For the last few weeks, I’ve been planning a Slate-style contrarian post, arguing that the US and maybe other countries should increase the subsidies for nuclear power associated with the attempt to launch a ‘nuclear renaissance’. My argument would have been two-fold. First, the straightforward point that it’s desirable to explore all options for non-carbon based electricity, and that the existing subsidies (combined with the absence of a carbon price) were not sufficient to make this happen (a decade after Bush launched the program, there are only a handful of starters, and most of the early proposals have been abandoned).
The second was political – for a substantial group (mostly on the political right), the desirability of nuclear power is an article of faith, and their (outdated) view that environmentalists resolutely oppose it forms part of the reason for adopting anti-science views and do-nothing policy positions on climate change. More funding for attempts to develop the nuclear option might convert some of them, and embarrass some others into dropping this particular talking point.
But after the disaster in Japan, and the failure of cooling systems at nuclear plants there, it’s most unlikely that anything along these lines will happen.
We have yet to see how bad the outcome will be, but it’s already apparent that two plants have suffered partial meltdowns or something close enough that they will never operate again. As cooling systems continue to fail, more are being affected. It’s likely, based on past experience, that plants in the same complex will be offline for a long period. So, even in the best case, the economic effects will be severe. The worst case could be disastrous.
The economics of building a new nuclear plant in the developed world were marginal at best before this disaster. The political climate was much more favorable than it had been, but still fragile. In the best possible case, the response to the failures will involve new, and expensive safety equipment, and more restrictions on the location of new plants. But that will almost certainly be enough to stop any new projects, and maybe even the handful (two sites in the US, and one in Finland) currently under way in developed countries other than Japan.
In Japan itself, political support for nuclear power has been fairly solid until now, but construction of new plants was already slowing down. In the wake of the disaster, it seems likely (if only because of the need for diversification) that the replacements for the plants destroyed or taken off-line will be non-nuclear, probably either gas-fired or renewable.
That leaves China (and perhaps India) as the only real hope for large-scale construction of new nuclear plants. It remains to be seen how that will play out.
Having said all that, the risks from the nuclear plants are insignificant when compared to the catastrophic loss of life and economic destruction caused by the earthquake and tsunami. It’s hard to know what can be done in the face of such destructive force, other than to help the survivors as best we can.
John Quiggin 
Rubbish, its extraordinarily expensive, and is a net loss in energy to produced uranium form such low grade sources for nuclear power.
Sam, show me the data demonstrating net energy gain from uranium from sea water grade ore.
Current nuclear power would take more than 10 years for a positive energy return on investment (quarter of design life), that is using our ore at 0.01% grade.
Click to access ISA_Nuclear_Report.pdf
Sea water is 3 parts per billion uranium, or 0.000,000,003%, that is7 order of magnitude less concentrate than the poorest economic ores currently used.
Make that 0.000,000,3% or 5 order of magnitude lower grade.
(Its been a long weekend).
@jakerman
Thank you for the reference – great break from the talking points.
Maybe it’s Paul Sheehan’s ‘Magic Water’?
While I partially agree with hc, this has to be a huge step back for uranium powered reactors. The cost of evacuating 200,000 people alone is likely to run into the billions, even if there’s no major damage, and that’s going to have to be factored into costings for future stations.
It would be interesting to see an analysis of whether something like this at a thorium powered reactor would create the same sorts of problems. If a convincing case can be made that it wouldn’t thorium might have a future, but I very much doubt uranium does. Fusion of course wouldn’t be affected by this, but I don’t see any evidence that’s going to happen.
@jakerman
Long weekend for me too. Back of the envelope calculations and assumptions as follows.
First, a small correction. EROEI is a fraction, energy out divided by energy in NOT energy out minus energy in. This means break even is at EROEI=1
Energy required to extract uranium from seawater varies widely from 1 study to another.
This paper argues the energy costs of uranium extraction should be similar to desal by reverse osmosis. Taking that at face value, and using
2.5 Kwh / m^3 of seawater for reverse osmosis and
3.3 *10^(-3) g uranium / m^3 seawater, I get
2.9 *10^12 J to extract 1kg of uranium (check my arithmetic, it’s very late).
