I’ve just read Robert Pool’s ‘Beyond Engineering: How Society Shapes Technology’ form the Excellent Sloan Technology series.
In this book the author explores the role of a market failure in the form of ‘Path Dependence’ has played in creating the mess in which the Nuclear Industry now itself.
Basically Westinghouse in collaboration with the US navel developed a safe and successful small (40Mw) light water reactor for Nuclear Submarines. General Electric fearing it would it would be left behind, created a series of ‘paper’ nuclear generating units orders of magnitude larger (1500mW+) with a price list that assumed economies of scale and a cost structure similar to that for thermal generating units. These units were heavily sold by the GE sales force. The problems only came to the surface once GE attempted to build these plants. But it was all underwritten by the US government so GE was never allowed to become insolvent as a result of their stupidity.
Some of that early US government support for nuclear via military budgets gets included in claims of generous subsidies. Perhaps so but civilian nuclear power does not get feed-in tariffs, renewable energy certificates, 20% quotas and so on. Therefore claims of past subsidies are less relevant.
I wonder if the deliberations of the carbon tax committee will include a repeal of sections of the Commonwealth radiation protection act. That would allow nukes to be built on a case by case approval not a blanket prohibition. The way we’re heading only a severe recession will deliver even the weak 5% CO2 cut by 2020 over 2000. To those who say it’s a piece of cake have your explanations ready year after year as we fall behind.
I wonder if the deliberations of the carbon tax committee will include a repeal of sections of the Commonwealth radiation protection act. That would allow nukes to be built on a case by case approval not a blanket prohibition.
Why waste time yearning for something that cannot happen? Politics is, after all, the art of the possible.
And speaking of subsidies, who’s going to be insuring all these never-likely-to-exist nuclear plants?
Fukishima has finished the dream. But it was already a marginal hope anyway. It’s time to move on. Complaining that everyone else somehow doesn’t ‘get it’ is pointless.
Hermit
Those linking nuclear with CO2 are blowing smoke.
You reduce CO2 by reducing items with a large greenhouse footprint.
Obviously the government is not doing this – it is merely trying to address public concerns with a toy policy from Garnaut. Meanwhile huge funds are be wasted with joint strike fighters, and huge concrete constructions such as a new parliament house for Canberra’s pollies and massive new concrete express-ways ringing the city.
If the government is not doing anything real about global warming in these terms any hope that they will adopt nukes “to fix climate change” is even more remote.
Our present politicians will only do what is required to keep them in Parliament and allow them the $432 million palace they think they are entitled to – irrespective of any ecological or social justice issue that may interfere.
The guys over at BraveNewClimate are shameless. After downplaying the problems in Japan and shouting down dissenters they are back in full gear as though nothing happened.
Apparently radiation is not only natural and good for you in any quantity but it also can’t kill you, ever. Wow.
Here is an article by a Ugo Bardi called “the return of cold fusion ” at the oil drum.
A very interesting retake on an old dream which Ugo has examined and says it may well work. Have a read.
Oh mi god Prof – you actually agreed to open another nuclear sandpit (for the how manyth time ???- why should you feel obliged to host the main denialists and cranks website’s religious devotees views ie BNC on this site – because thats all we get in here arguing pro nuclear now (and a real minority). Political people not sensible people.
Well I guess thats where the argument belongs. In a sandpit only I would have called it a nuclear cesspit to be more honest.
And where is Terje now that this cesspit is open for discussion or would Terje rather seep the sludge BNC pro nuke arguments in surreptitiously in other threads?
Apparently radiation is not only natural and good for you in any quantity but it also can’t kill you, ever. Wow.
Keen to get the strawman up early in the discussion I see.
Alice – I knew you would miss me but I thought it would take longer. JQ maintains a nuclear sandpit to keep the other threads quite on the topic. However I suspect another reason is that he hasn’t ruled out the nuclear option entirely.
First paragraph above was supposed to be in quotes. Not sure what went wrong.
Germany’s coalition government has announced a reversal of policy that will see all the country’s nuclear power plants phased out by 2022.
Yes but is it a core promise?
Well if it’s a cesspit Alice, it’s because you’re pissing in it.
I can argue nukes all day long with a range of people who disagree with me, no problems. I’ve got a long record of that. I’d continue to debate BilB or Chris Warren on this issue (not that any minds are going to be changed).
However, since you joined the crowd here at Quiggin’s blog in the last year or two, the level of personal abuse and attack, generated mostly by you, has gone up intolerably. I won’t participate in any nuclear cesspit at this blog, mostly because of your presence. You’ll declare me personally to be all sorts of evil and awful things, you’ll project my motives, you’ll think I’m paid for this view, etc etc etc.
Anyway, that’s my last word on this subject. But I do hope that Pr Q notices, I have made the point before, you need to pull your head in and be civil if you’re to actually communicate with people.
And here comes the invective…
Alice, please take a break for a week.
Ok, coast is clear?
Sorry, I really don’t mean to single out a person individually, and I’m sure Alice will be reading this, and I don’t mean any ill will to her personally, I agree that nuclear power is an issue that generates strong emotions, and that isn’t all a bad thing. I accept that opponents of nuclear power have their heart in entirely the right place, which is protection of our mother earth. But even so, you can’t have a conversation without some basic norms.
One small thing I will say, anyone suggesting that Barry Brook is a denialist is a damn fool.
Anyway, respectfully, people can be wrong about this stuff, without being evil. I don’t love or even particularly like nuclear power. But I do think that the safety risks are grossly, wildly overstated, and poorly if ever grounded in evidence, yes even with Fukushima, while the risks of climate change are understated or not fully grasped. Meanwhile the likelihood of renewable power filling the energy gap in anything like the time necessary is unfortunately far too slim to count on. The only alternative, which at least some people are honest enough to admit to, is turning off the lights. Me personally, no thanks (metaphorically at least – in real life my family of four is using about 2 – 5 kwh/day (summer – winter), so yes we do turn off our lights (oh and we do have grid connected PV and solar hot water so net summer consumption is negative)).
I regard anti-nuke people to be like Stalin’s “useful idiots”, though this time of Big Coal. Nuclear power is the biggest threat to coal there is, and if there’s any secret payments and astroturfing going on (and no I don’t think there is, at least not in the ausblogosphere) then the finger can be pointed at renewables advocates as readily as it can be at nuke advocates.
If I could be convinced that renewable power could and was going to be scaled enough to meet Australia’s energy demands at remotely affordable prices, I’d be all for it.
Against that, we could get the Canadians to build a score or 1.4GW plants with 90%+ uptime for under $2 bn each in less than five years, leaving a very small, very manageable waste problem that will be eaten up quickly when generation IV reactors are commercially running (this is a physically proven technology, not yet a full commercial reality).
“If I could be convinced that renewable power could and was going to be scaled enough to meet Australia’s energy demands at remotely affordable prices, I’d be all for it.”
There is good news for you on Prof Q’s latest thread.
Ernestine Gross : @wilful
“If I could be convinced that renewable power could and was going to be scaled enough to meet Australia’s energy demands at remotely affordable prices, I’d be all for it.”
