The title of a piece in Inside Story on nuclear power in Australia. Readers won’t be surprised to learn that I don’t think it’s feasible in any relevant time frame (say, before 2040). I don’t expect nuclear devotees to be convinced by this (I can’t think of any evidence that would have this effect), but I’d be interested to see someone lay out a plausible timetable to get nuclear built here sooner than my suggested date.
To clarify this, feel free to assume a conversion of both major parties and the majority of the public to a pro-nuclear position, but not to assume away the time needed to generate a legislative and regulatory framework, take proper account of concerns about siting, licensing and so on.
John Quiggin 
It’s not clear whether you’re assessing these things in terms of all the issues including the political ones, or just in terms of the technical problems. If the latter, CANDU reactors are practical in a two to five year time scale, to name but one kind of reactor needing no new breakthroughs or rediscoveries (which Magnox reactors might need), depending on how much is bought in and how much gets sourced locally (which would improve long term sustainability of the industry). If the former, well, that’s an open question because of the imponderables; while current trends certainly don’t offer much prospect of making a nuclear industry generally acceptable soon, on the one hand we simply can’t project those trends reliably for even ten years (given the possibility of shifts within Australia unforeseeable in any detail) and on the other hand there could well be game changing outside events within the next generation. If, say, some sort of oil crisis hit in ten years’ time and caused a rude awakening, there could be operational nuclear reactors here less than ten years after that. And, of course, the ship of material breakthroughs might come in, say if modular, submersible, molten salt, thorium breeder reactors worked, which could be acceptable here as is and could be bought in and installed in short order (I don’t mean plan on it, but rather don’t rule it out if it does happen on the grounds that it wasn’t planned on; at the moment, my best long shot guess for such a thing would be a carbon monoxide fluidised sugar charcoal homogeneous suspension reactor – ideally modular and submersible).
According to this story, the most recently approved CANDU design in China might be ready to start construction in five years, all going well.
http://www.thestar.com/business/2014/11/06/new_candu_reactors_clear_hurdle_in_china.html
I’m against nuclear, as I’ve made clear previously.
But apparently there’s something called the “OECD-NEA” (Nuclear Energy Agency), and they say:
So the answer to the problem – “…plausible timetable to get nuclear built here…, (conditional upon Australia becoming a dictatorship in the next few months – entirely possible) is roughly 2019.
I take it that you noticed that the linked article is not describing the prospect of an off the shelf Canadian reactor like the ones it acknowledges have already been built in China, but a new and special one posing new and as yet unsolved problems that is intended to handle partially burnt nuclear fuel from other reactors? As such, its prospects are not as relevant as the track record of earlier, established versions – such as the ones in China mentioned in that linked article, and the ones Canada built for itself from scratch at the very beginning of its nuclear industry.
@Megan
Obviously, this estimate fails the conditions I set out, but even a dictatorship still has do a lot of planning, choose contractors etc.
…we still don’t have viable (safe, or safe-ish) ways of disposing of the waste, especially waste which can’t be recycled. Waste is everything from tailings, polluted water, irradiated equipment, anything which comes into contact with the radioactive materials, fuel rods, spent fuel rods, partially fused fuel rods (thanks, USSR), etc. From low-level radiation to hot waste, it all adds up and has to go somewhere to sit while it passes through several half-life times, which is different for different radioactive elements. It would be nice to have some decent solutions before embarking on a major nuclearisation programme. We humans have quite the habit of doing something, then later on going “Wait a minute…” I hate the thought of doing nuclear when we have barely bothered to scratch the surface with solar and wind, and can’t even be bothered agreeing to GHG emission reduction targets; however, if we must have nuclear, let it at least have the waste problem sorted out early on, not way down the track when the problem is hugely expensive. And can we also have realistic decommissioning plans at the front-end of the planning process for these projects? Just a thought.
I’ll mention that all the seriously proposed designs for Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) all make clear that the cost of electricity they produce will be higher than conventional reactor designs. Their advantage is supposed to be that their smaller size allows them to be built in specific locations where electricity prices are high. It wasn’t a good business plan and continuing decreases in the cost of renewables is making it worse.
@John Quiggin
When I made my first comment, I didn’t see the last paragraph:
According to “Google Cache” you added that after I made my comment.
