Patrick:

Google “ Environmental Kuznets Curve “

aym,

Who created the EPA? Who promulgated tyhe first clean air regualtions. Who founded hte first nationla parks?

Hint Iit wasn't Socilasits. Despite the left's insistance in rewriting history.
Tell me of the enlighted clean air and water standards of the Communists of East Europe, China or for thst matter the Socialists of West Eutrope. Or for that matter the dumkopfs in the Democrat Party who would allow nothing to be built anywhere, inlcuding clean up facilities.

I worked at Princeton's Plasma Physics Lab. I have an insight to what is happening in the field. The USA is even now planning the next generation of Fusion reactors as the funding for the National Compact Stellerator eXperiment, NCSX, and the International Thermo Nuclear Experiemntal Reactor, ITER tail off in the next 18 months.

The proposed next major US fusion reactor, the National High-energy Torus eXperiment, NHTX, is not even a true Physics experiment, any longer. It is a fusion engineering research reactor whose prime purpose is concerned with with finding, designing, and evaluation the Plasma First Wall and Divertor materials. The NHTX just simply assumes that it will be able to fuse deuterim and Tritium, have a Q of 2-5, (making 2 to 5 times more Fusion energy than put in to get it started) and will be run merely to exercise the environment to test materials for constructing commercial Fusion power plants.

THAT is where the actual state-of-the-art is, in Fusion. No longer concerned with merely trying to prove Fsion is possible or to make fusion energy, we are now identifying the optimum materials with whch to constuct a fusion plant. If you had to speicfy the components to build a Fusion plant tomorrow, I could quote satisfactory materials to be used from several catalogues of available martensitic steels, Silicon Carbide composites, or Vanadium or Titanium alloys produced by vendors of such materials.

But they wouldn't be perfect for the job. We will be ready to start designing the first official prototype of a Fusion power plant in 21015 or so. In some respects the ITER in Cadarache France, IS ITSELF, a crude prototype of a production fusion powerplant.

For economic reasons we chose not to make steam and spin generators with the 500-700 Megawatt ouptut of heat from ITER. Instead to save money, the Research community will merely heat a lake with the wasted heat.

Realistically, ITER is an intermittant source meant for constant scientific and engineering experimenting rather than meant to run continuously generating electricty, but it has all the size and most of the complexity needed for a commercial 500 Megawatt plant.

The official developemnt program calls for an IMFIF and CDF to perfect construction material choices for First Wall, breeding blankets, and divertor materials, but there are nontheless suitable and acceptable construction materials, available off the shelf.

aym,

Who created the EPA? Who promulgated the first clean air regulations. Who founded the first national parks?

Hint It wasn't Socialists. Despite the Lefts insistence in rewriting history.
Tell me of the enlightened clean air and water standards of the Communists of East Europe, China or for that matter the Socialists of West Europe. Or for that matter the dumkopfs in the Democrat Party who would allow nothing to be built anywhere, including clean up facilities.

I worked at Princeton's Plasma Physics Lab. I have an insight to what is happening in the field. The USA is even now planning the next generation of Fusion reactors as the funding for the National Compact Stellarator eXperiment, NCSX, and the International Thermo Nuclear Experimental Reactor, ITER tail off in the next 18 months.

The proposed next major US fusion reactor, the National High-energy Torus eXperiment, NHTX, is not even a true Physics experiment, any longer. It is a fusion engineering research reactor whose prime purpose is concerned with with finding, designing, and evaluation the Plasma First Wall and Divertor materials. The NHTX just simply assumes that it will be able to fuse deuterium and Tritium, have a Q of 2-5, (making 2 to 5 times more Fusion energy than put in to get it started) and will be run merely to exercise the environment to test materials for constructing commercial Fusion power plants.

THAT is where the actual state-of-the-art is, in Fusion. No longer concerned with merely trying to prove Fusion is possible or to make fusion energy, we are now identifying the optimum materials with which to construct a fusion plant. If you had to specify the components to build a Fusion plant tomorrow, I could quote satisfactory materials to be used from several catalogs of available martensitic steels, Silicon Carbide composites, or Vanadium or Titanium alloys produced by vendors of such materials.

But they wouldn't be perfect for the job. We will be ready to start designing the first official prototype of a Fusion power plant in 21015 or so. In some respects the ITER in Cadarache France, IS ITSELF, a crude prototype of a production fusion power plant.

For economic reasons we chose not to make steam and spin generators with the 500-700 Megawatt output of heat from ITER. Instead to save money, the Research community will merely heat a lake with the wasted heat.

Realistically, ITER is an intermittent source meant for constant scientific and engineering experimenting rather than meant to run continuously generating electricity, but it has all the size and most of the complexity needed for a commercial 500 Megawatt plant.