There is good news for you on Prof Q’s latest thread.
I wish!
(No seriously, I do!)
But the bad news is far far worse than the good news. I really can’t see how the fact that there are no insurmountable barriers to integrating a bunch of variable output resources means much to this debate at all.
“Base load” was never a first order argument for nuclear proponents.
And we still want to charge up our electric cars every night.
No there isn’t. All JQ has said is that renewables can be made more workable if coupled with gas plants. However this is still a crazy way to proceed relative to gas plants on their own. It is like suggesting that if we had lots of cheap nuclear we could combine it with renewable sources and get an energy mix that was not as bad as pure renewables and so therefor renewables are the way to go. It is a twisted form of logic. Gas only and nuclear only can reduce emissions cheaper than some mix of either with renewables. Renewables bring nothing to the table. They are a green token fantasy. Even if you don’t believe this we can test it out by having a modest carbon tax and scrapping MRET. Then see if a mix with or without wind and solar is the most commercially viable solution. My prediction is that investment in wind and solar would tank pretty much immediately. They add no commercial value.
Chanign the topic slightly, any South Australians interested in promoting nuclear power could go to my friend Ben’s blog: Decarbonise S.A..
Yeah if you don’t like BNC you’re not going to learn anything new there. If you want to be fighty, please just stick to BNC or here or something.
There’s a lot to be said for building Australia’s first nuke plant in SA, after all they had the Maralinga atomic tests and they have the world’s largest uranium deposit at Olympic Dam. Sure they have a lot of wind turbines but they only give about 10% of rated capacity during the ever present heat waves, just when everybody wants AC. SA’s coal is little more than flammable soil. Now they reckon ‘fracking’ might revive the dwindling gas fields but let’s wait and see.
I’d tie a South Australian nuke plant in with desalination. The Murray River that supplies a lot of Adelaide’s summer water is sure to dry up again.
S.A.s infrastructure is mostly very old. 1960s and 70s. A few new medium sized gas plants as well, but otherwise dilapidated.
@wilful
Why couldn’t you charge your car in the day? Mass electric car usage is a great boon for managing a fickle power supply. The car could be plugged in to a smart grid and only draw power when the price drops below a certain level.
Also, if the swings in spot electricity price are high enough, the car could make money by selling power back to the grid. The presence of so many batteries essentially means a maximum diurnal electricity price.
Sam – fine for the predictable day / night variability associate with solar but what about prolonged periods when the wind doesn’t blow and the sky is full of clouds. The standard renewable answer is to diversify locality but the transmission costs with that approach soon escalate. Why not skip wind and solar and just go with gas.
“But the bad news is far far worse than the good news. I really can’t see how the fact that there are no insurmountable barriers to integrating a bunch of variable output resources means much to this debate at all. ”
The ‘integration of a bunch of variable output resources’ is an interesting problem from my perspective – pricing – and IMHO, it is crucial to the debate.
I can only outline why, IMHO, the problem is crucial. (The problem requires joint work between the science-based people from the various ‘output’ resources and economists).
The way I see it, the theory of the core of an economy is an appropriate framework to start off with for the economic part, rather than the more familiar ‘competitive market’ framework. In this framework, the organisation of ‘producers’ is a parameter (and a function of skills of the people). So one can speak of a particular producer being a ‘coalition’. In this framework, ‘superadditivity’ is defined to capture the notion of the ‘whole’ is greater than the sum of its parts. This is excluded in the competitive market framework (and the accountants have a particularly severe problem with accepting that their numbers aren’t all that relevant for many interesting problems).
Now, we can’t undo all the organisational realities regarding producers (companies, corporations, individuals, government owned corporations, etc) for the purpose of trying out what I believe is feasible. So, what I am getting at is, the practical problem is to create an agent (say IPART) who looks at all technologically possible productions (ie ‘integrate) and, give the reality of profit maximising producers, redistributes profits among the contributing elements. Easier said than done – but conceivable.
I know for sure there are plenty of economists in the EU who know (or developed) the theory of the core of an economy and therefore I would not be surprised if there is already work in this area.
@TerjeP
I was responding to Wilful’s point that they make the problem worse. Look I’m not saying electric cars fix the problem of renewable variability entirely- just that they help.
As to your point about going to gas, if the carbon price is high enough renewables are cheaper than gas.
Sorry @TerjeP , I see your point now. You mean that if there are several weeks of clouds and low winds, you’ll have to buy your car’s electricity from
sources from far away and then it will be more expensive. That’s true but so what? Petrol prices now fluctuate in response to changing supply and demand and the world doesn’t end. It simply incentivises both consumers and producers to moderate their behaviour to correct for the imbalance.
sam, I don’t think there’s any bad news per se in the claim that variability can be dealt with – the bad news is that 2010s emissions are over 30Gt.
But back to electric cars – most people will, unless there is some radical work done to provide infrastructure able to cahrge cars during the day, charge their cars at night, creating a new requirement at this time. Pr Quiggin has argued, unpersuasively I think, that baseload is a myth fuelled by historic factors. Electric cars are a prime example of where peaks and troughs would be smoothed in our more electric future.
@wilful
I disagree that we would need a radical infrastructure change. A change in financial infrastructure is all that is really required. If daytime electricity prices were much cheaper and nighttime ones more expensive, home-grown efforts would just spring up. The government wouldn’t need to mandate any particular solution, people would just negotiate with whoever owned the car space their car occupied during the day (which might be themselves if they don’t drive to work) to pay for access to a power point. How exactly they’d do that would be up to them. If it could save them more than a dollar a day, people would do it. After all, bus passengers voluntarily buy smart cards rather than paper tickets because it saves them money.
Even a truly smart grid, with real-time electricity pricing, would not be prohibitively expensive. All that would be required is to replace the electricity meter in every building with one that engages in realtime two-way communication with the grid (using powerline, cellphone, or some other technology). The IT technology required to do this is so cheap it’s almost free. You could do it progressively over a number of years and induce people to switch with lower average electricity costs. This program might even pay for itself eventually by eliminating the need for a meterman (person). None of this is particularly expensive, and certainly not when compared to the cost of actually rolling out new electricity generators.
We will fail to go all out for renewables, not because it’s too expensive – and it is undeniably expensive – but because we are (apologies to Kurt Vonnegut) too cheap.
Or, it’s more that we still fail to understand the seriousness of the problem and don’t appreciated how horrendously expensive inaction is likely to be. In that light nuclear must look more attractive too but it does come with enough baggage that even then sufficient acceptance has to be hard to secure. Australia just isn’t in a position to lead the way to any nuclear renaissance. In the meantime too many pro-nuclear campaigners will continue to oppose firm policy commitments to renewables – and it’s hard enough to get a commitment without having a portion of voters who do get how serious the problem is voting with those wanting delay. All the while the idea that the answer is (eventually and under under severe fracking duress) a shift to ‘climate friendly’ gas has been quietly been cultivated. Shift to gas, problem solved…. My head hurts.
sam, I don’t think that a ‘smart grid’ can be conjured up that easily, and the problems at the micro scale are so readily dismissable. I cannot believe that you think “[t]he IT technology required to do this is so cheap it’s almost free.” I’m not sure you’ve ever been involved in any decently large system purchase and integration (I haven’t but I have some seriously geeky friends). And look at the cost of the NBN, which doesn’t go to car parks etc.
