Energy Department official Ward Sproat on Tuesday ( 22/7/08 ) that it would cost taxpayers $90 billion to open and operate the nation’s first nuclear waste dump. Speaking after a congressional hearing, Sproat added the dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada would open only in 2020. It was originally estimated to cost $58 billion and open in 1998.
There is a proposal to use Nuclear power to replace coal, which is most abundant in US. And this sounds good for climate, but actually, expanding nuclear makes climate change worse, for a very simple reason. Nuclear is incredibly expensive. The costs have just stood up on end lately. Wall Street Journal recently reported that they’re about two to four times the cost that the industry was talking about just a year ago. And the result of that is that if you buy more nuclear plants, you’re going to get about two to ten times less climate solution per dollar, and you’ll get it about twenty to forty times slower, than if you buy instead the cheaper, faster stuff that is walloping nuclear and coal and gas, all kinds of central plans, in the marketplace. And those competitors are efficient use of electricity and what’s called micropower, which is both renewables, except big hydro, and making electricity and heat together, in fact, recent buildings, which takes about half of the money, fuel and carbon of making them separately, as we normally do.
So, nuclear cannot actually deliver the climate or the security benefits claimed for it. It’s unrelated to oil. And it’s grossly uneconomic, which means the nuclear revival that we often hear about is not actually happening. It’s a very carefully fabricated illusion. And the reason it isn’t happening is there are no buyers. That is, Wall Street is not putting a penny of private capital into the industry, despite 100-plus percent subsidies. [But now in India, govt is going to fool indian tax payers by buying US nuclear technology] Because It’s uneconomic. It costs, for example, about three times as much as wind power, which is booming.
Let me give you some numbers about what’s happening in the marketplace, because that’s reality, as far as I’m concerned. I really take markets seriously. 2006, the last full year of data we have, nuclear worldwide added a little bit of capacity, more than all of it from upgrading old plants, because the new ones they built were smaller than the retirements of old plants. So they added 1.4 billion watts. Sounds like a lot. Well, it’s about one big plant’s worth worldwide. That was less than photovoltaics, solar cells added in capacity. It was a tenth what wind power added. It was a thirtieth to a fortieth of what micropower added.
Micropower is renewables, other than big hydro, plus co-generating electricity and heat together, usually in industry. It is the production of energy on the smallest of scales, for individual buildings or communities. In 2006, micropower, for the first time, produced more electricity worldwide than nuclear did. A sixth of the world’s electricity is now micropower, a third of the new electricity. In a dozen industrial countries, micropower makes anywhere from a sixth to over half of all the electricity elsewhere. This is not a fringe activity anymore.
China, which has the world’s most ambitious nuclear program, by the end of 2006 had seven times that much capacity in distributed renewables, and they were growing it seven times faster. Take a look at 2007, in which the US or Spain or China added more wind capacity than the world added nuclear capacity. The US added more wind capacity last year than we’ve added coal capacity in the past five years put together.
And renewables, other than big hydro, got last year $71 billion of private capital; nuclear, as usual, got zero. It is only bought by central planners with a draw on the public purse. What does this tell you? I mean, what part of the story does anybody who take markets seriously not get?
Moody’s latest number is $7,500 a kilowatt for nuclear plants. That’s, again, as the Journal said, about two to four times the numbers that were being bandied about just last year by promoters.
You see, renewables don’t emit carbon. Efficiency doesn’t emit carbon. Cogeneration based on recovered waste heat you were throwing away anyhow doesn’t emit carbon, because you already paid for the carbon in making the useful part of the heat in industry. And these sources are a great deal cheaper and faster than nuclear. So if climate’s a problem, we need to invest judiciously, not indiscriminately, to get the most solution per dollar, the most solution per year. Otherwise, we’re making things worse.
an interview by Amy Goodman with Amory Lovins is co-founder, chair and chief scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado. He is a consultant physicist, MacArthur Fellow, and recipient of numerous awards, including the Right Livelihood Award. Lovins advised the energy and other industries in countries around the world, including here in the US. He invented the hybrid Hypercar in ’91 and has written twenty-nine books, including Soft Energy Paths, Natural Capitalism, Small Is Profitable, and Winning the Oil Endgame.
