Dumping yet another election promise, Campbell Newman has just announced the end of restrictions on uranium mining in Queensland. Crikey asked for my opinion (their article is here, maybe paywalled). I said
The end of Queensland’s ban on uranium mining comes at a time when long-term prospects for uranium markets have never looked bleaker. The failure of the “nuclear renaissance” in the US means that at most 2-4 new plants will be built there this decade, while older plants will close as plans for upgrades and license extensions are put on hold. In Europe and Japan, not only will there be little or no new construction, but the phaseout of existing plants is being accelerated. China’s big expansion plans are still on hold after Fukushima, and the program as a whole is being scaled back in favor of renewables. In these circumstances, uranium exporters must accept lower prices, be less choosy about their customers, or both. As one of the few markets with significant growth potential, India is in a strong bargaining position. It’s not surprising that the Gillard government has been keen to overlook India’s contribution to nuclear proliferation and the limited progress that has been made in separating civilian and military programs and stockplies.
John Quiggin 
I think a circumspect look at the world’s future energy needs is called for. Some 7 bn people are currently consuming about 15 terawatts which is more than 2 kw per capita. The distribution is highly uneven with some using too much, others too little. However about 12W of that 15 TW comes from burning fossil fuels which will one day run out even if CO2 were not an immediate problem.
Several Western countries are tearing themselves inside out trying to achieve 20% renewables, often with half of that already coming from last century hydro. Critics are already saying that 20% is too fickle, too costly and a growth killer. Now here comes the huge leap of faith… we want 80% of future energy to come from low carbon sources. Maybe that’s 80% of 20 TW for a fair and just world in the year 2050. Remember that the prime sites for dams and wind farms are mostly taken. Storage of solar energy at least doubles the realtime cost (have at it nitpickers).
Vehicle propulsion will have to come via electricity even if it is a synthetic hydrocarbon in the case of aviation fuel. Ditto nitrogen fertilisers currently made from natural gas. Extreme weather will require more domestic heating and cooling while cities depend on desalination. If you think this can all be done with wind and solar then submit a plan to a credible forum with numerate participants. Mention upfront if we have to halve our energy use and it involves technology that hasn’t been show to work at scale yet. This exercise is hard if you’ve closed your mind to nukes.
@quokka
I wasn’t aware Lang had been banned – that’s good news. Unfortunately, his posts on renewable energy are still up on the site, and still seem to inform BNC thinking.
@Hermit “Several Western countries are tearing themselves inside out trying to achieve 20% renewables”
Australia’s “20 per cent” target for 2020 looks as if it will actually be 25 per cent (because the target is fixed in GWh, and demand is weaker than expected). While there are different views on whether it should be raised or lowered, I haven’t seen anyone suggest that we are “tearing ourselves inside out” to get there. The estimated cost is an increase of around 1c/KWh in the retail price of electricity.
“Critics are already saying that 20% is too fickle …” The same critics (AIGN for example) have long been saying that climate change is a communist plot.
Why bother with this nonsense? If the case for nuclear power depends on such obvious silliness, it must be unsustainably weak.
Perhaps I was bordering on it but I thought I did it in a humorous way. I am just amazed by the action that a nuclear thread brings. Just about everyone “goes ballistic” on the topic. There has to be a reason the topic is so fascinating and divisive for people. The reason don’t seem to be in the science or the logic and illogic of various cases people make for or against it. The reason also don’t seem to line up with its actual importance in our power mix (6% of all power use and about 13.5% of electricity production). The reason doesn’t seem to line up with the fact that fission materials are a finite resource too and that harnessing fusion power is still in the never-never. The reason doesn’t line up with the fact that renewables look better if you do the numbers properly.
Without referring to my previous post’s theory, the general psychological reason for the fascination with and near-worship of nuclear power is that it demonstrates a form of power and domination which seems at once elemental, magical and alchemical. I also think some people like the idea of nuclear power the way they like V8 autos and military hardware. It’s a power fetish.
@John Quiggin
On checking ACIL Tasman’s report for Tru Energy they appear to agree with the figure of 1-2c per kwh for the RET
http://www.truenergy.com.au/…/20120905-Achieving-20percent-RET-Fin...