Smart meters (which are not really smart enough to do what you want) are being rolled out in Victoria, at a cost of billions of dollars and significant political angst.
Don’t get me wrong I would welcome that sort of techno-optimist future, I just don’t think it’s coming soon (enough). And I don’t think it’ll be renewable powered. Even if there are no “insurmountable” problems (merely massive ones) and Pr Quiggin is happy to dismiss the topic.
Ernestine, I don’t really get your point. I mean I can understand what you’re saying (and agree that cooperative ventures are inadequately dealt with in my limited understanding of modern economics (BTW is this relevant: http://www.cambridge.org/aus/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521306195 ?)) but I haven’t gone “a ha” and worked out its relevance to the topic at hand.
Anyway, for me it all comes back to the fact that we could buy straight from Canada tomorrow a super safe reactor that produced 1.4GW for more than 90% of the time at a very nominal cost, with trivial waste issues, or we could spend the next twenty years building more gas fired plants waiting for the gas to run out and for a renewable energy miracle.
Climate change isn’t waiting.
Those wishing to continue arguing for nuclear power, should at least support the closing of the yellowcake thread of production.
Surely if there is waste, then the community may accept using this for power IF the amount of waste is thereby reduced.
Similarly the community may accept thorium or fusion or some new technology, depending on contemporary risks and cost impacts on future generations.
Ending uranium mining should be acceptable to all. That will provide incentive for the nuclear industry to help solves its own waste problem.
support the closing of the yellowcake thread of production.
I don’t have any shares in BHP and don’t live in South Australia, so I don’t have a particular viewpoint on this, but I can readily agree that as soon as Generation IV moves from first build (they are being built right now) to full commercial production across the world, then yes, of course everyone wants less mining, it’s strictly a means to an end, not an end in itself, and it generates negative externalities so should be restricted where feasible.
But, pointedly compared to the externalities generated by fossil fuel extraction, I’m not sure I see the point of any blanket statement about banning uranium mining right here and now. If conducted well (not always the case I grant you) I don’t see the issue. If the options are third generation nuclear power with its associated waste versus coal fired generation with its associated waste, I certainly know which I’d prefer.
There are crappy iron, silicon, rare earths and copper mines as well (all used in the production of renewable energy infrastructure).
The notion of the core of an economy goes back to Edgeworth. The reference you have given is relevant. Other authors in this area are V. Boehm, H. Wiesmeth – for example.
You ignore the balance of payments effect of your proposal to buy nuclear power plants from Canada. By contrast, the development of renewables generates jobs in Australia and, most importantly, technological know-how.
Note, the Germans pay twice as much for electricity as the French, but this does not hurt their ‘economy’. Incidentally, in the south of Germany the unemployment rate is lower than in Australia. The trick with maintaining good living standards is to do technological development rather than buy old technology. Furthermore, the technological development should be in the area which addresses contemporary problems, applying basic research. The big contemporary problems are ghG emissions and nuclear pullution.
as soon as Generation IV moves from first build (they are being built right now)
Huh? There are no Generation IV reactors being built. The reactors currently under construction are Generation III/III+. Generation IV reactors are conceptual only.
ignore the balance of payments effect of your proposal to buy nuclear power plants from Canada. By contrast, the development of renewables generates jobs in Australia and, most importantly, technological know-how.
You and I wish! You don’t seriously think we’re going to be genuine innovators in renewable technologies? No, we’re dumb miners and price takers I’m afraid. Anyone with a good idea these days goes O.S.
That is not a Generation IV reactor. It is a liquid metal fast breeder reactor, of a type similar to experimental fast breeders that have been constructed since the 1960s.
@wilful
I’ll admit I haven’t been involved in the large scale purchase of IT technology, but I have played around with very cheap, reliable devices that interact with computers over rs232 and usb. Perhaps I was a little too dismissive of the logistical difficulties in running a smart grid. For the sake of conciseness, let me break up the argument into parts and have you respond to each component on its merits.
1) At the stroke of a pen, authorities can reverse the day/night price differential. This would almost immediately eliminate much current routine night-time demand, and shift it to day time.
2)If the differential is high enough, electric car owners will arrange by various means to charge mostly during the day. If electric car ownership is high enough to cause large scale electricity supply problems (and if these problems are visible to the consumer in the form of higher nighttime prices) it will be high enough to generate commercial solutions in privately owned car parks.
3)A smart grid can be rolled out slowly, generating benefits at every level of “intelligence.” If 1% of meters are smart, 1% of buildings face an incentive to moderate peaks and troughs. There need be no coercion to get people to switch, just a slight premium on the accounts of “smart” customers.
4)Since the grid’s supply “fickleness” will increase slowly, as coal generators are gradually replaced with solar and wind, the grid’s intelligence only needs to increase slowly.
5) Electric cars with their responsively varying demand substantially increase the stability of a smart grid.
6)Although the cost of replacing a “dumb” meter even with another dumb meter is quite high, the underlying technology in a smart meter does not have to be much more expensive. All you need is two way machine to machine communication (a well established technology), and a primitive $50 computer. At minimum, the grid would have to tell the meter current price, and the meter would have to tell the grid it’s current demand. A more fancy system would see the grid giving the meter an updating forecast of future prices, and the meter giving the grid an updating forecast of future demand. You could have the meter’s computer acting as a local server on the house’s LAN interacting with any smart appliances. Once again, this technology generates benefits at every level of “intelligence.” If only one appliance is smart and interacting with the meter, the household saves a little money on the electricity bill.
7)In fact a lot of household load could vary responsively. Say the weather bureau tracks a bank of clouds moving towards a clump of solar panels that will arrive in 15 minutes. The grid could warn households of an imminent price spike, and all fridges could immediately switch on, chilling the food to the minimum temperature. As soon as the clouds hit the panels, the fridges would all switch off until either their internal thermostat hit the maximum, or the clouds passed. A similar thing could happen with a washing machine or dryer left on during the day. Note the fridges wouldn’t have to be told about the clouds, just the price forecast.
7)Although the underlying technology is very cheap, I admit the government does often seem to overpay for these things, and stuff up deployment. The Queensland health computerised payroll system debacle is still ongoing. I remember Paul Lucas trying to justify why they had to move from a perfectly good computerised system to another one that worked 1/10 as well for 10 times the cost. He explained that the previous system was “old.” I think it would be very useful to have some new people in government who actually understand how IT works, and how much things ought to cost.
Clearly the last should be an 8)
Hmm, I take it back – the wikipedia information does say that the Indian PFBR is based on a sodium-cooled fast reactor design, which is identified as a Generation IV design. I seem to have been misled by this article published by the World Nuclear Association, which states that no Gen IV reactors will be operational before 2020 (and does discuss the Kalpakkam PFBR).
