the CO2 cap accords around the world start kicking in.

The world’s financial economies are built around petroleum energy products and will not change for some time. Identifying alternative energy sources has been hard to put in place with BIG Energy dropping the price when a new Energy source looks like it can financially make it. Fighting Big Energy is not the way. They have invested too much to give it all away to other energy sources. What needs to be done is to use our current energy source in an environmentally sustainable way.

Hydrocarbons are the most abundant energy producing molecules that we have exploited with extraction and distribution systems spanning all corners of this planet. Big Energy has been pulling this stuff out of the ground with very little effort over the last 80 years. Consumer demand has pushed prospecting for new “drinking box” reservoirs of this stuff to the limit causing the value of oil to move to a level where companies like Energy Alberta are racing to put dim-wit ideas like these into place so to reap the profits from their expenditures as fast as possible before the whole price of oil does fall for reasons I touched on earlier and others.

We all know collusion between the Big Eners has been going on for many years. This will not stop. So, in order to find a sustainable environmentally safe product without rocking the boat for the Big Energy companies and have a source of energy that can build easily on our consumption infrastructure, use of Hydrocarbons in an efficient and environmentally safe way should be undertaken. Removal of Hydrocarbons from sand or shale or even rubber and plastic products and used in a form that is reusable by the environment (which includes us humans) is the direction I believe we need to go.

Extracting hydrocarbons from the tar sands using nuclear fission is absolutely crazy. The process of producing heat through nuclear fission for extracting the hydrocarbon from the sand using steam is environmentally dangerous and extremely expensive. The oil price would need to stay between the 75 to 105 current dollars level to make it financially sustainable!

Another approach is to extract the hydrocarbon from the sand using a process that gives energy to the hydrocarbon molecule directly so to “crack” it from the silicate material whereby the hydrocarbon can be harvested where it can reformulated into clean petroleum products that can be used in upgraded combustion systems that release little CO2 if any such as H2 combustion reactors.

Companies do exist that have researched this extraction process (Global Resource Corp). They have identified the microwave length of the hydrocarbon that releases it from the silicate where it “percolates” up away from the silicate to be harvested. Visit GRCs website for more info. This process uses far less energy to extract the hydrocarbon then current methods, which Energy Alberta is proposing here. As well, this process can also “crack” the hydrocarbon molecule itself to produce hydrogen, which contains more energy per mass then any other molecule. Use of H2 as a fuel produces is done by applying O2 with a by-product being CEAN WATER!!

Think about it.

My2Sence.

Posted by: Mark | Aug 30, 2007 8:43:47 AM

Consumer demand has pushed prospecting for new “drinking box” reservoirs of this stuff to the limit causing the value of oil to move to a level where companies like Energy Alberta are racing to put dim-wit ideas like these into place so to reap the profits from their expenditures as fast as possible before the whole price of oil does fall for reasons I touched on earlier and others.

You hit it.

Posted by: jack | Aug 30, 2007 8:49:53 AM

Waste - same complaints can be raise for dealing with solar panals: mining of material, production and waste management.

Safety - A nuclear reactor is not a nuclear bomb, reactor can be built melt down proof.

CO2 - all the same problems for solar and wind, if you into a fully renewable economy that you would assume that transport would be electrically power, that any use of organic fuels would be made from organic waste and recyclable, but those as just assumption and guesses which according to you is incorrect, so by your argument a theoretical like a fully renewable economy is invalid, your argument not mine.

Economic viability - we are also seeing growth in coal power plants too. Solar isn't cheaper then coal yet, and that not including backup power/grid storage. Solar may be economical in hawaii but its never going to be economical in Alaska. There are going to be places in the world that can never utilize solar/wind or water, what option is available for them?

Centralization risk - one South African 110MW Pebble Bed Reactor could power a whole town, day and night, rain sleet and snow. And thats will cost less then $600,000,000 needed retrofit 30,000 homes with solar and batteries. Water towers cannot can't act as backup generators because the energy density is to low, unless you make the towers several hundred meters high or extremely huge.

