Came across an interesting WSJ story: HIgh Prices Prod Developed World to Curb Oil Use. Apparently the US and Europe used 0.6% less oil last year.

It is encouraging to see a major electricity generating company not only admit that global warming is real but also invest in a plan to mitigate it. It's also slick and clever brand marketing.

Vattenfall's total production capacity is around 173 tWh, of which approx. 1/3 is nuclear, 1/3 lignite and 1/6 hard coal. The rest is hydro, a little bit of natural gas and a sliver of renewables.

The present (uneasy) political consensus in Germany, the company's biggest market, is that all of the country's nuclear power plants will be shut down by 2020. Given that Russia is in a position to more-or-less dictate gas prices (as it has done in Ukraine and Belarus), this squarely puts the onus on domestic lignite with carbon sequestration, plus renewables and conservation. This translates to major capital investments in Germany's electricity generating sector in the next decade, since getting planning permissions for anything substantial takes about that long.

In addition, the EU commission is currently for a liberalization of the energy markets by forcing vertically integrated national giants like Vattenfall, E.on, RWE, EDF etc. to either sell their distribution grids or to at least operate them at arm's length. There are also calls for high-capacity interconnects between the networks and for equal transport prices over the distribution infrastructure for all producers. This would make relatively small heat-and-power co-generation plants fired with waste biomass much more competitive. Note that waste heat can be used for refrigeration using e.g. absorption chillers or Vuilleumier machines.

At present, natural gas and electricity prices in Germany are among the continent's highest and its energy giants among the most profitable companies. Naturally, the industry and the national politicians it is close to would rather like to maintain the status quo and use EU money to subsidize the required investments in clean generating capacity. Expect a tug-of-war with the commission and market-oriented member states like the UK over the next few years.

Ya and in other news a herd of flmaing hippos flew out of rosan bars ass singing klingon opera.... news at 11.

All these sories sighthing low low cost of climate change prevention are bunk and everyone on the planet knows it. Shut up and admit the damn trueth these out and out lies only hurt the damn cause.

Global warming will cost a bloody gurtune in the end and it will lose one hell of alot of people thier jobs temp and perm in many cases. Ot will royaly fubar one hell of alot of things and yes to be blunt far from every contry CAN do it.

Face the damn music folks global waqrming is one big hairy ass and its time to pucker up and kiss mother nature!..

Vattenfall owns an experimental clean coal plant near Berlin housed in a space age looking building. They seem to have decided in advance that it is the prototype for many such plants. The trouble is that is hasn't yet produced much clean energy as far as I'm aware; the chickens have been counted before they are hatched.

Somebody is kidding somebody; either themselves or the public or both.

Dezakin -

politically, that option is DOA in Germany and several other European nations at this time. It would be foolish to dismiss nuclear a priori given the perceived risks and/or sequestration costs of increased coal utilization. However, it would also be foolish to ignore the very real problems and risks inherent in nuclear power.

Bear in mind that Europeans had Chernobyl on their doorstep. Livestock died of radiation poisoning as far away as the UK. Cancer rates in an area the size of France are well above normal. In the Pripyat area, the mutatagenic potential of radioactive pollution is evident in the strange morphology of the local vegitation.

Of course it is true that Western European nuclear power plants have long included more passive safety features than their counterparts in Eastern Europe. They have also been operated with a far more stringent culture of safety first. Nevertheless, it would be politically difficult/impossible at this point to extend operating permits for legacy reactors in Western Europe but to deny that right to the new EU members in the East. Yet there is only so much you can do to reduce the inherent risks of these rickety Soviet-era contraptions.

Btw, afaik no-one has ever performed the orderly decommissioning of a large legacy nuclear power plant. The plan appears to be to bury the most radioactive bits under a large mound of earth and hope for the best for a few centuries.

Rafael Seidl,
In Europe, correct. In the US, it is a bit different. Near where the creator of "The Simpson's" (Matt Groening) grew up, the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant is nearing the completion of the decommissioning process. Begun in 1993, it is on track to finish the process by the end of 2008. The main working radioactive components (reactor, steam generator, pipes, etc.) have been removed. Some demo work for aboveground structures remain. Spent fuel casks are still stored onsite, awaiting final shipment to Yucca Mountain, if not other repositories.