It does appear that the PFBR is a first-of-a-kind Generation IV reactor.
A minor anecdote – 20 years ago I swam at a beach 20km south of the Kalpakkam power station – the closest I’ve ever been to a nuclear reactor.
@Tim Macknay
I think you’ve been closer than that. Are you sure you’ve never been to Western Sydney?
Actually, I was thinking about that just as I posted the comment, Sam. Perhaps I should have said it was the closest I’ve ever consciously been to a nuclear reactor.
Tim, I make zero claims to technical expertise regarding nuclear engineering matters (my background is biological sciences). But in all the reading I’ve done about Gen IV, the worst claims made about it is that it’s still too far away and we don’t know how much it will cost. Nobody says it’s not feasible or viable. In fact I understand proper Gen IV prototypes have run for many years.
I accept that “first of a kind” and pretty much all big engineering products cost way too much these days (seen the price of melbourne’s desal plant?) and this is a big issue. That’s why I’m more sceptical fo this technology than those people over at BraveNewClimate. However I’ve been given no reason to believe this isn’t a medium term goer, and this Indian plant seems to be proving up the technology rapidly.
Now I agree with Ernestine Gross that this would do bad things for our BoP, but I’m afraid that that seems inevitable, I don’t think we’re going to get a better deal on any renewable technology sold to us either.
1) At the stroke of a pen, authorities can reverse the day/night price differential. This would almost immediately eliminate much current routine night-time demand, and shift it to day time.
yes administrative fiat could do this. Wouldn’t want to own a night rate water heater though, or be a pollie on the end of their outrage. Lower night time prices are an artifact of baseload’s need to keep producing. Though the total load is still there, we’d get higher peaks in daytime to compensate.
2)If the differential is high enough, electric car owners will arrange by various means to charge mostly during the day. If electric car ownership is high enough to cause large scale electricity supply problems (and if these problems are visible to the consumer in the form of higher nighttime prices) it will be high enough to generate commercial solutions in privately owned car parks.
What differential? Cheaper electricity due to daytime solar generation? You are talking about massive changes and disruption here. But sure, creative destruction
3)A smart grid can be rolled out slowly, generating benefits at every level of “intelligence.” If 1% of meters are smart, 1% of buildings face an incentive to moderate peaks and troughs. There need be no coercion to get people to switch, just a slight premium on the accounts of “smart” customers.
Major cultural change from the current culture of convenience. It is coercian lets not shy away from the fact. But yes that’s the intent of the Vic government program, and industrial customers are already supposed to feel that pressure. Others of course will simply have to lump increased prices, they can’t moderate their activity. A shop for example has the lights on, the air conditioning on whatever happens.
4)Since the grid’s supply “fickleness” will increase slowly, as coal generators are gradually replaced with solar and wind, the grid’s intelligence only needs to increase slowly.
True.
5) Electric cars with their responsively varying demand substantially increase the stability of a smart grid.
In your hypothetical world. I’m very dubious about the practicality of me driving into a commercial car park, plugging in, discovering it’s a grey cold still day, the price of electricity is high, my car is told not to accept a charge greater than x c/kwh, I go out at the end of the day and I can’t get home in my car.
I am completely setting aside the scales at which solar and wind would have to be overbuilt in order to get system reliability. It’s a simple fact that for days on end the entire SE coast of Australia has still periods. I’ve seen the graphs, the turbines from Tassie to NSW are not turning.
6)Although the cost of replacing a “dumb” meter even with another dumb meter is quite high, the underlying technology in a smart meter does not have to be much more expensive. All you need is two way machine to machine communication (a well established technology), and a primitive $50 computer. At minimum, the grid would have to tell the meter current price, and the meter would have to tell the grid it’s current demand. A more fancy system would see the grid giving the meter an updating forecast of future prices, and the meter giving the grid an updating forecast of future demand. You could have the meter’s computer acting as a local server on the house’s LAN interacting with any smart appliances. Once again, this technology generates benefits at every level of “intelligence.” If only one appliance is smart and interacting with the meter, the household saves a little money on the electricity bill.
It’s not the individual units I’m dubious about, it’s the network interactive aspects. How coplex? And a server crash, everyone’s got a flat car, good grief what a disaster.
7)In fact a lot of household load could vary responsively. Say the weather bureau tracks a bank of clouds moving towards a clump of solar panels that will arrive in 15 minutes. The grid could warn households of an imminent price spike, and all fridges could immediately switch on, chilling the food to the minimum temperature. As soon as the clouds hit the panels, the fridges would all switch off until either their internal thermostat hit the maximum, or the clouds passed. A similar thing could happen with a washing machine or dryer left on during the day. Note the fridges wouldn’t have to be told about the clouds, just the price forecast.
This starts getting star trekky by now. Sure, this can happen, but when?
7)Although the underlying technology is very cheap, I admit the government does often seem to overpay for these things, and stuff up deployment. The Queensland health computerised payroll system debacle is still ongoing. I remember Paul Lucas trying to justify why they had to move from a perfectly good computerised system to another one that worked 1/10 as well for 10 times the cost. He explained that the previous system was “old.” I think it would be very useful to have some new people in government who actually understand how IT works, and how much things ought to cost.
Myki?
“Wouldn’t want to own a night rate water heater”
No, and if I did, I’d change it to heat during the day.
“Major cultural change from the current culture of convenience. It is coercian lets not shy away from the fact.”
Not so coercive. If you want to stick with a dumb meter, fine, don’t sign up. You’ll just pay a higher average price that’s all.
“I’m very dubious about the practicality of me driving into a commercial car park, plugging in, discovering it’s a grey cold still day, the price of electricity is high, my car is told not to accept a charge greater than x c/kwh, I go out at the end of the day and I can’t get home in my car.”
I would think you would tell your car to charge up whatever the price after say, 2-3pm if the price has been high all day. You don’t want to get stuck with a flat battery for the sake of saving a few dollars. That’s not too difficult to arrange, and it would still mean a lot of responsive demand.
“I am completely setting aside the scales at which solar and wind would have to be overbuilt in order to get system reliability.”
I’m interested in that. What sort of overbuild numbers are we talking here, and how do they compare to current overbuild numbers? Do you know? I imagine the overbuild ratio would slowly increase with supply fickleness.
“How coplex? And a server crash, everyone’s got a flat car, good grief what a disaster.”
The servers could be multiply redundant. Sure unforseen circumstances can upset the best laid plans, but that can happen in a nuclear reactor too, with much worse results. Also, a server crash doesn’t mean the grid crashes. It just becomes dumb again, like it is now. What does “coplex” mean?
“This starts getting star trekky by now.”
Not so star trekky. It would be very useful, but needn’t be difficult to do.
sorry for typos. Coplex = complex. And coercian WTF?
The thing about overbuild is that people more qualified than me still pull their numbers out of their arse, so I wont get into that game and look foolish. I don’t think anyone really knows. Which is why it’s not “insurmountable” but pretty damn big. With wind, sometimes it’s all spinning and they’re producing their rated capacity, across the whole country. A beautiful sight if you like that thing (which I do but unfortunately lots dont).