The official development program calls for an IMFIF and CDF to perfect construction material choices for First Wall, breeding blankets, and divertor materials, but there are nonetheless suitable and acceptable construction materials, available off the shelf.

@Aym,

For a reasonable survey of where we are and where we need to go in Fusion, here is a power point presentation that says a lot. Disregard some of the technical talk and recognize that ST is short hand for Spherical Tokamak. As design choice that leads to globular reactor plasmas as opposed to more traditional donut like structures as in ITER. This design choice leads to cheaper and smaller production power reactors.

http://www.psfc.mit.edu/~g/spp/Presentations/Ono-ST-Path.pdf

The proposed "Aries-ST" is a production Fusion power reactor, to be built in the 2030s time frame.

Also recognize that the Component Test Facility, CTF, and the International Fusion Materials Test Facility, IFMIF, are nice to have but not really required steps, They serve to develop "optimum" materials to be used in constructing a Fusion power plant.

We could, and can go directly from ITER, a crude combined Physic experiment, (essentially the last), and a crude engineering Prototype, (the First) and confirming experiment. It is likely that someone will do exactly that. The US Fusion Contingency Plan for the late teens is called a "Fusion Breakout" and budget funding is already being planed for it, in DOEs Long range facility plans.

Then we could proceed to construct a true Demonstration plant, without all the political featherbedding for a decade or more for choosing "optimum materials".

Back when the officially approved Road map to Fusion was defined in the late 70s, that was before the world had any experience with carbon composites, Silicon Carbide composites, and with low radio-activation steels. Titanium was a metal reserved for SR-71 spy planes and not mere golf clubs.

In the meantime these materials been developed and have come along for other applications and are now orderable off the shelf. They would more than suffice.

But politics intrudes. For example, Japan has been promised the IFMIF, when it compromised and let the EU and France put the ITER facility at Cadarache.

Political deals logrolling, and nothing more keep it afloat. There is not a doubt that IFMIF will be built; but it is an increasingly irrelevant step, and not needed. Someone, the US, the EU, or the Chinese will simply bypass it, and push on without the data that it would provide.

Indeed the proposed NHTX is actually a "push-on-without it" step addressing the tougher materials questions of specifying a suitable design for a "First Wall" and "Divertor" materials that take the high Neutron flux and heat from a controlled sun which is the plasma. Don't forget that all the fusion reactors built to date, and even those for near tomorrows, have FWs and Divertors made of something that was suitable and that survives this bombardment.

The heat loads are nothing special for the first wall at only 2 MW/meter squared. Plenty of our technical applications face higher heat loadings and operate for long periods. Boilers, jet engines, re-entry vehicle bodies, rocket motors, and some present power plants components, all routinely see greater heat loading than that.

As for neutron flux, we WANT that to breed Tritium and the materials to do that are known. The Divertor that exists to exhaust and removes spent ash, (helium), and escaped plasma, from the reactor has even been addressed and proved workable in NSTX after extrapolation from CDX and LDX smaller experiments.

Neutrons dislocate atoms within a solid and eventually it swells and becomes weak, needing replacement. But a liquid first wall isn't hurt by that. Lithium which melts at a low temperature, can become the first wall in the Divertor and absorb Tritium, for reuse, and also take neutron bombardment without losing any strength. As a liquid film on a substrate, it has none and is a constantly recreated liquid. It even acts as a Tritium breeder itself, but that is not its prime purpose. It actually helps maintain the Thermo-nuclear plasma fire by its cleansing action.

IFMIF is concerned with designing the Lithium-laced breeder blankets that transmute Lithium into Tritium for fuel. The CTF is just a more sophisticated NHTX materials experimental environment,allowing long term testing of materials.

Stan,

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/nuc_reactors/com_reactors.pdf

This gives the status of the sites seeking something in the way of all the various stages of gov't licensing, which I gave before as of dec 2007, which you obviously didn't look at.

It describes 6 reactors that have applied for COL out of 24. Out of the 24, only 4 have even applied for an early site permit. They don't even overlap, except for one in virginia.

Even with the licenses being applied for, there is no guarantee that the reactors will be built. I have seen documentation where generation 2 reactors still renew their site licenses for over a decade. If they decided to go for a newer reactor design, they would have to go over the process again, which they haven't even bothered to do.

The builders say they can built a plant for $1500 to $2000 per KW of capacity. Trouble is, the cheapest plants built recently, all outside the U.S., have cost more than $2,000 per kilowatt. 2007 estimates put the cost of installed nuclear power without interest costs between $3000 and $6000 per KW.

http://www.neimagazine.com/story.asp?storyCode=2047917

They are huge costly projects whose risks are such that only the largest and most diversified energy companies can even contemplate making them. They incur huge liability and risk. Estimates for a 2 reactor plant is in the vicinity of 13 to 14 billion US dollars (total from CEO of FPL)(cheaper per plant build, could be as low as 5 billion each est from builder of Texas plants). That is larger than the capitalization of every US utility except Exelon. Utilities are hardly risk takers.