Capital intensive/long construction window - So because big oil blames greens my argument is wrong?, now that is a fallacy.

Posted by: Ben | Aug 30, 2007 9:41:43 AM

Hydrogen has it problems: it may have the highest energy per mass of any fuel but it has the lowest energy per volume of any fuel. It also has lower energy efficiencies and is more expensive to produce then batteries. Most of us here put our bets on lithium ion batteries, biofuel and metal-air fuel cells.

Posted by: Ben | Aug 30, 2007 9:48:24 AM

This project is not viable, not from an ecological, a safety or a financial perspective.

Has anyone seen a promise that Alberta will close the coal fired plants to offset this new plant? I don't think so, I think they will keep them open and sell the power, this coupled with the co2 and other pollution emitted during the construction phase will add to our greenhouse gases not reduce them.
$ 6.5 billion buys a lot of solar PV or BIPV rooftop panels at todays prices roughly 60% of the output of this plant. With additional wind, biomass and run of the river for distributed power coupled with biofuels and hybrids at the demand side I think we can match this net output in the same time frame. If there is a will. Solar panels don't directly support Industry they support residential needs which offsets power for industry. And there's always 'conservation' and simply doing with less (a profanity in Alberta).
.
Operating costs, fuel, decommissioning costs and waste storage are ongoing costs way more than maintenance on renewable systems. Major rail lines also go thru major population centers in both Alberta and B.C; I don't want waste fuel in my back yard not with the history of derailments in both provinces.

In addition there has been comment that Alberta is out of Natural gas, not true; the government and the oil companies capped the gas wells because the return is less lucrative than oil, they also need the pressure in the ground to assist in oil sand extraction.

This project simply supports oil sands expansion. Big business has no interest in empowering the individual or small business. I wonder what the local ranchers think about this? Their water table is already at an all time low due to oil sands use.

Posted by: Mark M | Aug 30, 2007 10:23:05 AM

Waste - same complaints can be raise for dealing with solar panals: mining of material, production and waste management.

Another ridiculous comparison on par with comparing a couple of dead birds with a suitcase nuke obliterating a city.

Safety - A nuclear reactor is not a nuclear bomb, reactor can be built melt down proof.

I didn't realize it wasn't a bomb. Thanks for that clarification. Materials from a plant can be used as bombs, though, as was my point. And that's only one safety issue -- the long-term viability of waste probably being the thorniest problem (passing a problem on to innumerable future generations).

CO2 - all the same problems for solar and wind, if you into a fully renewable economy that you would assume that transport would be electrically powe

Where is the transport to an electric generating plant if there is no electric generating plant? Even at commercial scale, wind doesn't need the constant attention a nuclear plant does.

Please tell us where the location on Earth devoid of sun and wind. I've never heard of such a place. As for Alaska, they'll just have to deal with higher relative cost, just like they do with many things right now. If people choose to live in extreme places, they understand the unique economics of such a place.

As for it "never being economical" in Alaska, at current efficiencies and prices, it's $630 for around 3,000 kWh of output (typical output from one meter square panel over 30 years). That comes to 21.1 cents per kWh, compared to the current Alaskan residential average of 14.6 cents per kWh. This of course does not account for the cost of environmental and health externalities.

A drop to $3.30 per peak watt or a jump to 19% efficiency (well below efficiencies already achieved in the lab) equalizes the cost with current pricing. Since non-renewables move with inflation or more, while the cost of renewables keeps going down and efficiencies up, it won't take long for the curves to cross. They already have in places like California.

You're just making up numbers.

Capital intensive/long construction window - So because big oil blames greens my argument is wrong?, now that is a fallacy.

No, it's a logical comparison. You're blaming greens for a problem that is one of physical, safety, and financial realities that have nothing to do with environmental opposition.

Posted by: jack | Aug 30, 2007 10:34:17 AM

People who support nuclear power should store the waste in their houses. Then in their children's houses. Then in their children's children's houses. And then...well, you get the idea.
I think it makes a lot more sense to use the billions of dollars to put solar panels on peoples homes and build new and better batteries to power their cars. Of course, in doing so we might eliminate most of our air and water pollution and save the planet from becoming uninhabitable in 100 years. It seems many people would be disappointed with an outcome like this.