However I’ll change my language to ‘considerable consternation’ given the vehemence of several key players such as AGL, Tru Energy and Origin. Not saying these firms want the hassle of owning nukes, probably they really want the gas price artificially held down. Given that many believe that 20% is the comfort zone for windpower my point remains there is ‘considerable consternation’ about increasing it past 20% in a growing market. Getting to 80% low carbon under frugal demand by 2050 is going to be way out of the renewables comfort zone and perhaps impractical without nukes.
That’s not a promise, it’s a refusal to make a promise. Fraser identified it as a refusal to make a promise and attacked Newman for it. He said in parliament:
We have seen that again over the past 24 hours when the LNP leader, Mr Newman, refused to state a position on uranium. All we have heard is weasel words, as he slips and slides. I say to him, it is not kryptonite; it is only uranium. He does not have to melt at the thought of it. He can front up and put forward a view.
Ref: http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/documents/hansard/2011/2011_11_16_WEEKLY.pdf
@2dogs
If you insist on the distinction, Newman weaselled his way out of a weaselly pseudo-promise. But why are you making this point? Most political promises have a coded get-out clause of some kind. It doesn’t justify breaking them.
John Q, regarding that closing NPP in Wisconsin, it would be fascinating to see what their power purchase agreement was/is.
As someone who works in the field its incredible to think that these old written down plant possibly can’t be operated profitably. I would think that must make a good few more of them quite marginal with wind, solar and hydro anywhere nearby as well.
Following
Misleading the public ought to be considered the same as misleading parliament. It ought to be in the constitution.
Perhaps it might be best to leave the naive armchair pseudo-pscyhology out of this otherwise informative and interesting discussion.
Woops, don’t think I got my formatting tags right in my previous post. I’m not the most fluent at html unfortunately.
@Ikonoclast
You’ve got the fascination of environmentalists with the benefits of the nuclear power exactly reversed. It is the attraction of the very small – the binding energy of the nucleus. From this near quantum scale phenomena flow huge potential benefits. You only need a relatively small amount of stuff – a relatively small amount of materials, a relatively small amount of waste and a relatively small amount of land to generate lots of energy. In environmental matters, small is indeed beautiful as there is definitely a correlation between the amount of stuff used and environmental harm – even if considerable effort is made to do the right thing.
CO2 is perhaps the ultimate example. It it generally pretty benign stuff, but the sheer volume of emissions is what causes the problem. Air pollution is again a problem of scale. Deforestation is a problem of scale. Ocean acidification is a problem of scale. Urban sprawl is a problem of scale and energy sprawl is a problem of scale. In all these cases on small scale, they have limited consequences. It’s the scale that matters.
The Guardian, recently ran a story in the normally breathless fashion about how tidal power over 1,000 kms of the UK coastline could supply 11% of the UK’s electricity consumption. 1000 kms! The same amount of energy is produced by multi unit nuclear power plants on about 1km of coastline. Post Fukushima, regulators may insist on greater separation of multi-units, so call that three kms in the future. If you need some more energy in the future, grab another km of coast line for nuclear. Not so easy grabbing another few hundred more km with tidal. The disproportion of scale is stark. However you look at it, 1000kms of tidal power is bringing a level of industrialization on large scale to an environment that was not previously so afflicted.
The disproportion is stark between any renewable technology and nuclear. About 500 sq km of on-shore wind is equal to a single EPR reactor.
I have fundamental disagreement with “greens” who think humans are going to live in harmony with nature. Humans don’t do nature well. In fact they go to great effort not to do nature, because nature is uncomfortable and frequently brutal.
The most we can hope for is that humans make a bigger effort to be “compact” allowing substantial space for natural ecosystems on the planet. Without that a great extinction event is completely inevitable.
If nuclear power allows humans to be “compact” in energy, then why not grab that opportunity with both hands?
As a footnote, the world economy could grow ten fold or more this century. The lowest growth scenario in IPCC SRES is more than five fold. What then? Will there be any coastline left that hasn’t been industrialized, how many sq kms under wind farms and on and on. I don’t like this vision one bit – this is my notion of dystopia.