Even so, that just removes my hypothetical requirement for a dictatorship and replaces it with a parallel reality duopoly and public opinion consensus. In that case the legislative/regulatory etc… stuff should take about five minutes.
Listen to Parliament carefully on ABC (not the circus of question time but the ‘real’ thing) and you will frequently hear the duopoly ramming all sorts of awful legislation through.
I think Australia could get a large nuclear plant in 14 years, to judge by the example of United Arab Emirates.
UAE first floated the idea of a nuclear plant in 2006. By 2009 they had selected a site, Barakah, and a vendor, the Korean Electric Power Company and its Gen III APR1400. The four-reactor, 5600 MW plant is currently under construction, with unit 1 60 percent complete, and all 4 units due online in 2020. So far the project is on schedule, and KEPCO has a good record of on-time and on-budget completion. The total project cost is $32 billion, $5700 per kilowatt. UAE hired a British nuclear regulator to set up their regulatory agency, and KEPCO is training an Emirati engineering and technical staff to run the plant.
Australia could do the same. There’s probably no shortage of experienced British, American and Canadian nuclear engineers and regulators—and even construction tradesmen–who would be willing to spend a few years down under helping set up a nuclear power establishment and training programs, since there’s no language or culture gap to contend with. Siting shouldn’t be too hard. Australia is geologically quiescent, sparsely populated and big, so there should be many suitable ocean-front sites without many people nearby to object. NIMBY-ism could be a problem, but it’s a problem with wind, too; since you assume there’s a political consensus to build nuclear, that implies the consensus is strong enough to override local NIMBYism. If not, then Australia is going to have a hard time getting any major clean energy projects built.
Fourteen years is a long time, but a plant the size of Barakah will produce 6 times as much low-carbon electricity as the entirety of Australia’s current solar generating capacity—and much more reliably. So it’s worth considering.
@Will Boisvert
should such a site exist the next problem would be transporting this energy to populated centres ie the users.
I trust you’ve seen this latest bit of bad faith and mummery? They’re doing the usual refusal to engage while complaining that “the other side” isn’t taking their proposal seriously.
My summary is: the trouble with nuclear power is that we can quickly build designs we know aren’t safe, or we can start a research and development project that could well produce a safe design within 30-50 years. Either way they will produce waste that the human race is structurally not equipped to deal with – we just cannot make plans for even 1000 years time, let alone the lifecycle of nuclear waste.
I may have missed something, but what’s wrong with the current generation CANDU reactors? They appear to be still operating in Canada, with few incidents.
@ Rog,
” the next problem would be transporting this energy to populated centres ie the users.”
Right, Rog–transmission lines.
Consistent with my early New Year’s Resolution I am not going to argue. The principle for my not arguing is that this is a case where empirical realities will determine the outcome independent of human argument and agency. Have a nice day everyone.
I’ll stick with Quiggin’s assumption of bipartisan enthusiasm for nukes but point out that there is now a very well rehearsed, organized and trained mob of citizens in NSW, Qld and Vic who would extend the construction time and blow out the costs of construction through blockading. My fave mob of blockaders at the Leard Forest protest, now approaching two years and hundreds of arrests, is uniformly anti-nuke. Then there’s the mobs at the Pilliga, Bentley, Gloucester, Dubbo, Camp Quoll … who would be of similar mind. On top of that there’s all the residents around any potential location.
The issue isn’t so much about about money or safety or waste, although they play a role, as it is about trust in the capacity of the industry to get it right and, when things go wrong, to tell the truth.
@jungney
There are also a bunch of people who live around the high level waste storage site and reactors in Sydney who are well equipped to spread their fight to anyone who wants it. There’s a bunch of scary info and exhaustive documentation of problems from people who are no longer really rational after years of gaslighting by authority figures.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has bid in utility scale solar power for 6 US cents a kilowatt-hour. Note this is utility scale solar and in Australia would provide electricity at a much higher cost than our rooftop solar, but it’s still an impressively low price and quite competitive with other new generating capacity.
I’ll just mention that at about 10:50 am today the wholesale price of electricty in South Australia was 0.87 cents a kilowatt-hour. In Queensland it was 3 cents a kilowatt-hour.
