Archive for the 'Energy Policy' Category

Solar thermal LCOE with and without storage

Published February 25, 2012 Nuclear Power Leave a Comment
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John Roles – excerpt from his analysis of CSP.

(…) From a broader perspective it appears that LFR technology is already at a slightly lower cost ( from the information and data I have been privy to) than trough technology. This is despite the fact that LFR technology is at a much earlier point on the cost development curve than troughs. It is reasonable then to conclude then that LFR will ultimately be the winner.

As an aside I do not understand the unreasonable push to incorporate high levels of storage onto solar thermal plant. The LCOE for solar thermal without storage will probably end up at around $150/MW. While I have not run any definitive numbers I believe that the marginal LCOE for additional storage will not be any lower than this. For plant without storage you are competing with a current spot price of maybe $50. This is bad enough but for the marginal addition of storage the LCOE will be $150 and the relative competitive spot price will be $20.

Why, it simply does not make sense. You are eroding the one factor, the match between output and demand, that is attractive about solar thermal. To use a mixed analogy, pigs are good for bacon why even bother puting lipstick on it.

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South Korea’s two newest nuclear reactors connected to the grid

Published February 25, 2012 Nuclear Power Leave a Comment
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WNN reports: South Korea’s two newest nuclear reactors, Shin Kori 2 and Shin Wolsong 1, have been connected to the grid.

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Shin Wolsong 1 and 2 (Image: Dawoo)

Shin Kori 2 started up in December 2011 and was connected to the grid in January, joining Shin Kori 1 which entered commercial operation in early 2011. Meanwhile, Shin Wolsong 1 started up and was connected to the grid in January. Its sister plant, Shin Wolsong 2, is expected to start up before the end of 2012.

The two units are both South Korean-designed OP-1000 pressurised water reactors and are due to enter commercial operation by the middle of 2012. The grid connection brings the total number of operating reactors in Korea to 23.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News

Nuclear safety projects launched in China

Published February 22, 2012 China , Nuclear Power Leave a Comment
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This looks like smart policy:

A series of research and development (R&D) projects has been launched by China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) to improve the country’s emergency response capabilities at nuclear power plants in the event of an extreme disaster.

The NEA said that the projects are aimed at improving safety-related technology employed in Chinese nuclear power plants, taking into account lessons learned from the Fukushima accident in Japan.

A total of thirteen R&D projects are to be conducted by China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), China Guangdong Nuclear Power Corporation (CGNPC) and the Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology in cooperation with Tsinghua University. Engineers and researchers will work to develop advanced nuclear power safety technology through targeted research and plant site analyses, the NEA said.

The R&D projects will include the development of passive emergency power supply and cooling water systems, as well as development of passive containment heat removal systems. The projects will also analyse the impact of multiple simultaneous external events and response measures. Research into beyond design basis earthquake and external flooding, as well as measures for the prevention and mitigation of used fuel accidents will also be conducted. Projects will also cover beyond design basis accident mitigation equipment and systems, while others are aimed at developing hydrogen control devices and emergency rescue robots. Other projects will study the monitoring and treatment of contaminated ground and water.

All the projects are expected to be completed by 2013. According to the NEA, implementation of the results will improve the safety of China’s second-generation nuclear power plant technology by lowering the probability of large early radioactive releases and reactor core damage.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News

[From Nuclear safety projects launched in China]

California’s dirty coal legacy

Published February 19, 2012 Energy Policy Leave a Comment
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Searching for facts on California’s actual coal-fired electricity consumption, I found the Milford et al report “Clearing California’s Coal Shadow from the American West” [PDF]. The latest data therein is 2004, when California’s coal-fired electricity consumption was about 20%. California politicians prefer to quote the “inside California borders” coal burning stats, which according to EIA data was around 1.2% in 2010. The strategy of the politicians has been to drive energy-intensive businesses out of the state, and to outsource the pollution associated with power generation so that other Western states can “enjoy” the coal mining and burning.