– from democracynow.org
A couple of points need to be raised about this. First, it’s not good to find the most exaggerated estimate of nuclear energy and use that as a basis of your argument. Moody’s isn’t in the business of estimating building costs, so the high cost it shows isn’t reliable. In France, nuclear plants are built for $2000/KW.
It’s true that the cost of nuclear plants is rising in response to greatly increased demand for materials. Those same increases apply to renewable energy sources.
If you want to be taken seriously, look for information sources beyond those that reinforce your preconceptions.
Nuclear energy is a 50 years old mature technology. But still they are getting huge tax exceptions and subsidies. Why this industry cannot live without this hidden money?
The cost of building new plants are escalating. The French magazine Capital reports that Olkiluoto 3 is EUR2.2 billion over budget while earlier the highest estimate has been 1.5 billion. http://www.olkiluoto.info/en/30/3/136/
The same time govt is not helping renewable energy. even coal plants get subsidies. during 80s when oil price was high, people started solar plants. one that was LUZ International. but In 1991, LUZ filed for bankruptcy because they were unable to get construction financing and declining oil prices. People like Gilbert Cohen become jobless.
But now its the time for renewables. Gilbert Cohen started Nevada Solar One and this time it may be successful.
Anyways thanks for reading the post and posting the comment.
OK, let’s go with your numbers. Olkiluoto 3 is a 1600 MW plant, so EUR 2.2 gives $2160 / KW. As fast as material prices are going up that’s just in line with inflation. No doubt the price will continue to rise as material prices continue to rise. What are we supposed to do? The cost of renewables is rising just as fast. Even the cost of conservation is going up.
Renewables have always got bigger subsidies than nuclear. For more on this subject, please look here.
EUR2.2 billion is over budget. Now the total investment in EUR3.2 billion. And it is delayed by 2011. So this cost also going to increase. Also may also get delayed more. Initially people supported nuclear plants in Finland, but now 53% of the people are opposing it, 34% supporting and 12% did not have a position.
This is the case of Finland. When it come to US, where dollar is weakening the cost will be more. Indian Rupee also weak.
And what about nuclear waste. The waste disposal has to be by public fund.
LUZ International bankrupted because govt withdrawn support. Gilbert Cohen life is an example.
Why people spending huge money for these big power plants. Renewables are faster to implement. So early returns for the investment. Now renewables may be little costly. Its because Most of the components are custom made. there is no mass production for renewables components.
For example, Nevada Solar One gave subcontract to build its components to an automobile components manufacturing company. They changed same profit as from the automobile company, making those component finally the plant costly.
Now things are changing. Solar cells are cheaper than 10 years back. Like peak oil, there is a peak uranium. But sun’s energy is free. Utilize it maximum. In 212 B.C, Archimedes focused sun’s light to burn enemy ships. People know sun’s power from that time. But even in this 21st century it is not getting proper attention from the politicians.
This is what I was referring to in my first comment. You just pick up bits and pieces of misinformation with sometimes something real mixed in and think you have the whole story.
What about nuclear energy waste? Do you know how many people have been harmed by it? The answer is zero. No, it’s not paid by a public fund, at least not in the US (I don’t know what goes on in other countries). The utilities pay into a fund which has accumulated billions of dollars, waiting for the government to follow through on the commitments it made decades ago.
What about coal waste? It just piles up, poisoning the underground water supplies under it. It’s too dangerous to leave alone, but there’s too much of it to do anything with it.
No, renewables aren’t faster to implement, because to get the same energy takes huge amounts of equipment. For example, to get the same energy from photovoltaic that you get from a single 1000-MW power plant requires over twenty square kilometers of solar panels. For more on this, please look here and here.