Look at the EPR in Finland. Projected finished date is now 2+ years and counting. Extra cost 3 Mrd(billion) Euros. Original cost was only supposed to be 2.5 Mrd Euros. The alternative energy solution was dissmissed because it was estimated to cost 3 Mrd Euros.

Would that alternative energy solution have cost overruns? Megaprojects usually do, but due to the modular design, it wouldv'e been pumping power into the system as it was being built and the costs could've been managed over the stages.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_28/b3992063.htm

I have nothing against the nuclear industry. I just don't have unrealistic expectations from it or of it's costs and liabilities. Given a possible recessionary period (& its impact on energy demand), and the costs and the risks, the scenario of a huge portion of the US capacity being nuclear is low. As I have pointed out, to get 40% today would require 90GWe of new nuclear capacity to be built overnight. Highly unrealistic scenario.

In a 2030 scenario, there is also the cost of decommissioning or upgrading the older reactors which only have 20 year extensions to their licenses as well.

Licensing is just the first steps, it isn't being in the pipeline. No financing or debt structuring has yet to finialized for any projects. Without that, it's only talk. Talk and planning aren't in the pipeline.

In simple fact the power ind has learned that the best way to tackle this is to test a few plants to see if they realy do work out cost wise and timewise and of course see if anything icky pops up like lawsuits slowing things down; This stage is paid for entirely by US and thus the first takers have NO risks at all.

Only once they are sure what the REAL costs are will they mass produce nuke plants to replace all the old nuke abd coal plants.

As doe fusion yes they can and likely will push fusion forward if things start to go bleepy. It will cost ALOT to rush it but the way things are going that looks exactly how it will come to pass.. a giant public works project to force fusion... say 1 trillion bucks would do the trick just as I expect a trillion dollar rush to replace oil infratructure with h2 and electric will alsocrop up.

wintermane

You reasoning is based as if america was infinitely rich, that was the common thought so far, but we clearly see the limit of this now. Don't forget that in the next 10 years you will see oil market moving away from the US$ and this will depreciate the $US further slashing out 50% of US financial power. Also with the oil crisis coming the economy will struggle ang growth will be affected, debt will soar and wealth shrink. So the time will not be at mega-irrealistic project, especially if they are not proven technicaly. The industry will have to make a choice and I am pretty sure the fuel cell will be sacrificed for the PHEV. We already see this trend in the new budget, as well as in California orientation

Stan,

no one is disputing that a technically feasible fusion reactor can be built. Technically, we have been able to fuse hydrogen for years. That is not or has it ever been the point. The question remains on the EROI and ROI and it's commercial viability and it's acceptable impacts on the environment.

The EROI right now is less than 1. It takes more energy to put in than you get out as of right now. Once that happens, you have to create an EROI that factors thermodynamic energy losses. Then you have at least create a design that can at least power itself. After all that, you have to have a design that can compete with other sources. In 20 years? They've been saying it for over the last 20 years. ITER is suppose to be able to reach and break an EROI of 1. Other engineering constraints even make it more unsuited to produce commercially feasible electricity. And it's not supposed to come on line until 2016.

Q ratio is different than that of EROI. Estimates for a practical commercial reactor have a q of 22, 15 might do, and 30 might be possible. ITER is supposed to have a q of just above 5. You put out the q number as if a q>1 means that it is commercially viable. It does not.

There is no way to perfect a material to withstand the conditions. From the neutron radioaction creating high energy crystal lattices (which is a danger in present reactors when they break) to the creation of lots of low level waste. Any shielding material will become radioactive over the long term. What are the costs involved with shutting down the reactor and replacing it on a constant basis. Not only that, it will be large-scale, to exploit the economics of scale. What do you do in the in-between time it needs to be shut down. Or is going to like today's nukes.

ITER costs 15 billion US for 500 MW thermal and it takes more energy to run than it than it makes. Current estimates put a fusion plant at 5-6 billion euros compared to an EPR at 2.5 billion euros (estimated cost). Estimated costs to develop fusion is around 60-80 billion euros over 50 years. Given the costs associated with it, most scientists believe the cost of producing electricity by fusion will be higher than any of today's methods.

Estimates put the radiactive material as equaling that of a standard plant but it will be lower level short term waste, which has short lifespans. That's if the proper materials are used and not the off the shelf solutions you seem to think are immediately there without having to research them and the long term effects.

The timeline for ITER to start is in 2016. The DEMO project, as a follow up demonstration of commercial fusion power is set to only be in the construction phase between 2024 and 2033. The Japanese put feasibility in the 2030-50 range as well.