Coal it is then. I expect even with no GDP growth that Australia’s 2015 emissions will be greater than the past few years. The reasons are that some big hydro dams are just 20% full with not much rain in sight, the gas price shock when east Australian piped gas gets exported as LNG from about July and the lack of any serious emissions deterrents. Hydro and gas generation accounted for 27.8% of Australia’s electricity in 2013 with with wind and solar 4.4%, ref BREE Energy in Australia 2014 Table 8. The clear winner is coal which will inefficiently take over from gas much of the task of intermediate load balancing.
You’d have to wonder with all this angst over Lima, RET and so on whether increasing emissions should be an admission of failure. Not so apparently, the magical thinking must continue.
Are we talking about nuclear to replace existing fossil fuel plant because emissions are a serious issue or are we talking about vanity nuclear projects, because we like nuclear? I still think that without a genuine understanding and commitment to fixing the climate problem our nuclear ‘friendly’ LNP would find reasons – popular anti-nuclear opposition being more an excuse than a reason – to delay anything except nuclear vanity projects. Jobs and Growth and saturated energy markets don’t stop being excuses for delay just because anti-nuclear opposition (exaggerated IMO; most Australians don’t care that much) might be put aside; an actual bipartisan commitment to fixing the climate problem is an absolute prerequisite to commitment to nuclear for climate.
Given current levels of oversupply in the NEM, the ability of alternative supplies to facilitate incremental growth, the rapid improvements in technology etc, I cannot see too many new large power plants being developed in Australia for several years anyway (unless for a specific industrial customer).
So the question about a nuclear power plant’s relative attractiveness probably shouldn’t be asked for another 10-15 years anyway. By then I suspect the cost of renewables (including smaller scale distributed systems that reduce the need for more large transmission lines) will be so low, that nuclear won’t even get a look in until coal resources are running out.
Bottom line is that, while nuclear might be technically feasible, I doubt it will actually happen before 2040. I think John might actually be a bit optimistic.
I will make one limited observation however. Can’t help myself can I? After all, an observation is not an argument.
If Barry Brooke and his supporters were serious about conserving and saving the environment they would be advocating low impact solutions. The low impact solution would be to conserve energy and reduce consumerism. If such measures were undertaken, easily the entire output of one large nuclear power station could be saved in Australia. Lots of other damage would be prevented too from the reduced consumption of unnecessary consumerist junk (as opposed to continuing production of necessities and things of genuine health, welfare, educational and cultural value).
@Ikonoclast
Yes, but the very first step in their argument is “the current drop in electricity demand is just a blip and growth will resume really soon”.
@Jim
I’d interpret ‘coal resources running out’ as needing to replace coal fired power stations when they wear out. This has recently applied to Playford, Brix, Redbanks and possibly Anglesea… none of them behemoths like Eraring or Hazelwood. The big units are supposed to start needing replacement from 2025 but our mineable coal resources could last for centuries. Like asbestos we’ll have to leave coal in the ground even though it’s still cheap to extract. However a true opponent of coal would want the plants closed early.
I think Australia should cut its teeth on a mini reactor like the NuScale on sale from 2023 or the Enhanced Candu 6, not cheap but perceived as safe. By then the gigawatt sized units might have speedier modular construction. See how desktop computers now have the CPU behind the monitor not a separate box. Build one or two and learn. If there is a breakthrough in renewable energy storage or CCS in the meantime little will have been lost.
@Will Boisvert
I think the 14-year timescale is about right, assuming Australia was a dictatorship like the UAE. As it is, even assuming majority support, you can’t simply impose a nuclear power plant on people, as I mentioned in the OP, nor can the requirement for a proper legislative framework be overriden by emirs. That would take another 10 years at least. And there’s a fair bit of cherrypicking going in.
Most nuclear projects, even in China, are running over time and overbudget, most in developed countries badly so. The US, with an 18-year timescale for brownfield sites is typical – others are far worse.
@Hermit
If you want to argue on the basis of existing shares, the ratio of renewables to commercial nuclear in Australia is infinite. The question is which is likely to contribute more in the relevant timeframe.
@John Quiggin
Nuclear is the replacement for coal which is 63.9% of of our electricity. The substations and transmission towers are already built as are thermal cooling facilities.