After posting the previous comment, I looked at the article you copied from the NY Times. That may be part of the problem. You have to understand that the NY Times, like some other newspapers, has been on an anti-nuclear crusade for decades. There’s a lot of misinformation (or carefully selected partial information) floating around. Please take the trouble to check a variety of information sources.
Nuclear waste is not about nuclear energy waste. Wasted energy is another important point. 2/3 of the total energy produced is wasted. We should improve energy usage efficiency. Also we need to stop vampire energy. In US its equivalent of electricity produced by 16 power plants.
Nuclear waste means the radioactive byproducts of nuclear power plant. Its a big question. Its a biggest challenge in nuclear industry. We cannot shut our eyes on that, also our future generations should not pay for our energy demand.
No, it is exactly the spent-fuel waste I am writing about. No person has ever been harmed by it. Why don’t you know that?
Well, it’s not much of a challenge. A coal-fired 1000-MW power plant produces 300,000 metric tons of dangerous waste per year. That’s just the part that gets trapped; the filth discharged into the air is something else. A nuclear plant producing the same amount of electricity produces 23 metric tons, enough to partly fill a railroad boxcar. Can you see there’s a difference between 300,000 metric tonnes and 23? Wait, it gets better. 97% of the spent fuel is valuable fuel and can be recycled in advanced-fuel reactors. The residual waste loses its radioactivity in a few centuries, a problem much less vexing than many we have to deal with, such as nitrates in water run-off or the mercury in disposable batteries. In contrast, coal wastes stay dangerous forever.
On the subject of wasted energy, I believe you are addressing the condenser heat of steam plants that has to be disposed of. That is an interesting topic. The wasteful discharge of heat is the result of many decades of cheap energy and applies to all steam-cycle energy plants. It seems unbelievable, but it always was cheaper to discharge the heat uselessly and burn oil or gas to heat buildings nearby. In the years to come, the world will be more careful of energy and that condenser heat will be put to good use heating homes and businesses or heating industrial processes.
Good post, and thanks for mentioning cogeneration. I’m associated with Recycled Energy Development, a company that fights global warming by turning manufacturers’ excess heat into clean power. (In other words, cogen.) That means more efficiency, which is good for profit and the planet. As you mention, the marketplace is the real reality, and this would actually save money while cutting emissions. Indeed, EPA and DoE estimates suggesting that recycling energy at industrial facilities could reduce our greenhouse emissions by 20%.
The reason more of this isn’t being done is that regulations tend to protect the profits of monopoly utilities — which are grossly inefficient — while preventing the emergence of more efficient alternatives. That’s what we really need to change. Our energy industry would change dramtically.
Right now, no one is investing in nuclear plants or, for that matter, any other kind of big plant without investment guarantees from regulators or state legislators. Hardly sounds like cheap power to me.
pollution from coal is not an excuse for nuclear plants to pollute 90000s of years.
http://jagadees.wordpress.com/2008/07/29/french-nuclear-leak-authorities-ban-water-use/
jagadees, you’ve just got to look for better information sources. Nuclear plants don’t pollute 90000s of years.
The world is getting pressure from two sides. Billions of people are working hard at improving their living standards, even while the population is continuing to grow. But the strain on the environment is weakening Earth’s ability to support all of us. There is no reason to believe people will choose low-quality lifestyles; history shows that in the absence of nuclear energy people will simply continue to use fossil fuels and environmental destruction will follow inevitably. Worldwide, more millions of people will die from pollution, soil and waterways will continue to be poisoned, and the climate will be irreversibly altered.
we cannot isolate a nuclear power plant from its real whole life. Its starts from mining of uranium to disposing the spent fuel. Certain radioactive elements (such as plutonium-239) in “spent” fuel will remain hazardous to humans and other living beings for hundreds of thousands of years. Other radioisotopes will remain hazardous for millions of years. Thus, these wastes must be shielded for centuries and isolated from the living environment for hundreds of millennia.
We cannot say its not the problem of the plant or its the problem of uranium. What is the reason for the spent fuel appeared in this planet. Its because we used that in a nuclear power plant. We need electricity so we used it. So its a pollution from the plant.