This compares to energy yield from U235 and Pu239 fissions which are about the same – 83 *10^12 J / Kg (wikipedia, yeah I’m using it as a source, sue me). These are the isotopes used in a breeder reactor.
So you put 2.9 TJ in and get 83 TJ out, EROEI= 28>1.
The paper at this this site has lower estimates of the energy to produce 1 kilogram of uranium. There are other proposed methods more energy efficient than desal (algae for one). I couldn’t get energy estimates for them so I didn’t use them.
It should be noted that both papers are against the idea for practical reasons, as am I. I’m a solar and wind kind of guy. For intellectual honesty’s sake however, I am compelled to say the EROEI for this endeavour is greater than 1.
I should have also talked about the inefficiencies in converting fissile energy into electricity, and other things. Oh well, dividing things by 10 still gives you EROEI=2.8>1
It still seems to me that the discussion of the nuclear issue in Japan, is to this point, hysteria:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/fearmongers-go-into-their-own-meltdown/story-fn84naht-1226021345281
That is not fear Harry, it is a natural desire to avoid a situation that has a potential for harm.
What has transpired is that naturally occurring events has placed the facility in what has been described as uncharted territory. Put simply, despite decades of research nuclear power advocates are unable to identify all of the risks so there will always be a risk of a release of radioactive material.
In all the debates about the pros and cons – who would be happy to have a nuclear power generator in their town?
Ah yes hc, those “fearmongers”, who could possibly be concerned about the risks of nuclear reactors eh? “Japan on meltdown alert” http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/15/3163913.htm?section=justin. Still, I guess The Australian knows best. Your regular source of information and opinion is it?
Thanks Alice, Chris Warren, et al.
Why people keep trying push solutions when they know full well that these are not yet scientifically and technically safe, continues to baffle me, unless they are paid shills for vested interests.
Sam,
Could you repost you first link (it didn’t work).
Where did you get the factor of 10 for inefficiencies in conversion of theoretical energy to heat, to kinetic to electric energy?
@paul walter
Shills it is Paul. If they spent half as much time shilling for some energy source that was truly sustainable Id be happy but that they wont even turn to any consideration of alternatives whatsoever – except to denounce things like solar and wind and water energy sources just makes them true shills to me. “Their evidence” is tainted, mass produced and obviously not objectively sourced throughout the bloosphere yet they just keep copying and pasting… its enough for me. They can have their renaissance here in this thread – all few of them. The rest of the world isnt so easily fooled.
Rog, I am not concerned with the possibility of fear – I am fearful too – but I am concerned with getting the facts and not jumping on a hysterical bandwagon. The nuclear reactor costs might prove to be large but, on the basis of past experience, they are more likely to be massively exaggerated in the media. I think too the nuclear costs should be put into perspective in the current situation – significant areas in Japan have been wiped out and maybe tens of thousands have been killed.
Why the narky comment David Horton?
Why “hysteria” hc?
Shills vs. the under-informed. I’d say Spain and Germany have given wind and solar a pretty good go. The result is Spain is cutting subsidies and Germany is building more coal fired power stations. Australia can afford more gas fired power stations for now but they’re not that clean and other demands for gas are looming. There is no physical possibility that non-hydro renewables can take us up to 20% energy supply by 2020, just 9 years away. Therefore if wind and solar cannot fill the gap then the reign of King Coal will have to be extended.
It would be a bugger if there was no let up in coal use by the time the next El Nino arrives, some say in 2013. I’d suggest by then we’ll be paying over $2 a litre for petrol like the Brits though it will due to the high price of crude, not fuel taxes. Think of it …. overwhelming evidence of peak oil, climate change, high food prices , high electricity prices and little if any cuts to CO2 emissions. The shills are at least suggesting a partial solution.
@hc
More denial. If this rag of a newspaper wants to say:
then this is a direct denial of explosions, gas release, meltdowns and spreading radioactivity.
If you spread this nonsense then you are a denialist.
The science of nuclear power stations indicated that a meltdown was likely. Denialists deny this even as a possiblility.
The meltdown has now occurred (fact) – so what does ‘hc’ say? Will it regurgitate the next inanity from this rag?
The question now is how to ensure the melting nuclear reactors (plural) do not breech their containment vessels.