Posted by: Domenick | Aug 30, 2007 3:41:39 PM

Waste - why is the complaint ridicules? you state no reasoning to dismissing the argument, that a fallacy by the way.

Safety - reactors can be made proliferation proof as well.

CO2 - Actually wind mills need plenty of maintenance, their bearing and brushes wear out constantly, and repairing the ones at seas is extra difficult. Pebble bed reactors are far less maintenance needy then PWRs.

Economic viability - Ever heard of the arctic cycle and 6 months of complete darkness, solar will work there? And wind doesn't work well in the Alaska's mountains. Most of all snow and solar don't go well and requires constant maintenance to keep the snow off the panels.

Centralization risk - You said <20K per home so times 30,000 homes (110MW) thats $600,000,000. 20K sound right for ever home to have a battery array, solar panels and inverter, I've seen prices of 30K or greater though.

Capital intensive/long construction window - I'm not blaming greens more of just people in general, take South Africa Bebble Bed Modular Reactor project: There has been massive public outcry despite massive industrial support, and there would not be industrial support if at the very least it was not cheaper then the alternatives.

Domenick,

I would just build a ADSR and transmute the waste and sell the power. Like wise supporters of conventional power can huff diluted coal flue gas, oh wait they already are (and we are too)! Renewable power people (or at least their litigation happy neighbors) seem to already have a aversion to windmills in their back yard.

Posted by: Ben | Aug 30, 2007 8:13:35 PM

Waste - why is the complaint ridicules? you state no reasoning to dismissing the argument, that a fallacy by the way

I gave it, you don't understand it. Move on.

Safety - reactors can be made proliferation proof as well.

Where are these magical reactors?

Oh really? Please show me a study about the labor-intensivity of wind v nuclear. Again, you're making ridiculous comparisons. The amount of labor to deal with nuclear energy is huge compared to wind.

Economic viability - Ever heard of the arctic cycle and 6 months of complete darkness, solar will work there? And wind doesn't work well in the Alaska's mountains.

And could you please tell me the grand total of the number of people who live in total darkness 6 months of the year? And wind doesn't blow in mountains? News to me.

Most of all snow and solar don't go well and requires constant maintenance to keep the snow off the panels.

Oh no - occasionally sweeping snow off of solar panels. Such amazingly difficult work compared to running a nuclear power plant! These are GREAT comparisons you're making.

If everyone in a neighborhood has solar, there's no need for individual inverters or battery systems. And like I said, no need in a transitional period -- just intertie. All of this has nothing to do with centralization risk.

Fallacious logic. In the absence of massive government subsidies, the nuclear industry is DEAD in the United States. ZERO support. It's not cheaper -- the IEA even says so.

Renewable power people (or at least their litigation happy neighbors) seem to already have a aversion to windmills in their back yard.

Oh, yeah, and people want a coal or nuclear power plant in their back yard, right?

Your argument gets more flimsy with each successive post.

Posted by: jack | Aug 30, 2007 9:12:25 PM

Waste - Ok then so another fallacy on your part.

Safety - The pebble bed reactors.

CO2 - I didn't say wind require more maintenance or even comparable levels to nuclear power, only that its not maintenance free.

Centralization risk - so if everyone had solar how does that invalidate the need for power storage, DC power does not spread far efficiently so they need an inverter if they want to share it (let alone use it). Aha, Transitional economy I thought you were talking about a "fully renewable" economy, warn me when you switch, because when that transitional economy goes fully renewable it going to need backup power for when the sun don't shine, theres always nuclear (by then though their might be fusion)

Economic viability - Well you seem to imply that renewable can replace everything, I was just stating an example of a place it can't. I believe in a mix energy economy rather then a singular economy trying to fit every situation. Mountain winds are erratic and not horizontal, not good for a windmill, neither is all the snow and ice build up. And technically 120,000 house holds having to maintain their panels or the power goes out is actually less work then 140 people hired at a nuclear power plant.