With this information in mind, an estimate of fusion reactors coming online to save the day by 2030 is optimistic to say the least. More like 50-60 years from now. All that, and there is no guarentee that the power will be economically competitive at all.

Giving a technical lecture (of things I already know even), have little bearing on the commercial viability of fusion or of it's obvious timeline problems. Given the nature of these types of projects, it will be more likely delayed further than sped up unless intervention (& massive amounts of money) are thrown at it, your own personal optimism for it notwithstanding.

Who created the EPA? Who promulgated tyhe first clean air regualtions. Who founded hte first nationla parks?

You are assuming political parties represent statically social responsibility and belief. It obviously does not.

They may have been created under republican regimes but they do not represent the mores and ideals of what is typically defined as the "right".

What happened in the eastern bloc is typically what happens in totalitarian regimes where the state decides that industry and modernization takes precedent over what people desire out of where they live. What countries who call themselves socialist do, does not represent the typical mores and ideals of those who are defined as being on the "left".

Such things happen too in countries where industry and right wing policies are placed over the overall good of the people. Such corporatism is a typically espoused part of fascism and is not socialistic in any sense and is considered part of the right though it may not represent the typical "right".

No one has tried to rewrite history. I am well aware of the true nature of history and who has done what over the years. Couching things in the veil of patriotism, nationalism and political/social beliefs is an emotional arguement, not one based on facts. The right is typically aligned with business to the detriment of all that interferes with it or can interfere with it.

The "right" , the "conserveratives" whatever you may want to call them, consider it leftist propaganda anything from the EPA, the clean air act, regulations that protect national parks that interfere with what they believe their rights are, even if these instituitions were originally by regimes on the right.

Aym

Very good and fair answer which I hope will nail the stinky beak of Stan Peterson

aym,

When you chose to look at the 32 sites that are laying the foundation to seek a license to build a Nuclear plant. You are quite correct in saying that "only" 7 plants have actually gotten as far as having formally submitted a complete COL request.

But you misunderstand the process completely.

A Utility doesn't just decide one day it would like a Nuke and so it applies for a COL license to build one. For several years prior to that, there are preliminary tasks that cost substantial amounts of money to the Utility and take effort that must be spent before going forward to seek a COL.

Predicting electrical demand in the future, proving internally and then to a Utility Commission that the generation capacity is needed is the first step; and then that a Nuke is an acceptable answer; acquiring an option on land; followed by several years applying for and seeking an approved EPA Environmental Impact Statement is next. Lots of Soil tests, Earth quake suitability determinations, waste heat disposal impacts, determining opposition, proving available corridors for electrical output for high tension lines, et cetera, are just some of the obvious concerns.

You can judge the realistic aspects of a Utilities intentions by how much money they have committed and SPENT, to get as far as considering applying for a NRC COL, formally.

Under our laws that is what must be done. How else do you think that the NRC can predict which Utilities will file for COL licenses to build a Plant, and when, in 2008 or early 2009?

To build a plant the Utilities spent millions over many years, before applying for the license COL. The NRC is not just predicting in the dark, they KNOW, what specific Utilities are planning to do and when, as they have been approached and involved with the Utilities decision making for several years prior to the formal license application submission.

So you are technically correct to say only 7 licenses have been formally applied for to date, but all the 32 plants predicted by the NRC,not I, are still validly in the early pipeline as I said. That is amazing since the first "Standard design" was only approved a year and a half ago, after about five years of technical consideration and review. GE's approval is still a year or more away, but they have been at it for almost three years already.

Therefore I stand by my statement that, as the NRC says, there are 32 Nuclear plants, each much larger than current nuclear plants, in the pipeline to be built in the next decade or so. These Nukes will provide the power for our coming electric autos.

@ wintermmane,

You are quite correct. Utility managements having been burned once, and are now very cautious. But in the Nuclear Interregnum in the US, these firms did not simply, do nothing. Most of the AP1000, USBWR and EPRs have track records for adhering to construction schedules and also have successful operational experience in Japan, the EU, or elsewhere.

Much of that concern has therefore been allayed to some degree by that experience. Perhaps once upon a time, America did it first, but not in this case. Other nations served as the guinea pigs of the new GEN III+ nuclear plants. The domestic Utilities are under heavy pressure to build something. Solar is a figment of imagination by some hopeless non technical political proponents.

There is simply no one to order a 1000 megawatts of Solar or Wind electrical generation from, even if the Utility management was determined to build such generation. Coal engenders opposition. Over the past few decades the demagogues and opposition has not allowed them to build much capacity, and their fossil plants have all been converted from oil to coal plants, and are literally antiques. By and large, they were meant for retirement 20 years ago and barely limping along.