BREE also point out that transport represents about 40% of our primary energy demand. Currently that’s almost entirely supplied by oil or oil products of which we now import over 70%. Conceivably electric cars could go prime time though I don’t envisage battlers owning them. We could also use gas as a diesel substitute in trucks which means less for power stations or LNG export. My idea is to save gas for trucks and in theory run electric or hydrogen vehicles via a low carbon grid. Realistically we’ll just drive less.
@John Quiggin
In the USA the partially completed Watts Bar reactor #1 took from 2007-2015 to complete (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_Bar_Nuclear_Generating_Station), which is 8 years, and the end date is still in the future. I find it hard to beleive that time would be reduced if they had to start construction from scratch. They’re also currently at “started construction” on a bunch of reactors where permits were applied for in 2007. So “expedited” probably means 15 years as a best case in the USA from application to generation.
Dictatorships generally have terrible internal processes, AIUI; half the point of a bureaucracy is to tell the person at the top that their idea is terrible or unworkable, and the sorts of people who become dictators tend not to be the sorts of people who respond well to being told that sort of thing.
[your politics is shaped by your personality]
@Will Boisvert
A few things to add:
1) If the UAE @ 14 years is the benchmark for the minimum possible time for a country to have a nuclear industry + power station up and running from scratch, a reasonable minimum time for Australia is at least 20-25 years. Our two countries are very different after all.
2) 90% of the total solar capacity you mention, or 3.5-4GW, was installed in the last 4 years. So clearly it is possible for Australia to install an additional 20GW of solar in the next 20 years. Which would make for a total capacity of ~25GW.
From Hermit’s Table 8 in the current BREE report, we can see that PV generated an average of 10.5 GWh/day in the 2012-2013 period, at a time when Australia had ~2GW of capacity.
So, in 20 years time, there’s no valid reason we couldn’t be generating an average of ~130 GWh/day from PV solar.
By comparison, your 5.6 GW nuclear power station, running at say 90% capacity, would be generating ~120 GWh/day.
3) A nuclear power station would come at a much greater cost in Australia than the $32 billion the UAE is spending. We don’t do things cheaply here.
eg. Israel builds the largest state of the art desal plants in the world for about $900 million a pop. Australia’s largest desal plant, in Wonthaggi, cost $4 billion, plus another $20 billion in contractual operating and maintenance costs over the next 30 years. It has less than half the ML/day capacity of Israel’s desal plants.
It is now just past solar noon in South Australia and the current wholesale price of electricity is 1.9 cents a kilowatt-hour. In Queensland it is currently 3.1 cents a kilowatt-hour.
@Nick
Very good point(s)!
Ooh! I see we very briefly had a negative price event in South Australia. This occurs when our wind generation plus exports plus sixty percent of the coal Northern Power Station exceeds the amount of grid electricity demand in the state. (It’s 60% of the Northern Power Station’s capacity because that’s as low as it can drop its output without shutting down.) The skies are clearing up and that would have contributed by increasing rooftop solar generation. The price dropped down to negative one cent a kilowatt-hour but only for 5 minutes and prices were only negative for 15 minutes total. But while it was brief our now commonly low daytime electricity prices and the occasional negative price event are very bad for the economics of coal power and of course very bad for the economics of any new baseload generation. It is now simply not economically feasible to build a new coal power plant in Australia and certainly not any baseload generating capacity that is more expensive tha coal. Not when new wind is cheaper than new coal and point of use solar outcompetes any utility scale generation.
I can’t comment on construction times, but in terms of the time required to develop the legislative and regulatory framework, an instructive example is the lifting of the ban on uranium mining in Australia. The WA Liberal govenrment announced that the ban would be lifted as soon as it was elected in September 2008. An internal govenrment review into the adequacy of the regulatory system for uranium mining was commenced in February 2009, and reported in August of that year. The internal review recommended the introduction of mandatory full cost recovery environmental bonds for uranium mining projects and the recruitment of new, suitably qualified staff to ensure adequate regulation. The legal formalities necessary for the environmental bonds were in place by 2010. Updated technical guidelines for radiation management were also published in 2010. legislative change was not required.