Oh, and don’t get me started on growing crops for biomass. It’s the worst of the worst. Just nuts.
It is reported that there is money in kitty for decommissioning the Wisconsin NPP and it is fully funded. As far as I am aware this is true in general for US NPPs.
@quokka
There have barely been any decommissionings and all well over budget. There was an NRC report a few years ago telling off the NPP operators for STILL not having enough decommissioning funds.
Part of the motivation of running the plants longer is to continue to build the needed decomissioning funds – all in shortfall – paid for by customers who will pay again for this economically failed technology.
@quokka
Your “nuclear is small” and 1000km straw men are a bit bizzare.
Asbestos mining has a “small” footprint and Port Augusta, Hazelwood and Yoy Lang make up 1000km of coal power stations.
great idea to get more info.nice
@Pete Moran
The NRC letter was to the operators of about a quarter of US reactors.
Customers pay a levy of $0.001 – $0.002 /kWh that goes into decommissioning fund. Upping that a bit is not going to break the bank.
Germany is to nearly double the levy that consumers pay on their electricity bill to supply renewables. It will be EUR 0.052 / kWh.
Looks like that US nuclear customers paying at most $0.003 / kWh for decommissioning and spent fuel fund are doing pretty well. But lets be conservative and make it $0.005. It’s still less than a tenth of what Germans are paying for renewables. But it gets worse, because that German levy buys only 20% renewable electricity. Scaling that up, US nuclear customers are paying a technology specific levy for low emission electricity that is 2% of what Germans are paying. Hmmm…..
But the real value of nuclear is the emissions saved. Here’s a challenge that will shock you. Find the total nuclear electricity ever generated, put a price on carbon – say the $23 carbon tax -, assume nuclear has displaced black coal. To be fair assume that emissions savings from older nuclear are not as good as today because of issues such as gas diffusion enrichment. Say nuclear has saved on average 700 g/Kwh. Do the sums. The figure will be enormous.
It’s time claims of ” economically failed technology” were put under the microscope.
@Pete Moran
I don’t see why. It’s a perfectly valid comparison. If you’d like another UK example, the Severn Barrage has reared it head it the UK again. I expect it to get cut off because it’s too expensive but there is another consideration. Large areas of the Severn are covered by the Ramsar Convention. This treaty is intended to protect wetland habitat of migratory shore birds whose numbers are in severe decline worldwide. It is the only international treaty to protect a specific type of habitat.
There are those who are perfectly happy to throw Ramsar under the bus, and yell “NIMBY” at those who think this is not such a great idea at all. The point is that such sites are even being considered at such an early stage of renewables when non-hydro renewables constitute such a tiny portion of world energy supply. What would happen at high deployment rates when we are really scratching around to find where the next kWh is to come from?
As for Hazelwood and Yoy Lang, of course they don’t occupy 1000 km, but how much coal do they burn in a day and how much uranium does even a current LWR “burn” in a day on a once through fuel cycle? Advanced closed fuel nuclear would reduce even that relatively small amount by a very large percentage.
It’s a bit opaque, but I presume that you are trying to make is the toxicity of asbestos. But the point about asbestos is that it was once completely uncontrolled. Nuclear materials have never been uncontrolled though there has certainly been some sloppy work in the past. Things have improved and will continue to improve. Has anybody at all ever been killed by, for example, spent nuclear fuel?
US customers paying for decommissioning are effectively paying a sunk cost.
German’s paying a renewable energy levy are effectively making an investment.
Sure it is, that’s why next-to-nothing is happening in new development practically outside of China and with reactors being switched off in Germany, their wholesale electricity prices have fallen lower than the French now for twelve straight months. Looks like renewables have the price argument covered.
Hi Quokka. You didn’t get back to me if you agree that in practice the output of solar more closely matches demand than the output of solar, particularly in places like India and Australia.
Whoops! I mean if solar more closely matches demand than nuclear.
@Ronald Brak
Your question is ill defined, but ever if it were better defined it carries with it an assumption that such a relationship is the overriding metric on which to base decisions. I consider it a “point scoring” approach.