Capital intensive/long construction window - South Africa is the USA?

I didn't say people want coal and nuclear plants in their back yard, as for coal most people already have one in their backyard in a manner of speaking.

Posted by: Ben | Aug 30, 2007 10:06:57 PM

Waste - Ok then so another fallacy on your part.

Whatever, dude. Is this one of those "last word" things?

Safety - The pebble bed reactors.

We've already covered the safety problems with those. Pay attention.

CO2 - I didn't say wind require more maintenance or even comparable levels to nuclear power, only that its not maintenance free.

No one claimed it was maintenance-free. The issue is relative CO2 intensity of the whole system.

Is that supposed to make sense? Renewables can be highly decentralized. Nuclear cannot. As for transitions, yes, things actually take time and don't happen instantaneously. It will take time to become a fully renewable energy world. And in that time, intertie is cost-effective and easy while storage solutions develop and can start to be implemented at larger scale. Again, none of that is relevant to the risks of centralization (and the fact that it's anti-democratic and far more vulnerable to disruption).

Economic viability - Well you seem to imply that renewable can replace everything, I was just stating an example of a place it can't.

You have yet to demonstrate any such thing. Where is a place on Earth that has neither wind nor sun? Where? Some cave somewhere or under the ocean. Since no one lives in such places (or needs to live in such places), your ridiculous example is meaningless.

I believe in a mix energy economy rather then a singular economy trying to fit every situation.

No, you don't believe in sustainability. Fine, but odd, considering this is an environmental website.

Capital intensive/long construction window - South Africa is the USA?

Please tell me the vastly differing economic situtation of nuclear in the two countries. How does that work?

I didn't say people want coal and nuclear plants in their back yard, as for coal most people already have one in their backyard in a manner of speaking.

"Manner of speaking." Whatever.

Get the last word. This is boring.

Posted by: jack | Aug 30, 2007 11:33:11 PM

Waste - If you want to state points to argue that I have not covered I'm open to that.

Safety - and those were again? Pebble jamming is a fixable problem, iridium coating renders the pebbles inflammable even if oxygen where to get in at max temperature.

CO2 - Emissions do not occur from the power plant directly, they occur from refining materials to build and power the plant, mining those materials, maintenance, etc, these problems though exist for making solar and wind power systems as well. these emission are also suspect to the technology used, after peak oil those technologies will emit less if anything at all, so the issue becomes moot.

Centralization risk - what are the risk of centralization? PBMR are far less centralized then conventional nuclear reactors and even coal. The dream may be for a black-out proof city but most cities have too high of a power usage density for it to be powered on solar or wind in the local area, for cities transmission of power outside the city will always be necessary and renewable will actually increase transmission problem by spreading the energy production area out very widely.

Posted by: Ben | Aug 31, 2007 7:40:15 AM

Mix energy economy is based in sustainability: find the sustainable solution that can answer both short term and long term needs. You can't make plastics out of hydrogen, you can with biomass and you can do so now and forever. Use electric batteries for small vehicles and cars, us biodiesel or fuel cells for trucks, use synthetic oil for planes (or bio-methane), use PBMR for cargo ships, etc, use the solution that fit the situation best. I'm actually for solar/wind/water but I know it won't replace all electricity generation, there will be many situations were a reactor is needed.

Posted by: Ben | Aug 31, 2007 7:41:09 AM

South Africa has a lot of uranium, too much coal and no oil, South Africa's electricity usage is growing much faster then the USA and new power plants are needed which make nuclear competitive sense it largest hurdle is building the plants. China and India have also expressed great interest in PBWR, in fact South Africa's reactors are joint developed with China.

Posted by: Ben | Aug 31, 2007 7:41:38 AM

Really? How much capital is required to put a solar array with grid intertie on an efficient house? Under $20K, before tax breaks. What's the cost of a nuclear plant?