As nuclear reactors go into meltdown, the denialists say the next generation is safer. When this ‘next generation’ goes into meltdown, the denialists still say, the next generation will be safer…ad nauseam.
There are possibilities for perfectly renewable base-load power generation that need further research and development – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmotic_power
If the resources being used for uranium mining, processing, power generation, maintenance, research and development, disaster relief, cleanup, decommissioning, waste storage, were used to develop baseload renewables, we would that much closer to reducing carbon emissions.
But our capitalist investors are misdirecting investment down destructive pathways – happy in the expectation that the harm they cause to the environment will be visited on far-off generations.
Why do folks like hc exist? What is the level of membrane research in Australia?
Not Ben – just stupid software.
What’s a little irradiation between friends?
Arrrr….
There has been a third explosion heard – this time from the no two plant and workers have been evacuated.
No one is fantasising here – Companies are sending their foreign employees home from their Tokyo postings because of it, the japanes have evactuated a quarter of a million people – its only the rag newspapers in Australia and the true denialist faithful who are imaging there is a problem.
Thank goodness the denialists dont run the SES here.
should read “imagining there isnt a problem”
Those who are indeed ‘imagining there isn’t a problem’ might want to spend some time here – http://jibtv.com/program/?page=0.
TEPCO press conference: ‘We apologise for causing inconvenience and concerns among the public’; the politeness and restraint of much of this discussion is remarkable for those more used to the western ‘media circus’ model!
Oh dear or dear, there is a communications war in the making and, I see, to my delight, Freelander is using his clever survival strategy in this war of words to good effect.
I don’t have much time at present. But it looks to me as if the spruikers of ‘clean’, ‘cheap’, ‘safe’ ‘reliable base load energy’, supplied by standardised nuclear power plants located close to where the demand is and operated along ‘best practice’ methods, have a hell of a job to calm down the assumed hysteria. But it gets worse in each round. For example, there are pictures of Tokyo with the lights off. Has anybody said the hysteria is due to people’s fear of the dark? Not to my knowledge.
It looks to me it is fear of irradiation that is the postulated source of the assumed hysteria and this will have to be shown to be irrational or, a little less stupidly, due to people’s unsatisfied demand for information. But this communication strategy doesn’t work very well either. For example, the smh contains the following:
“Still, it did happen and even though the media are running giant headlines about radiation leakage, in fact the amount that has leaked out has affected people in the area considerably less than a typical chest X-ray.”
Source: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/new-era-of-honesty-in-a-time-of-crisis-20110314-1bujy.html
Where is the information on time of exposure?
And so forth.
Our Prime Minister conveyed all the relevant information in a line : “We don’t need nuclear power.” (Why? Because Australia, in contrast to Japan, is not an energy poor, densely populated country. No hysteria required; the information obtained makes sense.)
@jakerman
Apologies Jakerman. Here is the link to the first paper http://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v2y2010i4p980-992d7855.html
Apparently I can’t hyperlink anymore.
I admit I plucked the “divide by 10” fudge factor out of the air last night as a conservative best guess. The conversion of heat to work in a steam power plant operating with a reactor temperature of say 700K and ambient temperature of 300 K gives a maximum theoretical efficiency of 57%. That’s to kinetic, not electric. Dynamo efficiency is around 80%, so total max theoretical efficiency is 45%.
For the real world, this news article
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/reactors-0920.html
quotes typical efficiencies of PWR and BWR reactor types of 33%. Ignore the “news” of a sudden increase in efficiency reported in the story, it’s the bog standard “old” efficiency rate I’m interested in. So we have 33% as a reasonable figure. I said 10% initially, let’s keep that lower number to account for other miscellaneous energy costs like processing.
Remember, my goal is not to cheerlead for the nuclear industry (far from it), but only to debunk the too-strong claim that EROEI here must be less than one as a matter of “basic physics.”
@jakerman
I did reply, but the links I put in have set off the automatic moderator. Hopefully it should only take a couple of hours.
3rd explosion….
Of course the nuclear industry and subverted officials are lying through their teeth, (until the awful truth comes out that is), see: UK Telegraph .