However if you wish to make some such point, then better define what you are doing, get the Australian electricity production data from AEMO (half hourly data for all power stations is available), get solar irradiance data from the BOM and go for it.
As security of supply is a very important metric, you might also like to suggest notional electricity supplies – one PV with storage and one nuclear with storage. Assume a zero cost, “metal plate” grid. Requirement is to security of supply as good as today. How much storage in each case, and what would it all cost.
Quokka, is that a yes, a no, or an I don’t know? I can make the question simpler if you like: Which better matches Indian demand, nuclear power or solar power?
Sorry to appear pedantic – but let’s say the US raises $Xbillion from a levy for spent fuel.
There still is no solution that makes nuclear waste “safe”.
@Megan
Spent fuel is “safe” because it is managed. In fact it has been shown to be safe by the absence of harm that it has done to humans or to other life. There are many toxic industrial chemicals and their management has been far less careful than that of nuclear materials and the consequence of that have in some situations been disastrous. Toxic chemicals are used in the manufacture of PV panels and have caused fatalities. That in itself is not a reason to shun PV, but it is a reason to up safety standards. And I hardly need mention the vast amounts of completely uncontrolled waste emitted by burning fossil fuels.
The key characteristic of spent nuclear fuel is as I alluded to above, is that relatively speaking, there is not much of it. And it is this that makes it manageable.
I agree that the procrastination of the US federal government in getting on with the business of using the $25+ billion in the spent fuel fund to set a proper long term waste management facility falls well short of discharging their responsibility. But that is a political problem not an engineering problem. Whether Yucca Mountain was the best option may be debatable, but it was a quite workable option. The US nuclear industry has for years been beating on the door of the federal government to get on with it.
In the view of many people, the best option is to recycle spent nuclear fuel, greatly reducing the amount of long lived waste, and producing a waste stream that requires isolation for only a few hundred years rather than tens of thousands. This is what the Integral Fast Reactor does. And “anybody” can have one if they wish by approaching GE-Hitachi. The reactor is called the PRISM and combined with pyroprocessing technology for recycling spent fuel it is called the Advanced Recycling Center. This is definitely not pie in the sky. The R&D was done over decades and full scale engineering design is done. Those who believe that spent fuel poses a very long term hazard should logically fully support PRISM, because it destroys the long lived radionuclides – permanently.
I should add that GE-Hitachi are offering the PRISM to the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority for disposal of the UK’s plutonium stockpile. The commercial terms reportedly include payment per kg of plutonium disposed of. That would seem to indicate a high degree of confidence in the design.
@quokka
All true … and one might add that in footprint terms, using once-used radioactive fuel residue is about as “low footprint” as producing power gets. No further mining is needed and in safety terms, the ultimate waste stream is in practical terms useless for weaponisation.
Given that one of the issues raised by opponents of the inclusion of nuclear power plants in the energy mix is the existing stockpile of hazmat one might think a technology that didn’t add to hazmat stockpiles and made existing stockpiles less hazardous would be appealing, especially if it could generate low-footprint power.
Australia would be an excellent place to develop and implement this technology, particularly as Australia is a supplier of uranium and really ought to be taking rsponsibility for its waste. Regrettably, the arrangement of our politics makes this implausible in the foreseeable future.
@ Fran Barlow & @ Quokka
Putting to one side that PRISM and GenIV are complete vapourware, and that (for example) Barry Brook and friends are presenting a paper/strategy to accelerate development so that a FOAK plant might be “gifted” to the UK in 2020, there remains a huge problem.
The mass of once-through fuel represents an efficiency of about 1% which the PRISM/GenIV is supposed to correct yes? In terms of “solving” the problem of the current waste-load it is ineffectual as it will “consume” it so slowly at massive cost. In 100 years time, even a fleet of these things (at an absurd cost) will have hardly made a dent on the waste problem.
I think the US DoE was right to stop wasting money on this program, hence GE/Hitachi have moved on to the UK to see if they can consume some taxpayer dollars there.
@Pete Moran
You’re missing the point.