I like that phrase, 'efficient house'. What's the average power consumption of a house? The typical household electricity consumption is around 1 kW. 1 kW of nuclear capacity will be closer to $2K than $20K. If your 'efficient' house uses even less electricity, the nuclear would be even less.

Posted by: Paul Dietz | Aug 31, 2007 8:43:33 AM

I wrote:

typical household electricity consumption is around 1 kW

To clarify, that's the US figure.

Posted by: Paul Dietz | Aug 31, 2007 8:44:50 AM

Typical North American households use is approx 3 to 4kW, peak. I've installed several solar systems in off grid houses, these houses try to get to 2kW but it's difficult, however the point is "we offset power" that means we don't have to fully power each home just offset 2kW per household. On 100,000 roofs thats up to 200MW of power during the day which is peak time. No batteries either just grid tie inverters. It makes a big difference to design our houses differently and to conserve and use less first, then 1 to 2kW is more reasonable. Turn down the heat and install a clothes line...

Posted by: Mark | Aug 31, 2007 9:10:06 AM

1 kW of nuclear capacity will be closer to $2K than $20K. If your 'efficient' house uses even less electricity, the nuclear would be even less.

I doubt your nuclear number is correct, but even if it is, that's upfront, not total, costs. Solar is free after the hardware gets installed. Not the same with nuclear.

Residential electricity in the US is more like 1.3 kW, but Europe hits about half that level. Our house is about 1/4 of the US average, and we don't really even try that hard to be efficient and we don't have a gas stove, either. An array would run us around $12K before tax breaks, or around 12 cents per kWh. We currently pay around 11.4 cents per kWh after taxes and fees.

It's already breakeven without tax breaks, so it's only going to become more affordable as time goes on. Plus solar is relatively expensive compared to wind, which means wind is already cheaper than what we pay.

Posted by: jack | Aug 31, 2007 2:03:29 PM

Jack,

Your $20k of PV solar is approximately equivalent to $2.5K of nuclear power after adjusting for availabilty (assuming 25% availability for solar; 90% for nuclear. $5000/kw for solar; $2200/kw for nuclear).

You correctly pointed out that this is the capital cost only. For capital only, solar is 8X the cost of nuclear. Capital is the major cost for nuclear and almost the only cost for solar.

For utility generation, nuclear is the more economical choice of the two.

For DIY, solar scales very well. Nuclear, not so good. (A nuclear plant would be very hard on the structure of your roof, plus you would have to move because of NOMR, Not On My Roof)

The retail price of electricity certainly includes the cost of generation but includes a lot more, such as distribution, general overhead and profit. Because the retail price is so much higher than the cost of generation, the economics for the consumer are very different from the utility.

If you live in an area of high cost of electricity, a consistently sunny environment and your utility will permit spinning the meter backwards when you have excess power, DIY with PV solar is a viable option. If you live in a state with tax incentives so much the better. This desireability is independent of the energy efficiency of the house.

Posted by: Bill Young | Aug 31, 2007 3:18:05 PM

May I add another reason to go solar instead of nuclear? Earthquakes, terrorism, tsunamis, radioactive groundwater (It's already a problem), human error, etcetera, etcetera.

Some of these may be unlikely (tsunamis), however, some (earthquakes, human error)have already happened. I realize many are willing to gamble the future of the planet away on nuclear power and carbon burning. They should realize they share the planet with many who aren't. Massive integrated solar is the sane choice.

p.s. Arguments against solar because of cost should also take into account increasing efficiencies in technology and mass production. Not to mention reduced health care costs and other benefits too numerous to mention.
Thank you.

Posted by: Domenick | Aug 31, 2007 3:53:19 PM

Jack,

Solar is not free forever, there "cradle to cradle" expenses, after <30 year life span the panels need to be recycled. Newer organic and CIGS panels have even shorter estimated life spans (~10yr).

Posted by: Ben | Aug 31, 2007 3:59:54 PM

Solar is not free forever, there "cradle to cradle" expenses, after <30 year life span the panels need to be recycled.

The panels don't live for eternity? I was unaware of that, Ben. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

Posted by: jack | Aug 31, 2007 4:11:59 PM

Well you said that "Solar is free after the hardware gets installed." apparently you had forgot.