Lets face it. As French are saying about their nuclear power generation (80% nuclear 20% hydro): “We have no oil, we have no coal, we have no gas – we have no choice”. Hydro power in Europe is mostly tapped. Wind and solar could contribute only small portion. Biofuels on the required mass scale will consume more energy to grow and collect then they will produce. Conservation is approaching its limits. Reliance on Russian NG is troublesome, and it is finite resource – and in near future. The only real choice is Big Coal (sorry, sequestration won’t work) with full size pollution (dust, heavy metals, SO3, NOx) for countries which have coal, or Big Nuclear for all. France is already nuclear, Belgium, Finland, Baltic countries, and recently GB are moving in this direction. Only some countries having ample hydro resources, like Norway, Austria, or Switzerland could afford high per cent of hydro power in the mix.

There is interesting article on new developments in nuclear reactors design:

http://www.uic.com.au/nip16.htm

Dezakin -

as Allen points out:

"Spent fuel casks are still stored onsite, awaiting final shipment to Yucca Mountain, if not other repositories."

This is precisely my point. It has proven *politically* very difficult to get anyone to accept highly radioactive nuclear waste for long term storage, be it spent fuel rods or the decommissioned components. And until and unless that logjam is broken, there is in effect no operational solution for the waste.

The next best option, as you point out, is to keep storing it on site long after the reactor has ceased to operate. You mention a period of 50 to 100 years before it is "safe" to handle, I suggested a few centuries. Again, the issue is one of political will. What makes you think future generations will be jumping for joy about the privilege of cleaning up our toxic garbage? Wouldn't it human nature for them to let sleeping dogs lie for as long as possible?

It's one thing to have to deal with a problem that was produced at a time when the consequences of industrial activity were still rather poorly understood, e.g. pesticide use, acid rain, global warming. It is quite another to callously kick the ball forward knowing full well just how huge the problem is, just because we're point blank not prepared to reduce our demand for energy through conservation and efficiency.

Rafael-

I don't think it's callousness to "kick the ball forward" as you put it for the storage of nuclear waste. I agree with your previous posts about the need to increase fuel taxes in the US to encourage conservation. That's politically difficult, but maybe over time we can get it done. Other measures can also increase awareness and conservation efforts. It's a battle for hearts and minds.

But conservation and wind+solar can't be the only solutions. Such a policy would cause too radical a shock to the economy. Unemployed people don't generally care much about environmental causes. Things could get a lot worse.

And the fact remains that our current policy is to build coal-fired power plants, and the only alternative for the next 20 years is nuclear. It's callous to continue that policy.

JamesEE -

just because I - like many other people - have serious reservations about nuclear power does not mean I am blind to the reality that coal also has serious problems and that conservation alone will probably not be enough.

However, I would like to see a lot more effort going into every technologically and economically viable alternative to nuclear power before we should seriously consider extending the lifespan of legacy reactors, let alone build any new ones.

This does not have to mean a shock to the economy. It does mean reordering macroeconomic and geostrategic priorities. For example, spending well over $300 billion on Iraq in just 4 years has not killed off the US economy. If those kinds of sums were instead spent on energy conservation measures, chances are the next generation would not need to worry about the free flow of oil from the Persian Gulf, nor about the terrorist threat that is fueled by the West's hunger for oil.

Raphael:

You should take a closer look at the huge mess building up in Alberta (to procure oil for USA) from tar sands activities. An area the size of Florida is being turned into eternal gooey tar & chemical ponds. Between that (oil from tar sands + ICE vehicles) and nuclear + PHEVs & EVs, I wonder which is the worst for all of us.

Rafael:

I am not a big fan of nuclear power either, I just do not see other way around for baseload power generation – for many countries.

BTW, problem of radioactive waste is vastly overblown. US for strange reasons stopped re-processing of spent fuel, but almost all other countries do it. Spent fuel looses its radioactivity quite fast – 10 times in first day, 100 times over the first year, and in 500 years its radioactivity is less then of initial uranium fuel. Reprocessing returns generated plutonium back to be burnt in reactor, and vastly diminish volume of remained radioactive materials. Actually, remained waste could be mixed with inert matrix and burned almost entirely in currently developed nuclear reactors. And any way, amount of waste is relatively small and could be buried quite safely and permanently for quite reasonable cost. Actually, it is routinely done by France, Japan, S.Korea, Taiwan, etc.

P.S. Burial of nuclear waste in Yucca mountain was approved by US congress, disapproved by Nevada, then congress overruled Nevada decision, but Clinton vetoed this overruling. It was approved another time and signed by Bush, and now it is in the US Supreme Court. It is anticipated then Supreme Court will approve it and at about 2010 Yucca mountain depository will be functional.