1. I don’t accept that the cost would be absurd. Once we’ve got some at commercial scale, there will be a better basis for claiming one way or another. If the cost makes it unfeasible, I’m OK with puttng the plans on ice. As things stand though, it’s unclear.
2. If the cost of this technology produces energy at a cost comparable with other clean energy, and can do so for hundreds of years and at a comparable or better ecoservice footprint to our other least noxious technologies then I’m for doing it. If part of that is a slow drawdown of the pile of otherwise harmful waste, then that’s fabulous. Unless there is some other technology that could perform better at this job AND at producing energy at the same quality and cost, why wouldn’t that be good?
As I said way up the thread, a solution to nuclear waste would be a great thing. But apart from ideas and plans nothing exists yet in practice.
‘Bloomberg’ reports another plan that COULD work, this time it’s laser beams:
“The European Union will spend about 700 million euros ($900 million) to build the world’s most powerful lasers, technology that could destroy nuclear waste and provide new cancer treatments.”
Once we have a real live operating and safe way to dispose of the waste then we can have the discussion about the wisdom of creating more of the stuff.
@Pete Moran
Till and Chang estimate the cost of the reactor portion of IFR as similar to current PWRs. There are some plus and minus’s on the cost front. The IFR runs at near atmospheric pressure so the reactor vessel has lower requirements, and the demands put on the containment structure are far less. There may be savings in safety systems because of the passive safety of the IFR (station blackout cannot cause core damage). There may be some increased costs due to the higher operating temperature with more expensive materials and fabrication techniques.
Pyroprocessing is adapted from existing industrial processes and the use of metal rather than oxide or nitride fuel simplifies reprocessing and fabrication of IFR fuel. There are extra processes involved in recycling LWR fuel.
An IFR generates electricity, so even at a cost a bit greater than PWR, it’s deployment could well be justified economically.
Of course, we need to build some to find out for sure, but there does not seem an intrinsic reason why IFR should be substantially more expensive than current technologies.
Of course, you could always combine solutions and see what happens!
“Natural gas giant Chesapeake Energy has been given permission to drill for natural gas via hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” one mile away from the Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Station in Shippingport, Pennsylvania, according to multiple reports.”
@ Fran Barlow
The cost of conventional nuclear is already prohibative, this more so and it really doesn’t address the waste issue terribly well at all, being so slow to process it.
The US DoE giving up on this technology says a lot.
@ Quokka
There’s also an issue the Japanese discovered having driven a forklift over the reactor lid of their test-version. The sodium “coolant” flash ignites on air contact. Ever present human error and UNSINKABLE thinking are very commonly heard with regards GenIV.
The Union of Concerned Scientists think its a pipedream distraction (both technically and economically) from solutions we could and should be getting on with right now.
If we need a massive financial push to get near having a testable version for 2020 (rather than 2050) we’ve run out of time and diverted valuable monies.
@quokka
This is disinformation.
It is also irrelevant as the issue with waste is NOT what it is today, but what threats it imposes on the future.
There is no “safe” level for exposure to ionising radiation – just a level at which the effects are equal to natural the background level.
In any case if spent fuel was safe-if-managed, why do we need a nuke dump in isolated territories such as on Aboriginal land. Choosing such sites indicates that the necessary management is not practicable in the long term.
If waste is safe-if-managed, why not store it in the cavernous basement of Parliament House/
@Chris Warren
Because large numbers of people believe FUD. People by and large don’t understand how radiation works and have it under the heading of “invisible and insidious killer”. (Tellingly, people still think they can get away with sunbathing and smoking. It’s amusing how they can compartmentalise).
Putting it out of sight and out of mind a long way from everyone most city dwellers are bothered about and away from places media organisations are able to sustain reporters makes political sense.
I’d have no problem with that in principle.
@Pete Moran
What is this – proof by repetition? Go to any authoritative source – EIA, IEA, UK CCC and DECC and the claim is unsupportable. The only non-hydro renewable that may be cheaper than new nuclear is onshore wind and even then cost is region and resource dependent. The cost of wind power in Germany where it achieves only about an 18% capacity factor must be higher than in the UK where they get about 26%. The US, I believe, achieves a little better.