Domenick,

Depending on the reactor design though those events won't be a problem. Beside with all the nuclear waste we have already it would be better to transmute it non-radioactive elements (and make power) then to leave it and possible (be it unlikely) contaminate the world.

Posted by: Ben | Aug 31, 2007 4:25:10 PM

...could anyone point out one single nuclear reactor anywhere in the world that has demonstrated to be commercially profitable, i.e., running all by itself without any subsidies (tax dollars, to be precise) ?...
make sure to also include insurance, nukular waste disposal, and decomissioning after just 30 years lifetime...just one ?...

Posted by: galileo | Aug 31, 2007 4:50:20 PM

galileo,

Oil and Coal get subsidies too, wind gets a huge amounts of subsidies, in fact just about every energy gets subsidies so by your standard we can not determine if they are profitable. And the prices of coal and oil do not include the impact on the climate, public health, wars over oil, etc. Wind and solar prices do not count decommissioning the wind mills, real estate drop, recycling the panels, and toxic run off from manufacturing the panels.

Posted by: Ben | Aug 31, 2007 5:02:55 PM

Ben,
Depending on the reactor type? The type we have now are already a threat.
Nuclear reactors are dangerous, expensive and unnecessary. How difficult is that to grasp? (That's a rhetorical question since it's painfully clear the only thing you are interested in grasping are straws.)

Posted by: Domenick | Aug 31, 2007 5:41:07 PM

Well you said that "Solar is free after the hardware gets installed."

It is. Is the Sun charging for its services now?

Posted by: jack | Aug 31, 2007 6:04:34 PM

wind gets a huge amounts of subsidies

Huge?? What would that make nuclear subsidies? Superduperginormous?

I love your favorite logical error -- false equivalencies. I drove 56 in a 55 zone. Some guy murdered 200 people. We're both criminals! We're the same!

Posted by: jack | Aug 31, 2007 6:06:56 PM

Jack,

Aha, but the panel aren't recycled for free now are they?
Did I say the subsidies are comparable? My argument there was that subsidies don't determine profitability. It would be nice to find a study that shows the amount of subsidies per watt produced per power source.

Posted by: Ben | Aug 31, 2007 6:15:20 PM

Wind and solar prices do not count decommissioning the wind mills

Yes they do.

real estate drop

Myth.

recycling the panels

How is recycling a cost? Disposal is a cost, not recycling.

and toxic run off from manufacturing the panels.

Where is this mythical runoff? Please show me an EPA report of "toxic runoff" from a PV plant.

Posted by: jack | Aug 31, 2007 6:16:24 PM

Did I say the subsidies are comparable?

The fact that you group them together without mentioning the vast difference in amount is making a false equivalency, yes. You did it with lifecycle CO2 comparisons, you did it with maintenance and upkeep, etc.

It would be nice to find a study that shows the amount of subsidies per watt produced per power source.

It's not necessary. You keep missing the clear fact that wind and solar are cost effective today, without subsidies. Are they as cheap as coal? No. But they also don't create externalities that get picked up somewhere else in the economy, and they certainly don't hurt any people, nor can they really.

If solar and wind still had the high prices they did decades ago, you might have a case, but they're basically within the range of what people already pay for power, so the economic argument against them simply has no legs.

The only thing that is uncertain at this point are storage technologies, but the trends appear favorable (in terms of price and performance).

Posted by: jack | Aug 31, 2007 6:21:05 PM

Domenick,

Perhaps you should do some research into next generation reactor design. PBMR and ADSR are safe, cheap (compared to existing reactors) and necessary because they are continuous sources of energy unlike solar and wind. ADSR actually destroy nuclear waste, so if your worried about existing nuclear waste there is your answer.