Far from the southern California beaches, the movie studios of Hollywood, and the Golden Gate Bridge, a fleet of coal plants in distant western states churns out power for the California market. These coal plants discharge vast quantities of air pollution, consume huge amounts of water and emit destructive global warm- ing gases. Some of the largest mining operations in the United States tear up the land to provide the coal they burn. While the power from these coal plants is transmitted many miles to customers in California, the pollution and environ- mental disturbances stay behind, sending a cascade of human health and environ- mental impacts across the American West and the globe. Although coal-fired electricity production accounts for a smaller share of California’s power mix than it does in other western states, the sheer size of the California market means that the Golden State’s consumption of coal-based power casts a long shadow over the American West.

(…) In 2004, coal plants located in the interior West supplied an estimated 20% of all electricity in California, which is twice the share that comes from renewables. Large quantities of air pollution are discharged from these coal plants.

(…) Coal-fired power plants owned by California utilities also consume precious water in the Southwest. The Navajo Generating Station and the Four Corners Power Plant each con- sume more than 8 billion gallons of water every year. The environmental footprint of coal-fired power plants further extends to the coal-mining operations that supply them. The Black Mesa-Kayenta mining complex, which supplies the Mohave and Navajo generating stations, is one of the largest strip-mining operations in the United States.

Energy policy: Near Zero

Published February 18, 2012 Energy Policy Leave a Comment

For those of us who need energy policy teaching aids, there is a very useful new resource Nearzero.org. Organized by the Carnegie Institution’s Ken Caldeira, climate scientist and co-founder of FICER (Fund for Innovative Climate and Energy Research). As a communications effort Near Zero has invited five domain experts to each do five short video talks – most are under five minutes. I particularly recommend Stanford’s Burton Richter on energy policy and nuclear energy, and Stanford’s Sally Benson on CCS (Carbon Capture and Sequestration). From the Introduction to Near Zero:

Near Zero is a nonprofit that aims to increase the frequency and value of dialogue among energy experts and to make this expertise more accessible to those who make and influence energy-related decisions in government, business, and NGOs. Decision makers lack credible, impartial and timely sources of information reflecting the range of expert opinion. What do the best experts agree on? When they disagree, what is the source and extent of the disagreement? Working with decision makers and influentials to identify critical energy issues, Near Zero will initiate, moderate and synthesize transparent online discussions among the foremost experts from industry and academia. The result will be a rich, digital cache of actionable information to guide policy and investment decisions.

Energy Policy: Burton Richter

Published February 18, 2012 Energy Policy , Nuclear Costs Leave a Comment

I would like to recommend my current favorite introduction to both climate change and energy policy.This is Stanford University nuclear physicist and Nobel laureate Burton Richter’s 2010 book: Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Climate Change and Energy in the 21st Century. It is very accessible to the non-technical reader, and balanced in the presentation of energy policy options. Dr. Richter calls energy-policy winners and losers as he sees them, and has a real talent for making the complex understandable. E.g., for a sample of Richter’s no-nonsense style, he was interviewed by Mark Golden for Power Engineering. Excerpt:

If you got one wish on international policy on climate change, what would it be?

That we would abandon the stupid notion of legally binding agreements on emissions. What are the fines for not meeting your agreements? Who levies the fine? Where does the money go? There are no sanctions, so what does “legally binding” mean?

Also, 15 countries are responsible for more than 80 percent of the world’s emissions. Why are we trying to get a deal with 196 countries, most of which are spending all their time trying to figure out how to get the richer countries to pay them money? What we really need is to get these 15 countries, which includes some developed countries and some rapidly developing countries, to agree on a deal.

(…)

Your book takes a middle ground between the deniers of climate change and what you call “ultra-greens,” who insist on drastic action immediately but reject nuclear power and some other low-carbon solutions. Can you talk about that middle ground?

What I tried to say is: Here is what we know, and here is how we know it. Here’s what the uncertainties are. Here’s what I think we ought to be doing. But the reader should think about what we ought to be doing, too.

The future is hard to predict, because it hasn’t happened yet. For some, this is an excuse for inaction. “We don’t know enough. Since we don’t know enough, we shouldn’t do anything.” Whereas there are a lot of things we can do now that don’t cost much at all and that can have a relatively large impact.