Unfortunately at other times none of them are moving for days on end. Do we have back up storage for this? Not currently. Maybe compressed air reservoirs, pumped hydro? Colour me sceptical. If that happens in winter (quite possible) so there’s limited solar output, then not only does the economy grind to a halt but our gas fired stations roar into life. But of course, those gas fired stations, if they’re new and clean enough (CCGT), are too expensive to be built to operate for a few months a year, they have to operate more than that to make a dollar. Our electricity bills have now gone through the roof (sure I realise I’m sounding like News Ltd at this point) while our emissions are still fundamentally underpinned by a fossil fuel, one that incidentally is runnign out?
And why? Because we don’t think Australians are up with every other OECD country and can’t handle modern nuclear power, with its very limited set of risks. It’s a bloody big workaround.
The problem here Wilful, is that neither of us have numbers. I can make all sorts of qualitative objections to you. I can say that prices would be high enough to *make* CCGT (or whatever) profitable running only a few months a year. You could say back “This would cause intolerably high price fluctuations.” I could say “No they would not be intolerable, they would be manageable.” We really need someone more knowledgeable than us to give us some hard figures.
What I will say though, is that there is no prospect of increasing the renewable share of the grid to the point of instability for at least a decade. So let’s not worry till then.
John Quiggin 
I’ve just read Robert Pool’s ‘Beyond Engineering: How Society Shapes Technology’ form the Excellent Sloan Technology series.
In this book the author explores the role of a market failure in the form of ‘Path Dependence’ has played in creating the mess in which the Nuclear Industry now itself.
Basically Westinghouse in collaboration with the US navel developed a safe and successful small (40Mw) light water reactor for Nuclear Submarines. General Electric fearing it would it would be left behind, created a series of ‘paper’ nuclear generating units orders of magnitude larger (1500mW+) with a price list that assumed economies of scale and a cost structure similar to that for thermal generating units. These units were heavily sold by the GE sales force. The problems only came to the surface once GE attempted to build these plants. But it was all underwritten by the US government so GE was never allowed to become insolvent as a result of their stupidity.
Some of that early US government support for nuclear via military budgets gets included in claims of generous subsidies. Perhaps so but civilian nuclear power does not get feed-in tariffs, renewable energy certificates, 20% quotas and so on. Therefore claims of past subsidies are less relevant.
I wonder if the deliberations of the carbon tax committee will include a repeal of sections of the Commonwealth radiation protection act. That would allow nukes to be built on a case by case approval not a blanket prohibition. The way we’re heading only a severe recession will deliver even the weak 5% CO2 cut by 2020 over 2000. To those who say it’s a piece of cake have your explanations ready year after year as we fall behind.
Why waste time yearning for something that cannot happen? Politics is, after all, the art of the possible.
And speaking of subsidies, who’s going to be insuring all these never-likely-to-exist nuclear plants?
Fukishima has finished the dream. But it was already a marginal hope anyway. It’s time to move on. Complaining that everyone else somehow doesn’t ‘get it’ is pointless.
Hermit
Those linking nuclear with CO2 are blowing smoke.
You reduce CO2 by reducing items with a large greenhouse footprint.
Obviously the government is not doing this – it is merely trying to address public concerns with a toy policy from Garnaut. Meanwhile huge funds are be wasted with joint strike fighters, and huge concrete constructions such as a new parliament house for Canberra’s pollies and massive new concrete express-ways ringing the city.
If the government is not doing anything real about global warming in these terms any hope that they will adopt nukes “to fix climate change” is even more remote.
Our present politicians will only do what is required to keep them in Parliament and allow them the $432 million palace they think they are entitled to – irrespective of any ecological or social justice issue that may interfere.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/ministers-to-walk-on-air-in-new-wing/2178474.aspx
The guys over at BraveNewClimate are shameless. After downplaying the problems in Japan and shouting down dissenters they are back in full gear as though nothing happened.
Apparently radiation is not only natural and good for you in any quantity but it also can’t kill you, ever. Wow.
Here is an article by a Ugo Bardi called “the return of cold fusion ” at the oil drum.
A very interesting retake on an old dream which Ugo has examined and says it may well work. Have a read.
And here is the link
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7942
Oh mi god Prof – you actually agreed to open another nuclear sandpit (for the how manyth time ???- why should you feel obliged to host the main denialists and cranks website’s religious devotees views ie BNC on this site – because thats all we get in here arguing pro nuclear now (and a real minority). Political people not sensible people.
Well I guess thats where the argument belongs. In a sandpit only I would have called it a nuclear cesspit to be more honest.
And where is Terje now that this cesspit is open for discussion or would Terje rather seep the sludge BNC pro nuke arguments in surreptitiously in other threads?
Apparently radiation is not only natural and good for you in any quantity but it also can’t kill you, ever. Wow.
Keen to get the strawman up early in the discussion I see.
Alice – I knew you would miss me but I thought it would take longer. JQ maintains a nuclear sandpit to keep the other threads quite on the topic. However I suspect another reason is that he hasn’t ruled out the nuclear option entirely.
First paragraph above was supposed to be in quotes. Not sure what went wrong.
In the meantime… in Germany… http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13592208
Germany’s coalition government has announced a reversal of policy that will see all the country’s nuclear power plants phased out by 2022.
Yes but is it a core promise?
Well if it’s a cesspit Alice, it’s because you’re pissing in it.
I can argue nukes all day long with a range of people who disagree with me, no problems. I’ve got a long record of that. I’d continue to debate BilB or Chris Warren on this issue (not that any minds are going to be changed).
However, since you joined the crowd here at Quiggin’s blog in the last year or two, the level of personal abuse and attack, generated mostly by you, has gone up intolerably. I won’t participate in any nuclear cesspit at this blog, mostly because of your presence. You’ll declare me personally to be all sorts of evil and awful things, you’ll project my motives, you’ll think I’m paid for this view, etc etc etc.
Anyway, that’s my last word on this subject. But I do hope that Pr Q notices, I have made the point before, you need to pull your head in and be civil if you’re to actually communicate with people.
And here comes the invective…
Alice, please take a break for a week.
Ok, coast is clear?
Sorry, I really don’t mean to single out a person individually, and I’m sure Alice will be reading this, and I don’t mean any ill will to her personally, I agree that nuclear power is an issue that generates strong emotions, and that isn’t all a bad thing. I accept that opponents of nuclear power have their heart in entirely the right place, which is protection of our mother earth. But even so, you can’t have a conversation without some basic norms.
One small thing I will say, anyone suggesting that Barry Brook is a denialist is a damn fool.