But the real problem is: if we allow Japan and America to develop an unfair competitive advantage by using cheap nuke power, what happens when every other nation expects to do the same: Nigeria, Colombia, Fiji, Sri Lanka. So in a few generations the globe could well have to suffer around 100 partial meltdowns and associated emergency releases of radioactivity in any number of poorly regulated states, and the entire earth’s atmosphere will become nothing less than cancer-causing muck.
Why would any moral agent accede to this development? when base-load renewables can be developed?
No amount of argument along the lines of Fran’s “it may be a slightly dangerous but it’s very efficient” line can overcome most people’s gut reaction that “it may be slightly efficient but it’s very dangerous”. If that seems irrational to an economist it simply exposes how divorced economic thinking can be from the way humans actually behave. Like it or not, things that can explode are never make popular neighbours no matter how much an economist may love them.
Incidentally there are now high radiation level readings half way between the plants and Tokyo according to ABC Japan Earthquake Live.
@Chris Warren
1. As you probably know from the literature on economic development, uneven development (Hymer’s term) persists because there is a tendency to intensify (physical) capital usage through technological inventions and innovatons rather than spreading an existing technology throughout the world. I understand you are hinting at that.
2. I understand your second point deals with a negative externality which, over time can be global just like AGW. If I understand correctly, then you would agree with those who say a pollution price of nuclear power has to be determined now to avoid a repetition of the ghg emission problem, largely due to fossil fuel burning.
@Ian Milliss
There may be some economists who are as divorced from reality as you say. Fortunately not all of them and hopefully only a tiny minority.
@Ernestine Gross
Ask Fran whether she is an economist.
The foregoing post, #31, p 2, was meant to be addressed to Ian Milliss.
@Ernestine Gross
Fair point, it was more a comment on those who still think economic self interest is (or perhaps should be) the major determinant of human behaviour. I realise I’m parodying that position and anyway it’s not predominant around here. I thought Fran wasn’t an economist, is that true Fran?
@Fran Barlow
That sounds too complicated for me. What’s wrong with the carbon price?
According to the World Nuclear Organisation, at current prices and rates of usage we have well over a century’s worth of uranium ore in known deposits. At higher prices, we have several century’s worth. At about ten times current prices (which, since uranium extraction is only a small part of the cost of nuclear power, doesn’t change the overall economics much) we can indeed extract uranium from seawater. And all that is without thinking about breeder reactors.
“Peak Uranium” is a very long way off. It’s just more disinformation spread by the anti-nukes. This propensity for someone just making **** up and then having it repeated uncritically all over the net really **** me off; when it comes to nuclear power you have to endlessly verify every statement by both sides.
As the dimensions of the Japanese nuclear crisis grow, I notice the proponents of nuclear power getting quieter and quieter. It is well they should. They were too quick to pronounce it a “minor incident” and then to pronounce two “minor incidents” and then three “minor incidents”. And so it goes… as Kurt Vonnegut said.
It now also appears that these incidents are not minor, not under control, hundreds of people have been exposed already and meltdowns or multiple meltdowns are still possible. Even if a category 7 incident is avoided it will have been a close run thing. The risk-benefit analysis of nuclear power is overwhelmingly negative.
It has also become more prominent with more publicity of the public records, that those in charge of the Japanese nuclear industry have a proven track record of lying, cheating, covering up and minimising scores of nuclear incidents in the past. The performance of nuclear reactors, those who run them and those who promote them can inspire no confidence at all.
Let’s hope one general good to come out of this is the ultimate global de-commissioning of this entire blighted, decaying and dead end industry. Nuclear power is an environmental crime.
@sam
There’s nothing wrong with a carbon price. I am, as you know, a strong advocate of an explicit price, ideally through an ETS-like mechanism.
That said, while one part of the challenge involves levelling the playing field so that the unreasonable competitive advantage of those sources of energy able to profit from an externality provided by the commons (in this case the right to treat the biosphere as a free industrial sewer) is destroyed by putting a price on this dumping that is fully internalised, the other part involves offering those willing to pay the “no dump-adjusted” price indirect and direct access to technologies that meet this standard. In NSW, for example, generation capacity is owned by the state, and changing from coal to some low-lifecycle CO2e-emissions source will involve some expensive restructuring. I favour public ownership but if a CO2e price is imposed, it will be imposed upon the state in this case. This starts to blur the lines between a “market mechanism” and simple state policy. If the funds raised by a CO2e price go to the Feds the distinction between private and public can be rendered moot since any generators — whether state owned or private can contract, or subcontract as suits them with the state backing the loans using funds from the price.