(…)

Richter continues the pragmatic policy theme by showing why Calfornia should cancel its USD 2. billion subsidy “Million Solar Roofs” program. Instead for less than 20% of that cost, twice the CO2 emissions could be eliminated by covering the Four Corners power station to natural gas. I don’t like the lock-in effects of new investment in gas plants – but I think he is correct. In the light of what is politically feasible today, this is good policy.

Wind power: debunking geographic smoothing

Published February 17, 2012 Energy Policy 3 Comments
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John Petersen at Seeking Alpha has being doing his homework on the wind-advocates’ claims that intermittency is easily solved by spreading wind farms over more geography. Like David MacKay, John examined the numbers. In this case the real-world wind power outputs reported literally across the planet, “over 17 timezones and two hemispheres”.

If you are skeptical, you can invest a few hours on Excel to test John’s analysis for yourself. John downloaded the public data from five power authorities in Pacific Northwest,

Australia, Eastern Canada, Western Canada, and Ireland. Then he synthesized a global electric grid connecting these five regions into a single power supply. You really can’t ask for a more perfect test of the validity of “geographic smoothing”. These following two sample graphics illustrate the reality — that even with this hopelessly optimistic global grid, there will be periods where the wind output is tiny – periods that are too long to compensate with any affordable energy storage option.

Please do read the whole thing. For another in-depth look at geographical smoothing, please see the two BNC guest posts by Finnish physicist Jani-Petri Martikainen, discussed in my earlier post “High renewables penetration means eye-watering costs and massive overbuilding“:

There are two posts, intended to be read in the following order, where the first analysis examines unreliable wind added to an existing reliable grid, the second analysis adds solar to the mix:

[1] Geographical wind smoothing, supergrids and energy storage

[2] Solar combined with wind power: a way to get rid of fossil fuels?

Based upon real-world data sets, with the data chosen to be extremely favorable to wind and solar, the simulations indicate that an idealized case of optimal solar/wind deployment requires a massive overbuilding of dispatchable power sources.

MacKay: risk assessment for energy-related severe accidents

Published February 14, 2012 Nuclear Power , Nuclear Risk Assessment 1 Comment
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We made the mistake of lumping nuclear energy in with nuclear weapons, as if all things nuclear were evil. I think that’s as big a mistake as if you lumped nuclear medicine in with nuclear weapons. –Patrick Moore, former Director of Greenpeace International

UPDATE: I’ve bumped the timestamp on this post to 2012 for (my) ease of access.

In his marvelous “Sustainable energy without the hot air” David Mackay’s Chapter 24 Nuclear? examines nuclear power. From that chapter I extracted the memorable Moore quote above, and the graphic at left.

For my own reference I wanted to include David’s computation of deaths per GWy (gigawatt-year), which he has extracted from two of the studies we’ve already referenced (ExternE, and the Paul Scherrer Institute).

The graphic at left has translated those studies into David’s preferred units of GWy. Here’s an excerpt from David’s analysis of comparative energy generation risks:

(…) When quantifying the public risks of different power sources, we need a new unit. I’ll go with “deaths per GWy (gigawatt-year).” Let me try to convey what it would mean if a power source had a death rate of 1 death per GWy. One gigawatt-year is the energy produced by a 1 GW power station, if it operates flat-out for one year. Britain’s electricity consumption is roughly 45 GW, or, if you like, 45 gigawatt-years per year. So if we got our electricity from sources with a death rate of 1 death per GWy, that would mean the British electricity supply system was killing 45 people per year. For comparison, 3000 people die per year on Britain’s roads. So, if you are not campaigning for the abolition of roads, you may deduce that “1 death per GWy” is a death rate that, while sad, you might be content to live with. Obviously, 0.1 deaths per GWy would be preferable, but it takes only a moment’s reflection to realize that, sadly, fossil-fuel energy production must have a cost greater than 0.1 deaths per GWy – just think of disasters on oil rigs; helicopters lost at sea; pipeline fires; refinery explosions; and coal mine accidents: there are tens of fossil-chain fatalities per year in Britain.