Anyway, respectfully, people can be wrong about this stuff, without being evil. I don’t love or even particularly like nuclear power. But I do think that the safety risks are grossly, wildly overstated, and poorly if ever grounded in evidence, yes even with Fukushima, while the risks of climate change are understated or not fully grasped. Meanwhile the likelihood of renewable power filling the energy gap in anything like the time necessary is unfortunately far too slim to count on. The only alternative, which at least some people are honest enough to admit to, is turning off the lights. Me personally, no thanks (metaphorically at least – in real life my family of four is using about 2 – 5 kwh/day (summer – winter), so yes we do turn off our lights (oh and we do have grid connected PV and solar hot water so net summer consumption is negative)).
I regard anti-nuke people to be like Stalin’s “useful idiots”, though this time of Big Coal. Nuclear power is the biggest threat to coal there is, and if there’s any secret payments and astroturfing going on (and no I don’t think there is, at least not in the ausblogosphere) then the finger can be pointed at renewables advocates as readily as it can be at nuke advocates.
If I could be convinced that renewable power could and was going to be scaled enough to meet Australia’s energy demands at remotely affordable prices, I’d be all for it.
Against that, we could get the Canadians to build a score or 1.4GW plants with 90%+ uptime for under $2 bn each in less than five years, leaving a very small, very manageable waste problem that will be eaten up quickly when generation IV reactors are commercially running (this is a physically proven technology, not yet a full commercial reality).
That’s where I stand.
@wilful
“If I could be convinced that renewable power could and was going to be scaled enough to meet Australia’s energy demands at remotely affordable prices, I’d be all for it.”
There is good news for you on Prof Q’s latest thread.
I wish!
(No seriously, I do!)
But the bad news is far far worse than the good news. I really can’t see how the fact that there are no insurmountable barriers to integrating a bunch of variable output resources means much to this debate at all.
“Base load” was never a first order argument for nuclear proponents.
And we still want to charge up our electric cars every night.
No there isn’t. All JQ has said is that renewables can be made more workable if coupled with gas plants. However this is still a crazy way to proceed relative to gas plants on their own. It is like suggesting that if we had lots of cheap nuclear we could combine it with renewable sources and get an energy mix that was not as bad as pure renewables and so therefor renewables are the way to go. It is a twisted form of logic. Gas only and nuclear only can reduce emissions cheaper than some mix of either with renewables. Renewables bring nothing to the table. They are a green token fantasy. Even if you don’t believe this we can test it out by having a modest carbon tax and scrapping MRET. Then see if a mix with or without wind and solar is the most commercially viable solution. My prediction is that investment in wind and solar would tank pretty much immediately. They add no commercial value.
Chanign the topic slightly, any South Australians interested in promoting nuclear power could go to my friend Ben’s blog: Decarbonise S.A..
Yeah if you don’t like BNC you’re not going to learn anything new there. If you want to be fighty, please just stick to BNC or here or something.
There’s a lot to be said for building Australia’s first nuke plant in SA, after all they had the Maralinga atomic tests and they have the world’s largest uranium deposit at Olympic Dam. Sure they have a lot of wind turbines but they only give about 10% of rated capacity during the ever present heat waves, just when everybody wants AC. SA’s coal is little more than flammable soil. Now they reckon ‘fracking’ might revive the dwindling gas fields but let’s wait and see.
I’d tie a South Australian nuke plant in with desalination. The Murray River that supplies a lot of Adelaide’s summer water is sure to dry up again.
S.A.s infrastructure is mostly very old. 1960s and 70s. A few new medium sized gas plants as well, but otherwise dilapidated.
@wilful
Why couldn’t you charge your car in the day? Mass electric car usage is a great boon for managing a fickle power supply. The car could be plugged in to a smart grid and only draw power when the price drops below a certain level.
Also, if the swings in spot electricity price are high enough, the car could make money by selling power back to the grid. The presence of so many batteries essentially means a maximum diurnal electricity price.
Sam – fine for the predictable day / night variability associate with solar but what about prolonged periods when the wind doesn’t blow and the sky is full of clouds. The standard renewable answer is to diversify locality but the transmission costs with that approach soon escalate. Why not skip wind and solar and just go with gas.
@wilful
“But the bad news is far far worse than the good news. I really can’t see how the fact that there are no insurmountable barriers to integrating a bunch of variable output resources means much to this debate at all. ”
The ‘integration of a bunch of variable output resources’ is an interesting problem from my perspective – pricing – and IMHO, it is crucial to the debate.
I can only outline why, IMHO, the problem is crucial. (The problem requires joint work between the science-based people from the various ‘output’ resources and economists).
The way I see it, the theory of the core of an economy is an appropriate framework to start off with for the economic part, rather than the more familiar ‘competitive market’ framework. In this framework, the organisation of ‘producers’ is a parameter (and a function of skills of the people). So one can speak of a particular producer being a ‘coalition’. In this framework, ‘superadditivity’ is defined to capture the notion of the ‘whole’ is greater than the sum of its parts. This is excluded in the competitive market framework (and the accountants have a particularly severe problem with accepting that their numbers aren’t all that relevant for many interesting problems).
Now, we can’t undo all the organisational realities regarding producers (companies, corporations, individuals, government owned corporations, etc) for the purpose of trying out what I believe is feasible. So, what I am getting at is, the practical problem is to create an agent (say IPART) who looks at all technologically possible productions (ie ‘integrate) and, give the reality of profit maximising producers, redistributes profits among the contributing elements. Easier said than done – but conceivable.
I know for sure there are plenty of economists in the EU who know (or developed) the theory of the core of an economy and therefore I would not be surprised if there is already work in this area.
@TerjeP
I was responding to Wilful’s point that they make the problem worse. Look I’m not saying electric cars fix the problem of renewable variability entirely- just that they help.
As to your point about going to gas, if the carbon price is high enough renewables are cheaper than gas.
Sorry @TerjeP , I see your point now. You mean that if there are several weeks of clouds and low winds, you’ll have to buy your car’s electricity from
sources from far away and then it will be more expensive. That’s true but so what? Petrol prices now fluctuate in response to changing supply and demand and the world doesn’t end. It simply incentivises both consumers and producers to moderate their behaviour to correct for the imbalance.
sam, I don’t think there’s any bad news per se in the claim that variability can be dealt with – the bad news is that 2010s emissions are over 30Gt.
But back to electric cars – most people will, unless there is some radical work done to provide infrastructure able to cahrge cars during the day, charge their cars at night, creating a new requirement at this time. Pr Quiggin has argued, unpersuasively I think, that baseload is a myth fuelled by historic factors. Electric cars are a prime example of where peaks and troughs would be smoothed in our more electric future.
@wilful
I disagree that we would need a radical infrastructure change. A change in financial infrastructure is all that is really required. If daytime electricity prices were much cheaper and nighttime ones more expensive, home-grown efforts would just spring up. The government wouldn’t need to mandate any particular solution, people would just negotiate with whoever owned the car space their car occupied during the day (which might be themselves if they don’t drive to work) to pay for access to a power point. How exactly they’d do that would be up to them. If it could save them more than a dollar a day, people would do it. After all, bus passengers voluntarily buy smart cards rather than paper tickets because it saves them money.