Actually we need heat to boil water for electricity production, thats more correct. Is this the only way to boil water. If so then the plant is a necessary. But if we have other options then its a waste. I still think that there is more better alternative to boil water. And people know about it from 212 B.C.
What is the reason for pollution? The greed of corporate is the reason. Its not because of population. US has less population, but its the top most polluter in this planet. So how to combat it. Reduce our consumption. Reject consumerism.
Save electricity. Its better than building a new plant.
Thank you, jagadees. Eventually, anti-nukes always show their real motive, which is to impose an authoritarian regime that dictates the standard of living for everyone. Well, except themselves. As the managing elite they naturally have to maintain a higher living standard in order to fulfill their responsibilities. Everyone else can live in unheated hovels, grow their own food, weave their own cloth, travel by foot, and wait for the elite to decide their lives for them.
Your vision won’t work because elected representatives won’t vote for it. If any did they wouldn’t be representatives after the next election. Your vision didn’t even work in the Soviet Union because the system stifled initiative and creativity. Here’s a better vision for you to consider: a vision in which all the people of the world can have comfortable homes, adequate diets, education, health care, and even a chance to travel.
This vision is possible. All it takes is intelligent decisions based on good information instead of stupid decisions based on misinformation from unprincipled demagogues.
In US, it is estimated that the vampire energy( http://jagadees.wordpress.com/2007/12/17/how-can-we-save-power/ ) accounts for electricity produced in 16 power plants.
Can we improve our energy usage efficiency?
Automobile engine runs at 15% efficiency http://jagadees.wordpress.com/2007/10/20/ic-engine-efficiency/. Can we use electric vehicles and better public transport?
Its not about anti-nukes. Its not about erstwhile Soviet Union or Communism.
Its about choosing a technology to boil water. Its about efficient use of taxpayers money. Its about how we care about our children. We dont want our children to clean up the waste generated by our luxury and stupidity.
Efficiency can always be improved. Eliminating energy sources will not force people to become more efficient, it only will force greater dependence on other energy sources. Nor will eliminating energy sources force wealthy people to give up extravagant lifestyles. The history of the last fifty years proves both these observations. While the supply of nuclear energy has grown only slightly in the last thirty years the world’s consumption rate has grown exponentially.
There are only two energy sources that can meet the future full-time needs of a modern world, nuclear and fossil. Nuclear energy’s safety and environmental records are equal to the records of any alternative energy source. To give it up on the basis of fabricated propaganda from political groups will force the world to use more coal. Our children will inherit a fatally poisoned planet.
If nuclear energy is used instead, the waste products can be reduced to miniscule proportions that can be safely isolated for the time required for them to lose their hazardous properties. Coal waste, in contrast, is vast in quantity and stays toxic forever.
Nuclear and fossil are not renewable.
What we will do if all the uranium get exhausted? All the investment done on nuclear plants get wasted.
So why going for a costly technology. Sun’s heat is free of cost. Why we are not utilizing it properly?
With reprocessing and recycling, the uranium just in high-grade ores will last the world for thousands of years. Thorium is three times as plentiful as uranium. Lower-grade ores will extend the supply to tens of thousands of years. Fusion should be up and running is something less than a thousand years.
Sun’s heat is worth what you pay for it. You never can count on it: sometimes it’s available, sometimes it isn’t. If you don’t need energy, solar works fine. If you need energy it doesn’t.
pls read this article scientific america about nuclear fuel reprocesing
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=rethinking-nuclear-fuel-recycling&page=1
Thanks for the link, Jagadees. As most of the commentators noted, the article is a one-sided opinion piece crafted to push people’s emotional buttons while leaving out the pertinent facts that show his analysis is wrong. In particular, he argues against a form of reprocessing that was invented for the weapons program and which wouldn’t be used in a commercial energy program. In commercial reprocessing, weapons materials would remain mixed with the actinides that render them ineffective and unavailable. His argument is based on false premises and leads, consequently, to a false conclusion.