So, let’s discuss the actual death rates of a range of electricity sources. The death rates vary a lot from country to country. In China, for example, the death rate in coal mines, per ton of coal delivered, is 50 times that of most nations. Figure 24.11 shows numbers from studies by the Paul Scherrer Institute and by a European Union project called ExternE, which made comprehensive estimates of all the impacts of energy production. According to the EU figures, coal, lignite, and oil have the highest death rates, followed by peat and biomass-power, with death rates above 1 per GWy. Nuclear and wind are the best, with death rates below 0.2 per GWy. Hydroelectricity is the best of all according to the EU study, but comes out worst in the Paul Scherrer Institute’s study, because the latter surveyed a different set of countries.

David then moves on to one of my favorite topics, which he terms Mythconceptions, which include “nuclear involves huge amounts of concrete and steel whose creation involves huge CO2 pollution” and “Isn’t the waste from nuclear reactors a huge problem?” For those discussions please visit the site and buy the book! Which is now available in a Kindle version for only USD $27, the best book value I have ever purchased.

For more on Dr. MacKay and the book please see my Oct 2009 post.

Is nuclear power green?

Published February 12, 2012 Nuclear Power Leave a Comment
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Zachary Moitoza has been studying energy policy since at least 2005 (when he started at University of Oregon). He is the author of the book “The Nuclear Economy: Why Only Nuclear Power Can Revitalize The Economy And Environment,” a realization he came to after years of careful research on the energy scene.  

Here is an excerpt of Zachary writing for the Eugene Oregon Examiner

When people think of nuclear power, they typically think of something that is somehow unnatural, that is far from “green.” Wind, solar, biofuels, “renewables” are supposed to be green, right? However, upon careful scrutiny, we realize that “renewables” are not only not green—they’re worse for the environment than fossil fuels. And nuclear, in contrast, is not only the one and only “green” energy resource available, it is the one alternative available to fossil fuels, which are peaking and going into inexorable decline. When this gets out later this decade, it will become a scandal.

(…) We need energy sources that can be turned on and off, energy sources that can be used when we want to use them. Wind peaks at night, when demand for power is less, and takes up 500 square miles of land to produce as much (intermittent) power as one 1.5 gigawatt nuclear plant. If you don’t store wind and solar using lead-acid batteries, the power is useless, except for something that is always on, like a hot water heater. If you store it, the EROEI is negative, like biofuels. Wind and solar are like the electricity sector’s equivalent of the corn ethanol scam. Hydro and geothermal can’t be expanded.

(…) A growing number of environmentalists have come to learn the error of their former ways, and have been converted to supporting nuclear power. James Lovelock, Stewart Brand, Patrick Moore, James Hansen, Mark Lynas, and Barry Brook are among the recent converts. Hansen and Brook in particular were convinced by the promise of the Integral Fast Reactor, a passively safe nuclear breeder reactor unlimited by fuel supplies, which a waste product sharply reduced both in radioactive lifetime and amount.

So, we see that appearances can be deceiving. Only nuclear is green, and nuclear is the only alternative to declining fossil fuels. Conservation will be key for decades to come, as the transition is made to breeder reactors. Fast breeder (or simply ‘fast’) reactors require just one ton of uranium fuel per gigawatt-year, whereas light water reactors require as much as 180. The main reason why nuclear wins is density: nuclear fuel is literally ten million times as energy dense as fossil fuels. And nature loves density.

Read the whole thing »

Low-Carbon Development in the United States and China

Published February 10, 2012 China , Energy Policy Closed

Brookings recently published the audio of the captioned Feb 2, 2012 seminar; led off by Qi Ye of the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) and Tsinghua University.

Also on the panel was DOE’s Casey Delhotal, Director, East Asian Affairs. Very interesting commentary on the US/China cooperation, especially the IP issues.

Altogether a very worthwhile conference, though I was disappointed there was no discussion of US/China nuclear cooperation, especially 4th generation.

The Brookings transcript is here.

The Qi Ye presentation slides are here.

China’s 11th five-year plan is here.

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