Even a truly smart grid, with real-time electricity pricing, would not be prohibitively expensive. All that would be required is to replace the electricity meter in every building with one that engages in realtime two-way communication with the grid (using powerline, cellphone, or some other technology). The IT technology required to do this is so cheap it’s almost free. You could do it progressively over a number of years and induce people to switch with lower average electricity costs. This program might even pay for itself eventually by eliminating the need for a meterman (person). None of this is particularly expensive, and certainly not when compared to the cost of actually rolling out new electricity generators.
We will fail to go all out for renewables, not because it’s too expensive – and it is undeniably expensive – but because we are (apologies to Kurt Vonnegut) too cheap.
Or, it’s more that we still fail to understand the seriousness of the problem and don’t appreciated how horrendously expensive inaction is likely to be. In that light nuclear must look more attractive too but it does come with enough baggage that even then sufficient acceptance has to be hard to secure. Australia just isn’t in a position to lead the way to any nuclear renaissance. In the meantime too many pro-nuclear campaigners will continue to oppose firm policy commitments to renewables – and it’s hard enough to get a commitment without having a portion of voters who do get how serious the problem is voting with those wanting delay. All the while the idea that the answer is (eventually and under under severe fracking duress) a shift to ‘climate friendly’ gas has been quietly been cultivated. Shift to gas, problem solved…. My head hurts.
sam, I don’t think that a ‘smart grid’ can be conjured up that easily, and the problems at the micro scale are so readily dismissable. I cannot believe that you think “[t]he IT technology required to do this is so cheap it’s almost free.” I’m not sure you’ve ever been involved in any decently large system purchase and integration (I haven’t but I have some seriously geeky friends). And look at the cost of the NBN, which doesn’t go to car parks etc.
Smart meters (which are not really smart enough to do what you want) are being rolled out in Victoria, at a cost of billions of dollars and significant political angst.
Don’t get me wrong I would welcome that sort of techno-optimist future, I just don’t think it’s coming soon (enough). And I don’t think it’ll be renewable powered. Even if there are no “insurmountable” problems (merely massive ones) and Pr Quiggin is happy to dismiss the topic.
Ernestine, I don’t really get your point. I mean I can understand what you’re saying (and agree that cooperative ventures are inadequately dealt with in my limited understanding of modern economics (BTW is this relevant: http://www.cambridge.org/aus/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521306195 ?)) but I haven’t gone “a ha” and worked out its relevance to the topic at hand.
Anyway, for me it all comes back to the fact that we could buy straight from Canada tomorrow a super safe reactor that produced 1.4GW for more than 90% of the time at a very nominal cost, with trivial waste issues, or we could spend the next twenty years building more gas fired plants waiting for the gas to run out and for a renewable energy miracle.
Climate change isn’t waiting.
Those wishing to continue arguing for nuclear power, should at least support the closing of the yellowcake thread of production.
Surely if there is waste, then the community may accept using this for power IF the amount of waste is thereby reduced.
Similarly the community may accept thorium or fusion or some new technology, depending on contemporary risks and cost impacts on future generations.
Ending uranium mining should be acceptable to all. That will provide incentive for the nuclear industry to help solves its own waste problem.
support the closing of the yellowcake thread of production.
I don’t have any shares in BHP and don’t live in South Australia, so I don’t have a particular viewpoint on this, but I can readily agree that as soon as Generation IV moves from first build (they are being built right now) to full commercial production across the world, then yes, of course everyone wants less mining, it’s strictly a means to an end, not an end in itself, and it generates negative externalities so should be restricted where feasible.
But, pointedly compared to the externalities generated by fossil fuel extraction, I’m not sure I see the point of any blanket statement about banning uranium mining right here and now. If conducted well (not always the case I grant you) I don’t see the issue. If the options are third generation nuclear power with its associated waste versus coal fired generation with its associated waste, I certainly know which I’d prefer.
There are crappy iron, silicon, rare earths and copper mines as well (all used in the production of renewable energy infrastructure).
@wilful
The notion of the core of an economy goes back to Edgeworth. The reference you have given is relevant. Other authors in this area are V. Boehm, H. Wiesmeth – for example.
You ignore the balance of payments effect of your proposal to buy nuclear power plants from Canada. By contrast, the development of renewables generates jobs in Australia and, most importantly, technological know-how.
Note, the Germans pay twice as much for electricity as the French, but this does not hurt their ‘economy’. Incidentally, in the south of Germany the unemployment rate is lower than in Australia. The trick with maintaining good living standards is to do technological development rather than buy old technology. Furthermore, the technological development should be in the area which addresses contemporary problems, applying basic research. The big contemporary problems are ghG emissions and nuclear pullution.
Huh? There are no Generation IV reactors being built. The reactors currently under construction are Generation III/III+. Generation IV reactors are conceptual only.
You and I wish! You don’t seriously think we’re going to be genuine innovators in renewable technologies? No, we’re dumb miners and price takers I’m afraid. Anyone with a good idea these days goes O.S.
Tim, check it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prototype_Fast_Breeder_Reactor
That is not a Generation IV reactor. It is a liquid metal fast breeder reactor, of a type similar to experimental fast breeders that have been constructed since the 1960s.
@wilful
I’ll admit I haven’t been involved in the large scale purchase of IT technology, but I have played around with very cheap, reliable devices that interact with computers over rs232 and usb. Perhaps I was a little too dismissive of the logistical difficulties in running a smart grid. For the sake of conciseness, let me break up the argument into parts and have you respond to each component on its merits.
1) At the stroke of a pen, authorities can reverse the day/night price differential. This would almost immediately eliminate much current routine night-time demand, and shift it to day time.
2)If the differential is high enough, electric car owners will arrange by various means to charge mostly during the day. If electric car ownership is high enough to cause large scale electricity supply problems (and if these problems are visible to the consumer in the form of higher nighttime prices) it will be high enough to generate commercial solutions in privately owned car parks.
3)A smart grid can be rolled out slowly, generating benefits at every level of “intelligence.” If 1% of meters are smart, 1% of buildings face an incentive to moderate peaks and troughs. There need be no coercion to get people to switch, just a slight premium on the accounts of “smart” customers.
4)Since the grid’s supply “fickleness” will increase slowly, as coal generators are gradually replaced with solar and wind, the grid’s intelligence only needs to increase slowly.
5) Electric cars with their responsively varying demand substantially increase the stability of a smart grid.
6)Although the cost of replacing a “dumb” meter even with another dumb meter is quite high, the underlying technology in a smart meter does not have to be much more expensive. All you need is two way machine to machine communication (a well established technology), and a primitive $50 computer. At minimum, the grid would have to tell the meter current price, and the meter would have to tell the grid it’s current demand. A more fancy system would see the grid giving the meter an updating forecast of future prices, and the meter giving the grid an updating forecast of future demand. You could have the meter’s computer acting as a local server on the house’s LAN interacting with any smart appliances. Once again, this technology generates benefits at every level of “intelligence.” If only one appliance is smart and interacting with the meter, the household saves a little money on the electricity bill.