They have already purchased as much peaking gas turbine generation that they can, and gas availability is now questionable as well as costly. The Utilities need base load capacity.

They have survived by shaving their reserves form an assured 20% reserves that guaranteed reliable service, to in some cases a few percent, that will guarantee, rolling brownouts or occasional blackouts when a generator goes down, for whatever reason.

In crazy California, there is not even any reserve margins, and they must import power today. Outside Utilities don't have the excess to sell to California, any more. It is virtually assured that the denizens of that state will face third world power reliability soon, having succumbed to the loons for far too long.

How else do you think the backlog of 32 plants was created in only 18 months?

aym,

There are three steps to a commercial Fusion power that must be proven.

1) Scientific feasibility, achieving Break even and then Net Power, needs demonstration.

2) Technical Feasibility, being able to generate a surplus of power for a long time and at the size and scale needed for reasonable commercial usefulness, needs to be demonstrated.

3) Commercial Feasibility, being able to generate power at a reliable and cost effective price versus other sources, to resell profitably, must be demonstrated.

We had completed step 1 in the early 1980s; and depended then on ITER to achieve the second step, technical feasibility. ITER was proposed BECAUSE Step 1, had been achieved.

While waiting for ITER, that Technical Feasibility criterion has been satisfactorily solved already, in ITER's absence, in a dozen smaller sites around the world. But no one site is is suitable for doing it all.

ITER now, will bring all of the solutions, from whatever sources, together in one experiment and on a large scale. It is now nothing but a confirming experiment, in that sense. What was supposed ro be a 10 year operational experimental lifetime will now be condensed into only a few years of confirming demonstrations of accomplishments from elsewhere. That saves a decade or more.

From what is now known, despite ITER not being available, the world is already embarked on determining Commercial Feasibility. The US/UK Spherical Tokamaks geometries, were chosen with a view to simpler, less costly, commercial Fusion power plants. NSTX has proved they work, and NHTX will extend that too. Probably before ITER even sees First Plasma.

From where we are now, Future Costs for a future commercial power plant can now be reasonably projected. That is not, a down to the penny projection, but the cost of all typical and necessary components have been identified, and can be fairly price estimated, now.

Fusion is or will be competitive with Coal and GEN IV fission Nukes, and much cheaper than Solar or Wind or other daydreams.

The materials available today are much better than the 1970 choices were, when this official schedule was dreamed up. And we are already well into beginning the materials improvement search.

In parallel with ITER construction, efforts such as the US NHTX reactor, a short cut to CTF and IFMIF, will save another decade from the politically correct three plus decades to commercial Fusion power.

The "magic materials" that CTF, & IFMIF were to seek, is "Silicon Carbide composite" and "Liquid Lithium" film, on substrate, for the Ddivertor facing materials. Titanium or Vanadium alloys will serve as structural materials inside the shield and martensitic steels can be used for all other structural needs. High Temperature Superconductors are being proved in at least 7 reactors, and they were undreamed of in 1980 when the schdule was first drawn up. The Fusion Plant will have radio-activation just barely 100 times over ambient that decays to ambient in 15 years. Compare that to present Fission plants that contain Radio-activation materials that are 10**5 to 10**6 over ambient radioactivity, and won't decay for a few hundred years. The materials "problem" is ALREADY solved.

Stan,

I am well aware of the process of licensing in the nuclear power industry.

You fail to mention that the present licensing system was in place since 1989 and formalized in the 1992 Energy Act. This did not lead to any reactor orders or COLs and led to the DOE's 2002 change in policy to put even more "carrot" initiatives.

You say it costs millions of dollars for the process but fail to mention that the DOE pays for half of the application process since 2002 under it's Nuclear Power 2010 program. For example, 2 consortia will receive, no-strings, 550 million from the DOE to go through the licensing and first of kind engineering site work. These were for the plants at North Anna Va,Bellefonte Ala, & Grand Gulf Miss.

The NRC knows because they are supposed to be told and in this case they are also doalling out some of the cash. Also a company telling the NRC they have the intention of going for an COL doesn't mean how much actual money or effort will be put into it, even though the announcement would put them on your list of certain builders.

Also by producing reactors on already used sites, most of the information that goes already into the licensing process. There are also over 120 cancelled nuclear power plants in the US from the 70's that can reuse the information already gathered for new applications, thereby hugely reducing costs.

You fail to mention the tax credits (1.8c/KWh)that only go to the first 6 GW of production produced for the first 8 years of production up to $125 million/ann. To qualify for this, the COL has to be in place by dec 2008 and start construction by 2014 and be finished construction by 2021. This was put in the 2005 Energy Act. It also includes insurance to cover any delay from new plants (first 6 only).