However, by May 2012, only a small fraction of the required number of new staff had been recruited. The government also thought it prudent to commission an independent review of the adequacy of the regulatory framework (given the political controversies around uranium mining). The review panel was established in 2010 and reported in April 2012. It recommended that, if best practice was to be achieved, greater transparency in the regulatory system, and the adoption of a risk-based approach to environmental assessment be adopted. Not all the recommendations have been accepted by the government.
Taking this process as an indication, it would take a minimum of two years for legal and policy documents to be prepared, and up to four years for the necessary resources for the regulatory system to be in place, assuming that the Government chooses not include independent oversight in the policy-making process.
It should be noted that updating the WA mining regulatory framework to handle uranium mining was relatively straightforward, as the relevant government agencies already had significant experience in regulating radiation management at mine sites (in a non-uranium mining context). It was also a government priority, was relatively well-resourced, and occurred prior to the deterioration in the terms of trade which is currently prompting governments to cut budgets.
The introduction of a regulatory framework for nuclear energy would be likely to require much more substantial new regulatory and guideline material.
That should be the lifting of the ban on uranium mining in Western Australia. Sorry.
@ John Quiggin 23,
“even assuming majority support, you can’t simply impose a nuclear power plant on people, as I mentioned in the OP, nor can the requirement for a proper legislative framework be overriden by emirs. That would take another 10 years at least.”
OK, but your op seemed to posit a strong bipartisan consensus favoring nuclear power. Under those circumstances, I can’t see offhand why it must take 10 years to pass enabling legislation, especially when there are so many well-tested legislative and regulatory frameworks among the thirty-odd countries with nuclear power for Australia to take as a model.
And your article pointed out, quite rightly, that local opposition to wind farms has proven a serious obstacle (and not just in Australia). So NIMBYism is a problem that confronts all clean energy technologies (except rooftop solar, which everyone loves.) If we’re really serious about addressing climate change, then at some point democratic majorities are going to have to gird themselves to impose clean energy projects over the protests of local NIMBYs. Otherwise, systematic national energy policies just can’t be carried through.
It’s a fair point to note that the politics of nuclear in many places are difficult, maybe even intractable. But I think that’s the lesson that this thought experiment highlights–that the stumbling blocks to nuclear power are more the result of politics than of logistics, costs and safety.
–“Most nuclear projects, even in China, are running over time and overbudget, most in developed countries badly so.”
You’re right that all the current Gen III+ builds (AP1000 and EPR) are very troubled, even in China. But only 6 of China’s 28 builds are Gen III+. The bulk of current Chinese projects are their workhorse Gen II+ CPR1000s, which they are cranking out quite reliably on five-year schedules at cheap prices.
The difference is simply that the CPR1000 is a mature design that the Chinese have been building long enough to get proficient at it. (The same is true for South Korea’s APR1400.) The Gen III+ designs–at least the AP1000–could also follow that trajectory provided there are systematic national construction programs to nurture expertise and a supply chain (which China is planning as it phases out the CPR1000).
Citing South Korea and China isn’t cherry-picking. It’s just noting that, as with renewables, the key to a successful nuclear program is crafting a smart industrial policy that nurtures the technology. That point really should be at the center of the discussion.
If someone in the (most dystopian) government swung it for nuclear power, the massive subsidies which we would end up paying (as we do for coal) would no doubt come at the opportunity cost of subsidising/supporting other low/no GHG emission power sources. The positive support for solar has really boosted research into even better methods/technologies for solar energy production, and also into the large scale storage of energy (big batteries). Without supporting the growth of the commercial sector, good innovation and research would have happened in dribs and drabs: it needs critical mass to flourish.
Taxin’ Tony has gone after the low GHG emission subset of the renewable energy sector, and has done so with a missionary’s zeal, savaging it like a rotweiler with an intruder’s leg. Given Treasurer Joe Hockey’s most recent budget update, it’s pretty clear that if they want nuclear power, they are more than capable of inventing some fictional financials which makes the case—at least in their dreams…
@Ronald Brak
SA is less renewable than Tasmania but seems to talk about it more. Next year both states are likely to import more brown coal power from Victoria SA because Moomba gas is going into export LNG Tas because of El Nino lite. SA will get hot days where the where the heat lingers after 6pm and PV wanes but air con use persists. Watch the spot power price go up noting it has hit $12.50 per kwh in the last year. Gas fired peaking power will be expensive if gas doubles in price as expected. When Holden up stumps in 2017 there won’t be a rush to create new industries based on cheap power.