7)In fact a lot of household load could vary responsively. Say the weather bureau tracks a bank of clouds moving towards a clump of solar panels that will arrive in 15 minutes. The grid could warn households of an imminent price spike, and all fridges could immediately switch on, chilling the food to the minimum temperature. As soon as the clouds hit the panels, the fridges would all switch off until either their internal thermostat hit the maximum, or the clouds passed. A similar thing could happen with a washing machine or dryer left on during the day. Note the fridges wouldn’t have to be told about the clouds, just the price forecast.
7)Although the underlying technology is very cheap, I admit the government does often seem to overpay for these things, and stuff up deployment. The Queensland health computerised payroll system debacle is still ongoing. I remember Paul Lucas trying to justify why they had to move from a perfectly good computerised system to another one that worked 1/10 as well for 10 times the cost. He explained that the previous system was “old.” I think it would be very useful to have some new people in government who actually understand how IT works, and how much things ought to cost.
Clearly the last should be an 8)
Hmm, I take it back – the wikipedia information does say that the Indian PFBR is based on a sodium-cooled fast reactor design, which is identified as a Generation IV design. I seem to have been misled by this article published by the World Nuclear Association, which states that no Gen IV reactors will be operational before 2020 (and does discuss the Kalpakkam PFBR).
It does appear that the PFBR is a first-of-a-kind Generation IV reactor.
A minor anecdote – 20 years ago I swam at a beach 20km south of the Kalpakkam power station – the closest I’ve ever been to a nuclear reactor.
@Tim Macknay
I think you’ve been closer than that. Are you sure you’ve never been to Western Sydney?
Actually, I was thinking about that just as I posted the comment, Sam. Perhaps I should have said it was the closest I’ve ever consciously been to a nuclear reactor.
Tim, I make zero claims to technical expertise regarding nuclear engineering matters (my background is biological sciences). But in all the reading I’ve done about Gen IV, the worst claims made about it is that it’s still too far away and we don’t know how much it will cost. Nobody says it’s not feasible or viable. In fact I understand proper Gen IV prototypes have run for many years.
I accept that “first of a kind” and pretty much all big engineering products cost way too much these days (seen the price of melbourne’s desal plant?) and this is a big issue. That’s why I’m more sceptical fo this technology than those people over at BraveNewClimate. However I’ve been given no reason to believe this isn’t a medium term goer, and this Indian plant seems to be proving up the technology rapidly.
Now I agree with Ernestine Gross that this would do bad things for our BoP, but I’m afraid that that seems inevitable, I don’t think we’re going to get a better deal on any renewable technology sold to us either.
yes administrative fiat could do this. Wouldn’t want to own a night rate water heater though, or be a pollie on the end of their outrage. Lower night time prices are an artifact of baseload’s need to keep producing. Though the total load is still there, we’d get higher peaks in daytime to compensate.
What differential? Cheaper electricity due to daytime solar generation? You are talking about massive changes and disruption here. But sure, creative destruction
Major cultural change from the current culture of convenience. It is coercian lets not shy away from the fact. But yes that’s the intent of the Vic government program, and industrial customers are already supposed to feel that pressure. Others of course will simply have to lump increased prices, they can’t moderate their activity. A shop for example has the lights on, the air conditioning on whatever happens.
True.
In your hypothetical world. I’m very dubious about the practicality of me driving into a commercial car park, plugging in, discovering it’s a grey cold still day, the price of electricity is high, my car is told not to accept a charge greater than x c/kwh, I go out at the end of the day and I can’t get home in my car.
I am completely setting aside the scales at which solar and wind would have to be overbuilt in order to get system reliability. It’s a simple fact that for days on end the entire SE coast of Australia has still periods. I’ve seen the graphs, the turbines from Tassie to NSW are not turning.
It’s not the individual units I’m dubious about, it’s the network interactive aspects. How coplex? And a server crash, everyone’s got a flat car, good grief what a disaster.
This starts getting star trekky by now. Sure, this can happen, but when?
Myki?
“Wouldn’t want to own a night rate water heater”
No, and if I did, I’d change it to heat during the day.
“Major cultural change from the current culture of convenience. It is coercian lets not shy away from the fact.”
Not so coercive. If you want to stick with a dumb meter, fine, don’t sign up. You’ll just pay a higher average price that’s all.
“I’m very dubious about the practicality of me driving into a commercial car park, plugging in, discovering it’s a grey cold still day, the price of electricity is high, my car is told not to accept a charge greater than x c/kwh, I go out at the end of the day and I can’t get home in my car.”
I would think you would tell your car to charge up whatever the price after say, 2-3pm if the price has been high all day. You don’t want to get stuck with a flat battery for the sake of saving a few dollars. That’s not too difficult to arrange, and it would still mean a lot of responsive demand.
“I am completely setting aside the scales at which solar and wind would have to be overbuilt in order to get system reliability.”
I’m interested in that. What sort of overbuild numbers are we talking here, and how do they compare to current overbuild numbers? Do you know? I imagine the overbuild ratio would slowly increase with supply fickleness.
“How coplex? And a server crash, everyone’s got a flat car, good grief what a disaster.”
The servers could be multiply redundant. Sure unforseen circumstances can upset the best laid plans, but that can happen in a nuclear reactor too, with much worse results. Also, a server crash doesn’t mean the grid crashes. It just becomes dumb again, like it is now. What does “coplex” mean?
“This starts getting star trekky by now.”
Not so star trekky. It would be very useful, but needn’t be difficult to do.
sorry for typos. Coplex = complex. And coercian WTF?
The thing about overbuild is that people more qualified than me still pull their numbers out of their arse, so I wont get into that game and look foolish. I don’t think anyone really knows. Which is why it’s not “insurmountable” but pretty damn big. With wind, sometimes it’s all spinning and they’re producing their rated capacity, across the whole country. A beautiful sight if you like that thing (which I do but unfortunately lots dont).
Unfortunately at other times none of them are moving for days on end. Do we have back up storage for this? Not currently. Maybe compressed air reservoirs, pumped hydro? Colour me sceptical. If that happens in winter (quite possible) so there’s limited solar output, then not only does the economy grind to a halt but our gas fired stations roar into life. But of course, those gas fired stations, if they’re new and clean enough (CCGT), are too expensive to be built to operate for a few months a year, they have to operate more than that to make a dollar. Our electricity bills have now gone through the roof (sure I realise I’m sounding like News Ltd at this point) while our emissions are still fundamentally underpinned by a fossil fuel, one that incidentally is runnign out?
And why? Because we don’t think Australians are up with every other OECD country and can’t handle modern nuclear power, with its very limited set of risks. It’s a bloody big workaround.
The problem here Wilful, is that neither of us have numbers. I can make all sorts of qualitative objections to you. I can say that prices would be high enough to *make* CCGT (or whatever) profitable running only a few months a year. You could say back “This would cause intolerably high price fluctuations.” I could say “No they would not be intolerable, they would be manageable.” We really need someone more knowledgeable than us to give us some hard figures.
What I will say though, is that there is no prospect of increasing the renewable share of the grid to the point of instability for at least a decade. So let’s not worry till then.
agreed! In the meantime, we need a carbon price.