Already on this thread, I showed that claims about the “prohibitive” cost of Indian nuclear power had little basis and the levies on nuclear power generation in the US for decommissioning and spent fuel management to be small fraction of the renewables levy in Germany
A few months ago, in an exchange with Prof Q, I showed that the cost of new offshore wind in the UK to be higher than the FOAK, over time and over budget, EPR at Olkiluoto in Finland.
Sorry, but it is time to stand and deliver on claims of “prohibitive” nuclear costs.
Quokka, you said that the Kudamkulam reactors cost $1,600 a kilowatt. At a 5% discount rate that gives a cost of about 4 cents per kilowatt-hour before the costs of insurance, waste disposal, and decomissioning are added on. At the same discount rate, $2 a watt solar produces electricity in India at about 8 cents a kilowatt-hour. As point of use solar competes at retail prices and not wholesale prices, this certainly makes it look as though point of use solar is cheaper than nuclear in India, especially when the costs of insurance etc. for nuclear are included.
Of course, the appropriate discount rate to use might be different, and the marginal costs of nuclear may be particularly low in India. But I notice that phase III and IV of the Kudamkulam complex are projected to cost twice as much as the price you gave for the first two reactors. And I’m sure that before phase III and IV can be completed solar will be installed in India for $1 a watt.
And of course point of use solar is cheaper than new nuclear in developed countries. In Australia it outcompetes coal and gas.
Thank you Ronald Brak.
Only the most absurdist nuclear proponents are continuing to claim the sector is economic.
Even frightful Peter Lang has conceeded here
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/10/15/open-thread-19/#comment-138650
and here
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/10/15/open-thread-19/#comment-138651
Nuclear power (baseload by definition) in Australia would be 4-7x times the current NEM wholesale baseload price.
In the UK, the current proponents of the first NPP in the UK since the 1970s are looking to have the government guarantee 100-140 pound sterling MWh returns which would be at least 4 times the current wholesale.
@Ronald Brak
Yes, India is going to get rid of that horrible old fashioned thing called the electricity grid and be powered wholly by point of use PV – or not.
Nuclear is not competing with point of use PV – it is competing with baseload coal capacity. That’s the real world, not the imaginings of bloggers.
Point of use PV is not going to stop expansion of coal capacity in India. The only realistic alternative to baseload coal is nuclear.
Your attempt to prove that nuclear has “prohibitive” cost, doesn’t get past first base. I’ll go to authoritative sources, and you should too.
Coincidentally, just read a story at “japantoday.com” under the headline: “TEPCO struggling to find somewhere to store contaminated water”.
One of the comments was: “I’m sick of reading beat-ups like this”. Beat-ups???
Here are some bits:
“About 200,000 tons of radioactive water—enough to fill more than 50 Olympic-sized swimming pools—are being stored in hundreds of gigantic tanks built around the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Operator Tokyo Electric Power Co has already chopped down trees to make room for more tanks and predicts the volume of water will more than triple within three years.
“It’s a pressing issue because our land is limited and we would eventually run out of storage space,” the water-treatment manager, Yuichi Okamura, told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview this week.
TEPCO is close to running a new treatment system that could make the water safe enough to release into the ocean. But in the meantime, its tanks are filling up—mostly because leaks in reactor facilities are allowing ground water pour in.
…
Some of the water ran into the ocean, raising concerns about contamination of marine life and seafood. Waters within a 20-kilometer zone are still off-limits, and high levels of contamination have been found in seabed sediment and fish tested in the area.
…
Goto, the nuclear engineer, believes it will take far longer than TEPCO’s goal of two years to repair all the holes in the reactors. The plant also would have to deal with contaminated water until all the melted fuel and other debris is removed from the reactor—a process that will easily take more than a decade. …”
So here we have a real life example of radioactive nuclear waste causing real harm now. These ‘pie-in-the-sky’ plans to somehow treat and contain as much of the contaminated water as they can will take “decades”. Even then, all they will achieve is putting as much of the nuclear waste genie as possible back into temporary storage – like before – because we have no real life working solution for it.
And even then, notice how the re-processing of the water COULD work.