Despite being a proponent of nuclear power, I have to agree that the Daiichi reactor problems are now very serious. The Japanese PM has just said signifcant radioactivity (>100 mSv per hour) has been detected external to the reactors. That is dangerous. It sounds like at least one of the reactor containment vessels has been breached. If so, this is now worse than Three Mile Island.
@Fran Barlow
Fran, perhaps I’m being obtuse. When I asked “What’s wrong with a carbon price?” I meant, “What’s wrong with using only a carbon price to determine which kind of generators to use, and allowing prospective owners to simply use the cheapest financing they can access?” Your reply mentioned public versus private ownership but did not make clear to me why this would make a difference.
@Ikonoclast
That would be a massive own goal. You cannot support highly urbanised and densely populated urban societies without reliable energy. As things stand, that energy comes in the form of coal, gas, hydro, oil or nuclear, the last of which represents about 16% of stationary generation. Remove that and you either have to get that 16% from the others or contrive and roll out some new source of similar heft. For reasons that are simply obvious, that cannot occur any time soon. Indeed, one of the arguments raised against nuclear power is that its capacity to replace fossil hydrocarbons cannot match the speed at which we should replace them. Renewables cannot be rolled out at the scale required at a speed more rapid than nuclear either and if nuclear were to be removed the gap would be larger yet.
What your proposal really entails therefore is a demand for reductions in stationary energy available to humans of about 16%, concentrated in large part in countries that are developing their industry. I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that this will hold very little appeal for them and that even if they were somewhat chastened by the events at Fukushima, they would simply turn more sharply to coal and gas, with results far more pernicious to humanity in general and to their own populations in particular than nuclear power.
No government, not even a dictatorship, is going to impose deliberately, the kind of austerity your hope implies for their population. OK — Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime was a bizarre exception — fascinated as it was by the idea of returning to mediaeval ecstacies of Angkor Wat — but its democidal rule was thankfully shortlived. The Chinese regime seems happy enough to accept the terrible health consequences of coal and gas, and to mess with the environment using projects like Three Gorges, but they know that if the people in the cities start becoming poor, they won’t hang onto power. They plan, AIUI to ensure that by 2020 as much as 20% of their stationary energy will come from nuclear power. South Korea has just built and brought online a nuclear plant in 4.5 years and that’s a good thing.
It would be better if advocates of “renewables” spent less time attacking nuclear power and more time showing how “renewables” can step up and shoulder the burdens now borne by coal and gas and oil at a price, an environmental cost and on a timeline that is viable. Know this: right now, Australia’s fleet of coal-fired power stations is mostly within 15 years or less of having operated for long enough to amortise their sunk costs. Soon they will start being replaced and if renewables aren’t ready — and they won’t be — we will get some new gas plants or perhaps some ultra supercritical coal with subsidised CC&S and then we will have to wait another 40 years before pushing them offline.
While I don’t doubt your sincerity, in practice, that is the most likely consequence of the hopes of people such as you.
Ikonoclast, I canot recall one instance where you said anything for which the statement: “You cannot support highly urbanised and densely populated urban societies without reliable energy.” would be a rejoinder. Is my aging memory letting me down?
I recall one person (there may be others) promoting high density urban development. But I am still sure it was not you.
Between $US43-46 billion of subsidies were granted to renewables and biofuels in 2009, either through direct grants or market-based mechanisms such as feed-in tariffs, renewable energy credits or certificates, tax credits, and other direct subsidies.
Hundreds of Billions is the estimated Economic cost of the Chernobyl accident. Add this to the super subsidees of Military spending that have pushed developmont of nuclear research for 6 decades.