This of course has caused of flurry of companies trying to get under the wire for the few coveted incentives. These are not industry wide or long term incentive programs. Without them market conditions will naturally revert to a situation more like pre 2002.

Things like carbon taxes may make the nuclear option more actractive or even more subsidization, but to theorise on possible changes of government policy and law on the market and it's effect to create an environment more suited to nuclear and basing an outcome would be pure speculation. With that approach you could argue that solar is going to provide x % of the power because the government would throw y dollars at it.

Your assertion is that the pre-certification process to create standard designs since 2005 helped to create new orders. That is not true. Older reactor designs (gen 2) have been pre-certified for years. They are not considered.

In 2005, the system 80+, the ABWR (ie Japan 1996), and the AP600 of what is considered the new gen III+ designs were already available. The ABWR has been certified for years, it was used in the building of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Units 6 & 7, completed in 1996 and as such the design has existed since the 90s. Pre-certification of reactor designs to speed the process of building has been formalized since the Energy Act of 1992 and many reactors including new designs have been certified for years, as my example of the ABWR shows, way before 2005.

I did not say the utilities on the spur of the moment decided to put in an application for a COL. Any intelligent management has created plans for different continguencies. Looking deeper, millions are spent on different possible strategies and on viability reports including alternative power ones which never see the light of day as a real physical project.

In the 60's, the US Atomic Energy Commision believed that the US would have a 1000 nuclear reactors by 2000. As a legacy of the 70's more than 120 nuclear reactor orders were ultimately cancelled. The statement of intention of applying for a COL or even getting it does not equate to the an end result of a nuclear reactor built.

From the EIA "...table does not represent a forecast of actual plant constructions, nuclear capacity additions, or dates that any specific actions will occur..."

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/nuc_reactors/com_reactors.pdf

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/analysis/nucenviss_2.html

http://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33442.pdf

Most of the AP1000, USBWR and EPRs have track records for adhering to construction schedules and also have successful operational experience in Japan, the EU, or elsewhere.

Where are the AP1000, USBWR (???), or EPRs that have been on track and have successful operational experiences?

There is no actual AP1000 built yet. Construction to begin on the first one is in China 2008/03.

The first EPR is in Finland. 2+ years behind schedule and 1.5-3 billion euros over budget. Adhering to construction schedules and costs?

USBWR??? Let's assume that you're talking about the ABWR by GE. Only 3 of these plants have been built by the Japenese. And yes they were on time. Operationally,I'm not going to comment on that. It's spotty since the reactors are in plants with older reactors and there have been company shenanigans. One plant was shut down due to an earthquake beyond the pervue of normal operational parameters so I find no fault in that but if the fault line is actually found to be under the plant, the cost of shutting it down (it's the world largest nuclear plant with 7 reactors) or upgrading it too withstand another earthquake will be enormous.

If talking about the old gen 2 BWRs, on track construction was one of the problems that killed it. No one has bothered with it even though the designs are certified and COLs could be made with them today.

Worldwide installed solar energy is in the 5-6 GWp range. This gives an average output of around 1.2 GWe. In 2006, Germay alone put in almost 1 GWp of installed capacity. A US company just signed a 170 million dollar deal with a Chinese company to upgrade a factory to produce 1.5 GWp worth of solar cells.

How else do you think the backlog of 32 plants was created in only 18 months?
COLs or intention to file COLs do not equate with finished plants. The 70's has seen the demise of over 120 nuclear plant plans that already have gone through lots of the regulatory hoops of the era. As for the intention to file COLs, well maybe it has to do with the sweetheart tax deal the companies are getting for the first 6 GW of reactors or the DOE paying half or more of the COL process.

http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/8/1/3133012.html

Overall, I find the discussions on this board educational and interesting. Unlike many other sites, it hasn’t gotten TOO insane yet.

In defense of Stan, it is obvious that the US has to add significant base generation capacity in the next several decades. Unless there is some unforeseen technological breakthrough in renewable energy or some other technology, the US will be building a significant number of Nuclear and/or Coal base generation facilities in the next 2 decades. No amount of currently feasible renewables or conservation can possibly meet US power demand growth in the foreseeable future. As soon as the average American fully understands the level of pain and depravation the radical American left is proposing, they will be thrown out of power and sent back to their enclaves in CA and MA where they belong.

Just look to South Africa to see what could happen to the US if the radical green zombies and the NIMBIES delay needed power infrastructure investments for a few more years. If the US ends up in a long term power emergency like South Africa, the people responsible for causing the problem better hope they can get asylum in some European country to keep from loosing their heads.

Stan,

The material problems haven't been solved. You keep talking about the NHTX reactor for instance. It was designed as a test bed for material especially for diverter section. The P/R ratio in ITER would only be 24MW/m, the NHTX is supposed to be in the 50 range, a commercial one in the 100 range.