Since SA has the world’s biggest uranium deposit, is connected to brown coal dependent Victoria and needs new jobs I suggest they get into different phases of the nuclear fuel cycle. That is not just uranium mining but enrichment and power generation, some of which is sent to the east coast. Otherwise Adelaide will become a big retirement village for post WW2 pommie immigrants with most of the young people having left.
@Will Boisvert Well I guess that if transmission lines is an acceptable answer to isolated nuclear plants the same would apply to solar/wind projects in similar circumstances.
Back to the main question, where on our coast would it be acceptable to place a nuclear power station? I’m thinking NW of WA.
I don’t suppose we could locate the nuclear reactor in Nauru and then run a transmission line across the Pacific? Nah, the infrastructure costs would be too high for a submarine cable of that length. Maybe we could park a Russian nuclear icebreaker off shore and use that to generate electricity? It’s not as if Russia will need it the way the ice is melting. Actually, Russia is building a 170 megawatt floating reactor to power its oil and gas extraction in the artic and they apparently plan to build more, so we could ask Russia for one of them. In fact, with recent fall in the price of oil to the low low price of only twice what it was in real terms just 10 years ago, they might be happy to sell us one. It won’t be cheap, but oddly enough it might be the best option if we’re actually crazy enough to blow the cash required to get a nuclear power reactor within Australian territory. But I have another solution that should be even cheaper. We find a reactor in another country that’s near a convenient aluminium smelter and import the aluminium it produces from nuclear power and use it to power aluminium air batteries. That’s sorta kinda like using nuclear power and it has the advantage of being dispatchable. And while it’s not cheap, it could end up being much cheaper than building a nuclear reactor given the greater value of the electricity produced and if Hinkley C is any guide.
@Ronald Brak
I’m of the view that instead of one giant nuke hidden somewhere in the sand dunes we should have lots of smaller nukes delivering power to those who need it. Say, North Head and South Head for a start. Then Nelson Bay and all the way up to Ballina. Wouldn’t want to spoil Byron. And, oh I dunno, a big mofo outside Bateman’s Bay, for the hillbillies and the bureaucrats in the ACT.
@Ronald Brak
At midday, the SA wholesale price went negative (-1 c/kWh).
One point that’s come clearly out of this is that the attempt to plan a feasible timetable pushes you rapidly to Gen II or II+ designs dating back to the 1970s, rather than to the safer modern designs (Gen III and III+) let alone vaporware like PRISM and SMRs.
@Tim Macknay
That’s a pretty plausible comparator in the political sense that the LNP favored uranium mining and Labor, while formally opposed, was happy to drop the issue. And public activism on the issue has been limited – criticism of the proposed Kintyre mine was mostly about the kind of local impacts that any mine would have.
So, the whole process went ahead without any real political problems. Still, six years on, mining hasn’t even started.
Now hang on. That’s a false dichotomy. Some older designs were unsafe or were implemented unsafely, and, granted, safety is more often designed in these days – but then again some older designs were safe and some newer ones aren’t (though those are only likely to be adopted in countries with other priorities like Iran and North Korea). Among older types the Chernobyl one had built in vulnerabilities and the U.S. pressurised water ones had inherent vulnerabilities that had to be worked around (which sometimes failed) – but the CANDU type contained those pressure problems much better with its calandria approach (and was inherently safe because leaks went into low pressure regions that buffered them) and the Magnox type didn’t have those at all (though it had Wigner energy issues that weren’t known to the builders, and which were easy to avoid once they were discovered). Modern, dangerous designs include the aqueous homogeneous ones I strongly suspect some countries are contemplating because they offer a fast path to proliferation despite their frequent leaks from radiocorrosion.
So the way to go is to pick an old, safe type – and not tar all old designs with the brush of being unsafe, particularly since (as with Chernobyl) the lack of safety was never because of being unable to achieve it but rather because of choosing those other priorities – usually to get a weapons capability as well as a power one (there is actually one homogeneous reactor approach that needs to be supplied with outside power to cool it as it needs operating temperatures far below ambient; that one is only useful for breeding fissile materials and the like and it isn’t even very efficient at that, with its main redeeming feature being a lower proneness to leaks).