Posted by: Ben | Aug 31, 2007 6:23:19 PM

Jake,

The CO2 life cycle actually compare well: Nuclear produces 2-59 g of CO2 per kwh, verse wind 7-124: http://www.uow.edu.au/eng/phys/nukeweb/reactors_nuc_v_coal.html

Solar panel recycling cost energy and can produce waste streams: http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=1279972007

If wind and solar are cost effect today without subsidies then why do they have subsidies and why have they not replaced coal? In fact solar has yet to be priced per watt/hour below coal.

Posted by: Ben | Aug 31, 2007 6:48:19 PM

If wind and solar are cost effect today without subsidies then why do they have subsidies and why have they not replaced coal? In fact solar has yet to be priced per watt/hour below coal.

Clearly what I'm saying goes right over your head. I am not comparing utility generation costs. I'm merely pointing out that at consumer prices, renewables are cost-competitive, ergo, there's no reason not to use them from an economic standpoint.

The CO2 life cycle actually compare well: Nuclear produces 2-59 g of CO2 per kwh, verse wind 7-124:

Ridiculous.

Posted by: jack | Aug 31, 2007 8:28:23 PM

Wow "Ridiculous" is an argument?

What the difference between utility prices and consumer prices?

Posted by: Ben | Aug 31, 2007 9:20:04 PM

Wow "Ridiculous" is an argument?

No, it's an opinion about something that is prima facie foolish.

What the difference between utility prices and consumer prices?

Are you kidding? One is the cost of generation, the other is the price paid by the end-user.

The objective for someone who cares about the environment isn't to help power producers, construction firms, and machinery suppliers to maximize their profits by providing the absolute least-cost energy in terms of electricity generation costs. The idea of sustainability is being able to have sources that don't harm the planet in order to pass on a world with at least no more damage than the one we inherited, and hopefully better than we inherited. It's not about dickering over whether this or that is 1/2 a penny cheaper and completely disregarding environmental externalities, extreme risks of nuclear proliferation, global warming, and so forth. That is why, if it's economically acceptable in terms of end-user pricing (which solar and wind are right now), then there's absolutely no reason to pursue competing technologies, as they all have major environmental drawbacks, whereas wind and solar's are minimal and get even more minimal every day. No need for some complicated plan to encase radioactive garbage in glass, protect things from terrorists, sequester carbon, or any other craziness.

Anyone who doesn't immediately get this really, really doesn't care about the planet. They just don't. It's a no-brainer. Affordable, it works, it's sustainable, it's democratic, it's clean, and it has no catastrophic risks. And it keeps getting cheaper and the performance keeps getting better.

Again, it's obvious that it's the only proper choice at this point in the game. Nuclear and coal have had their day. It's time to move on.

Posted by: jack | Aug 31, 2007 9:34:49 PM

You assume nuclear harms the planet, with the right technology its doesn't and in fact can clean up the mess from the previous generation of nuclear power. Sustainability is holistic and solar and wind can not fill ever corner of todays or even the futures energy economy, a continues energy provider will be needed. Who knows maybe cheap B11+H fusion will come around and render all of this moot: Tiny DPF reactors everywhere and all building will have grass roofs instead of solar panels.

Posted by: Ben | Aug 31, 2007 10:02:28 PM

More nuclear insanity.

God rest you merry innocents
While innocence endures.

Posted by: Emphyrio | Sep 1, 2007 6:10:02 AM

Jack,

Great points! I would like to thank you for your contribution to this thread. It's reassuring to know some one "gets it" and is capable of advancing a sound case for renewable energy. This planet needs more Jacks.

Posted by: Domenick | Sep 1, 2007 6:49:20 AM

The planet needs more anonymous liars-for-oil-money? I don't think so.

No reliable person would suggest that windpower is safer than, or anywhere near as safe as, nuclear power. Its direct dangers are evidently considerable, especially on a per-gigawatt-year basis.

Its indirect harm is that the oil and gas interests use it as a token bit of low-carbon energy to propagandize against nuclear energy, which takes serious money, billions of dollars a day, out of their lunch budget. In so doing it keeps serious carbon out of the atmosphere: two million tonnes a day.

Posted by: G.R.L.Cowan | Sep 1, 2007 10:20:46 AM

I have to correct myself (I plead