Pro-nukers: please get one of your magical ideas up and running at a practical real world scale ASAP. We’re all in the same boat and you can’t just sink your half and expect our half to remain float.
@Fran Barlow
As soon as nuclear pundits resort to bottom-of-the-barrel claims of FUD, you know they have no where else to go. This is exactly the same woefully ignorant as Barry Brooks mates all chorused during Fukushima.
So what if we tag nukes as FUD – this just means we are avoiding a lot of little:
Fukushimas Under Development (‘FUD’).
Future Urban Disaster (‘FUD’).
Barry Brooks’ (and others) FUD cries are false and are unbecoming even for nicotine and climate denial scientists. They are all false prophets and false Lords.
Quokka, the question I asked was how will nuclear power compete with solar in India? Not, how will India power itself entirely with solar PV? This isn’t a game of Sim City where we start with no generating capacity. You see, it works like this, because of an unreliability of grid power, because it saves money on electricity bills, or because there is no electricity grid, people purchase point of use solar. Also, as India has or had the cheapest solar installation in the world state utilities may find it profitable to invest in grid only solar, such as in Gurjurat. As more solar is installed, and as the grid presumably spreads to areas currently powered by solar, the price of electricity is pushed down during the day. This is bad for the economics of n
@Chris Warren
This is all a bit rich from somebody who claimed falsely that nuclear power had doubled the level of background radiation. Fran’s point is well illustrated.
Somehow, managed to hit submit when my last comment was only half done. No matter, I’ll continue on:
Solar power pushing down the price of electricity during the day is very bad for the economics of nuclear power and it doesn’t take a lot of solar capacity for this to occur, as we’ve seen here in Australia. Nuclear power produces electricity during the day, so solar competes with it. And of course, as we can see in Australia, solar power competes with coal and gas.
Quokka, you appear to think that baseload power plants are necessary. You also told me to use authoritative sources. Well, I used you for my source on the cost of the Kudamkulam reactors, and for as for baseload generating capacity not being necessary, as my authoritative source I’ll use reality. South Australia recently spent several months without any baseload generating capacity operating and we did not miss it. We were able to shut down all baseload generating capacity because of wind and solar. (Did I mention India has the cheapest wind power in the world?) Solar competes with baseload power, as does wind, and can eliminate the need for it. As South Australia’s remaining coal power capacity is now seasonal load following, baseload power has been eliminated in that state.
@Ronald Brak
I see, you claim that the use of PV will favor coal over nuclear. Apparently it wasn’t working well enough in Germany (and it is disingenuious to claim that this has not always been the German Greens strategy) so they just shut the nuclear plants down anyway. Good work. The Guardian reports today that Europe has had a bumper year of coal consumption as also has the rest of the world. Coal consumption worldwide has risen monotonically on a yearly basis for more than a decade. Do coal or do nuclear.
In any case, it’s all a bit irrelevant to India anyway where they will do coal and nuclear. The only question being how much coal and how much nuclear. India has about 1 GWp of utility PV installed with a target of 20 GWp by 2020. In a country of over a billion people, it’s pretty small beer.
@ Quokka
What you say about coal in Europe is false, especially Germany. Coal’s % share of electricity production in Germany has fallen every year since 2007. In real terms the quantity of coal consumption is stable.
The EU recently released preliminary figures indicating EU countries were on track to meet their 2020 Kyoto commitments, and of course Germany (and others) plan to go beyond that. In other words, real reductions in absolute CO2, carbon intensity and emissions per person. No new expensive nuclear has been added to achieve this.
With regards India, nuclear power (or any baseload for that matter) for the majority of Indians (mostly rural) is a cruel joke. It represents an enormous waste of scare financial resources building the necessary infrastucture to create the baseload mistake.
@Pete Moran
Sorry, but the BP Statistical Review of World Energy says that Europe increased it’s coal consumption by 3.3% in 2011 over 2010.
@ Quokka
Trying playing with the EU data here;
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/energy/data/database
The trend is clearly downward, including provisionally for 2012 EU-wide and in Germany.
In % terms this represents a decline in the amount of electricity generated from coal.