Obviously if the knowledge existed today, we wouldn't need these test reactors to test the various components. We obviously don't have the complete expertise of how a commercial reactor would work or its effect on it's structural materials or how it interacts. Without that knowledge, one cannot make a correct assessment on the materials and engineering. One cannot make economic models to the cost liabilities of the physical plant. That's why these test reactors and material tests are being done. The necessary knowledge is obviously not complete.

Fusion is or will be competitive with Coal and GEN IV fission Nukes, and much cheaper than Solar or Wind or other daydreams.

...Challenge 7 - economic viability - incorporates the solutions adopted to resolve all the other challenges. Assuming plant capital cost scales with the tokamak volume, one can expect DEMO capital costs in the region of 14euros/We based on the cost estimates for ITER. Those of PROTO will then be typically 8euros/We and, with economies of series production of fusion plants subsequently, capital costs could reduce to ~ 4euros/We. This should be compared to today's fission and coal plants at ~ 3eros /We and 1.5euro /We respectively.

http://www.iter.org/Reactors.htm

Competitive? Hardly. 33% more than projected nuclear costs from ITER itself. The source is hardly anti-fusion either.

From the EIA wind power today is cheaper then nuclear. LCoE in 2004 dollars for new production is $55.80 per MWh for wind and 59.30 for nuclear based on a 2006 report. You can bet they used the known Gen IV reactors for their calculations.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/pdf/0484(2006).pdf

Nowhere have I seen the feasibility of getting fusion earlier. The given timeline for DEMO to come online is in 2033 at the earliest. Given the nature of such projects, it will the later than sooner. DEMO doesn't even include a timeline for an actual production commercial reactor. After DEMO, a PROTO test reactor is envisioned for final ironing out by doubling DEMO's electrical output.

This isn't a created from a timeline based on 80's tech but the best the international community can come out with today.

AYM,

I keep seeing wind power being compared to Nuclear in cost. Please explain how an intermittent power source like wind can possibly be used for base generation. Photovoltaic solar has the same problem. Thermal solar is a bit better, since you can store heated liquid overnight, but cloudy/rainy/snowy weather even screws up thermal solar more often than is acceptable for base generation. The reserve capacity and geographic diversity needed for a mostly renewable base generating grid would make it very cost prohibitive. Even with a geographically diverse, overbuilt solar/wind base generation system, the vagaries of weather would make it far less reliable than our current coal/nuclear/hydro base generating system.

Imposing more pain and depravation with a less reliable electric grid on people accustomed to a power grid with 99.9% plus reliability is a non-starter. This is why all serious proposals to reduce carbon emissions from power generation have to include new fission reactors as their centerpiece. All proposals that include significantly reducing the reliability of the electric grid, are (and should be!) political suicide.

Btw the U.S. only covers 2.6% of its energy needs with nuclear. So, nuclear will definitely not solve any energy or carbon emission problems in the future.

U.S. total electricity production DOE (2005): 3891.72 TWh
U.S. total energy consumption DOE (2005): 104.279 EJ = 28967 TWh

Therefore: 13.4% of the U.S. energy consumption is electricity consumption.

NOW the nuclear contribution to the U.S. electricity consumption is 19.6%.
19.6% * 13.4% = 2.6%

This information is actually from the nuclear lobby:
tinyurl . com / ypv7sn

According to the IAEA the known uranium reserves last 80 years. After 60 years of development there are still no breeders. And the few which are running are extremely expensive per kWh and have constant reliability issues.

If France wouldn't have all the energy storage lakes in the Alps and all the inefficient electric heaters running at night, it would not know what to do with its inflexible nuclear power.
Nuclear power is stored in the storage lakes now, renewable power will be stored in the storage lakes in the future.

There definitely won't be a fusion reactor in the next 30 years.
And there definetly won't be an affordable fusion reactor solving energy problems in 100 years.
tinyurl . com / 22tq4s

Our sun system already has a perfectly working fusion reactor and currently 97% of the world economy depends on it. And this won't change in the future.

Btw, Wind is already number one in newly installed power in Europe. And in 2005, China (with only 20% of the world's population) installed already 77% of all solar thermal collectors.
It works.

Oops, Breeders are nowadays called Gen IV reactors.

Sorry for this mishap.

@Yukaburbahoe,

My response was to the cost of fusion, which according to ITER would be higher than today's nuclear power and by EIA computations, therefore, higher than wind.

As for the vaguries of wind, no one is sugesting that wind in itself will be the only power source or that it become the defacto supply of base power.

Best practices in utility operations prohibits any one source of energy becoming the only energy supply. Diversity in supply creates more resiliance in the system and better ability to withstand market/regulatory/environmental changes. No one technology has all benefits and no negative aspects. Only by blending them can optimal solutions be created and even then time will change the mix.