Click to access nuclear%20subsidies_report.pdf
The recent International Energy Agency estimate of $US557 billion that world governments spent on subsidising fossil fuels in 2008. The G20 group has pledged, but not yet acted, to reduce those subsidies.
http://www.climatespectator.com.au/commentary/energy-subsidies-funding-renewables-cleantech-oil
@Sam
I’m all for using the CO2 price as a guidepost for investment and for abatement programs. Nevertheless, one thing states are especially good at doing relative to private business is securing longterm infrastructure finance and it makes sense that they should use this advantage and then pass it on to end users. This in turn gives the state good leverage over the parameters (rather than the specific suites of technologies) with which public policy should concern itself. We get a technologically neutral process in which the outcomes reflect the demands of public policy.
I should add that while I am very much in favour of a CO2e price — and a strong ($80-$150 per tonne) and a ubiquitous no loopholes one at that, not everyone who supports active mitigation (and not even all on the left) likke the idea of an explicit price on CO2e. Some prefer a direct state investment and regulation model but whichever method one uses, one will still need some vehicle for implementing the new LETs. The threshhold for private investors to become involved needs to be as close to the adjusted CO2 price as possible, without the exposure to longterm loan prices becoming a factor.
We certainly do want scaleable, high potential, low-emissions technology to be rolled out as cheaply as possible, ASAP and before new old-technology plants start to come on line.
Talking about electricity prices, the domestic electricity price has gone up locally for many self-funded retired people because the value of the ASX All Ord (broad share price index in Australia has declined by almost 10% over the past few days (with uranium miners down, down, down).
@Ian Milliss
FTR, I am not an economist. I’m not sure why that is relevant though.
@Fran Barlow
Fran has mis-spoke.
It would be a saving grace – particularly if the resources were directed to developing baseload renewables and high capacity storage.
After Three-mile Island, after Chernobyl, after Japan, and after the next catastrophe, maybe then, even the slow-learners will catch up.
The science appears to show that the current levels of greenhouse gas induce ongoing climate warming, so as the public will now be more adverse to nuclear, we must push for more development of renewable baseload sources.
We can also buy time, and reduce the task, by restricting population growth, so I see no sense in Fran’s opportunistic quip about Pol Pot. This just shows she has no control over her own arguments.
The figure for renewable subsidees is about $US38-39 billion if we leave out the perverse US ethanol subsides with is a backhander to biotech like Monsanto.
http://www.globalsubsidies.org/en/research/biofuel-subsidies-united-states/
@Ernestine Gross
re 1.
I tentatively see politics and gaming as being greater determinants of capital intensification and technology spread, than developmental economics.
Development economists should take their proper place – either as clerks and managers developing and administering UN programs (clean water, schooling and health facilities, anti-malaria programs etc) or as part of the commentariat on the sidelines.
This is too complex to progress much further here.
@Ian Milliss
Gut reactions are a bad way of determining public policy, as a survey of recent policy in “defence”, immigration, social security, indigenous policy, drug policy and especially AGW etc would easily show.
The populist counter-position of “economists’ thinking” and “the way humans actually behave” is surely out of place here. I’m also not sure humans are by and large consistent in working out what to do. Sometimes an attempt is made to evaluate things using apparently reliable, salient data and good modelling, and on other occasions, it’s a lucky dip. A recent survey in the US, apparently conducted on acceptance of AGW, showed that people’s tendencies to accept the science were positively correlated with how warm the setting they did the survey was. Hmmm …
As has been pointed out often enough, people say they are bothered by the idea of getting cancer from exposure to radiation, but in Sydney one won’t have to drive more than 5kms to find a place offering people the chance to lie in ultra-violet light and on any warm day, public health warnings notwithstanding, otherwise rational people can be found sunbaking on beaches and in parks. People buy granite benchtops, and take long distance flights without being in the least bit troubled about their exposure to radiation.
Even today, one sees advertisements appealing to those who want their house hygeinic and pleasant smelling inviting people to “defend” their homes from pathogens, embarrassing small fauna and evil odours by dousing their residences in toxic chemicals likely to be orders of magnitude more dangerous than the things they are repelling/extinguishing.
Fear not based on something like an informed and careful appreciation of the risks and benefits of this or that action is purely cultural, and in the case of nuclear power, this is what one hears. Many adults who laugh generously when small children say they fear the dark or that there is a monster under the bed, respond viscerally when someone mentions “terrorism”, “boats”, “taxes”, “p*dophiles”, “drugs” or “nuclear plant”.
It would be amusing if it weren’t such a shame.