With today's utility grid, it is estimated by that around 20% of the capacity can come from a source as variable as wind, without major infrastructure upgrades. That is at least if the US infrastructure is similar to the United Kingdoms' where this study took place by the national power company. The Netherlands has the ability to buffer it's electrical system through the continental grid. There is no reason why other countries could not do similar things.

There is nothing about the intermittancy of wind in some areas. It is quite consistant.

Here is a link to US wind resources. The US has an installed capacity of 12000 MW, 10000 MW of which was built only in the last 8-9 years.

http://www.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/windpoweringamerica/

I'm not against nuclear. But I'm certainly not going to support it with blinders over my eyes. I'm also not going to let other people try to pass something incorrect as the truth.

With that in mind. Here's some info on the uranium supply situation vis-a-vis consumption. It's not as dire as 70-80 years but it must be remembered that it is the supply at today's prices in an open system. The price will effect the cost of the electricity.

I believe that doubling the cost of uranium would case the cost of electricity from nuclear to go up 9%, though I'm not too sure whether it is from production, generation or levelized cost. This would theoretically increase the amount of available uranium by 10x. From a 1980 Scientific American article, a 10x increase of price would increase the supply by 300. The total estimated amount of uranium from conventional sources is estimated to be 15-29 (from 2007 IPCC report) Mt range.

http://www.eoearth.org/article/Uranium_supply

And also would like to add that not all GEN IV reactors are breeders, just some designs are.

Not the costs of Uranium are important.
When the energy needed to extract uranium is higher than the energy produced by nuclear power plants, nuclear power plants can simply not provide the world with a significant amount of power.

tinyurl . com / 32xtyo

Of course there's more than plenty of uranium in granite but that doesn't solve anything.

Numerous factual inaccuracies in this thread. I'll address a few:

There is simply no one to order a 1000 megawatts of Solar or Wind electrical generation from... (Stan)

Large turbine manufacturers (e.g. Vestas, GE, etc.) today can handle a 1000 MW order. Note the largest wind farm today (Horse Hollow in TX) is 735 MW, with turbines from two vendors. The Hartland project in ND includes two 500 MW phases for 1000 MW total.

They won't double nuclear generation to 40%, all by themselves, but will easily raise it to well over 30%... (Stan)

Even if magically installed today the 32 planned plants would only bring nuclear's share to about 28%. If all 32 somehow manage to be up and running in 10 years nuclear's share will be roughly 25%.

Btw the U.S. only covers 2.6% of its energy needs with nuclear....
U.S. total electricity production DOE (2005): 3891.72 TWh
U.S. total energy consumption DOE (2005): 104.279 EJ = 28967 TWh
(Fusionillusion)

It's misleading to equate TWh(e) with TWh(t). Nuclear provides about 8% of US raw thermal energy (roughly 8.5 EJ out of 104). The DOE puts US "useful energy", after thermal losses, at about 10400 TWh, of which nuclear provides between 7-8%.

I believe that doubling the cost of uranium would case the cost of electricity from nuclear to go up 9%... (aym).

This obviously depends on your definition of "cost of electricity from nuclear". Uranium (U308) consumption is very roughly 0.05 pounds per MWh. At $25/lb a few years ago uranium thus contributed $1.25/MWh or 0.125 cents/kWh. At around $75/lb today it's three times that. Not until $200/lb does it hit a penny per kWh. Of course miners are working overtime to open new mines even at $75/lb, so any spike to $200 is likely to be short-lived.

Thought about some references:

US energy consumption by sector.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/trends/table1.html

The UIC page was recently changed so that a doubling of price only increases the cost by 7%.

http://www.uic.com.au/nip08.htm

According to this site, which gives a more complete mathematical model, creates a picture of much higher percentage increases to the cost of electricity when uranium prices go up as well as a methodology of increasing the efficiency and lowering fuel use.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html

Actually the facts below are valid.
It's in fact misleading when nuclear power includes the thermal losses into the power output (unless this waste heat were actually used, which it is not).

U.S. total electricity production DOE (2005): 3891.72 TWh
U.S. total energy consumption DOE (2005): 104.279 EJ = 28967 TWh
(Fusionillusion)
Therefore: 13.4% of the U.S. energy consumption is electricity consumption.

NOW the nuclear contribution to the U.S. electricity consumption is 19.6%.
19.6% * 13.4% = 2.6%

This information is actually from the nuclear lobby and they wouldn't lie about it, would they:
tinyurl . com / ypv7sn

One can say that electricity has a higher 'energy value' than pure fuel (oil, gas, coal). However, if electricity is used to power inefficient electric heaters, such as in France, there's really no difference between electric and pure thermal energy.