James Hansen et al argue that
They talk about the “real world” but in the real world that I know new nuclear is a concept, old is getting older and renewables can be done in a heartbeat.
It seems a bit inconsistent to hold James Hansen in high regard on climate change but not on abatement. In his writings he comments on the difficulty of storing intermittent energy so it can perform the same role as dispatchable generation.
As to the number of nukes required in Australia you’d think it would be about the same as the number of coal fired stations. There are clusters like NSW Hunter Valley and Vic Latrobe Valley. In individual output they range from about 250 MW to 3300 MW, some using cooling towers others immersion cooling by fresh or sea water. Plants on the coast could integrate desalination. Air cooling as at Qld’s Kogan Ck and Milmerran coal plants has about a 20% efficiency penalty.
This paper indicates that the effects of a rapid nuclear power build-up might not be very helpful to ameliorate GHG emissions in a timely fashion (to prevent exceeding 2 degrees C warming for example). This is because many GHG e associated with nuke power are front-loaded in the lifecycle. At the same time GHG e in mature production are not inconsiderable (think of the fuel mining, processing, tranport etc. Then there is decomissioning and waste storage which are sources of GHG e.
http://www.academia.edu/1628854/Limitations_of_Nuclear_Power_as_a_Sustainable_Energy_Source
Nuclear energy cannibalism is also a serious issue. As per Wikipedia;
“Energy cannibalism refers to an effect where rapid growth of an entire energy producing industry creates a need for energy that uses (or cannibalizes) the energy of existing power plants. Thus during rapid growth the industry as a whole produces no energy because new energy is used to fuel the embodied energy of future power plants.
…
n order for an “emission free” power plant to have a net negative impact on greenhouse gas emissions of the energy supply it must do two things:
(a) produce enough emission-less electricity to offset the greenhouse gas emissions that it is responsible for
(b) continue to produce electricity to offset emissions from existing or potential fossil fuel plants.
This can become challenging in view of very rapid growth because the construction of additional power plants to enable the rapid growth rate create emissions that cannibalize the greenhouse gas emissions mitigation potential of all the power plants viewed as a group or ensemble.
…
Applications to the nuclear industry
In the article “Thermodynamic Limitations to Nuclear Energy Deployment as a Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Technology” the necessary growth rate, r, of the nuclear power industry was calculated to be 10.5%. This growth rate is very similar to the 10% limit due to energy payback example for the nuclear power industry in the United States calculated in the same article from a life cycle analysis for energy.
These results indicate that any energy policies with the intention of driving down greenhouse gas emissions with deployment of additional nuclear reactors will not be effective unless the nuclear energy industry in the U.S. improves its efficiency.” – End of Wikipedia excerpts.
It is indeed a fact that energy cannibalism will also affect the attempt at a renewable energy build-out. Taken as a whole, energy cannibalism (of any changeover build-out) could be a fundamental reason why we cannot now avoid dangerous global warming. But I don’t know as I have not yet (amateur-)researched this issue in relation to renewables.
Note: I have only read the free excerpt of this paper quickly. I did not attempt to go beyond the paywall or the waywall. At first sight the paper looks academic and rigorous so if you care about empirical truth… might be worth a read.
“Waywall” is my weak attempt at a new word. A waywall wants to direct you a certain way i.e. along a certain path of, for example, giving them your email address. There may or may not be a paywall somewhere along the waywall.
Much has been said before about France’s achievement in a rapid nuclear build so it can be done with an affordable degree of sacrifice. While energy cannibalism might be a fair point at least fission is capable of replicating its embodied energy input. In contrast silicon used in PV starts with fusing sand and coke in an arc furnace most likely powered by coal fired electricity. Ditto rare earths used in wind turbine magnets, then there is cement, steel, aluminium, fibreglass and so on none of which AFAIK can be produced exclusively with wind and solar. The nuclear plants themselves should last for 60 years perhaps double that of wind and solar and in the West about 0.1c per kwh is set aside for decommissioning.
Further energy savings may be achieved with the Australian invented SILEX laser enrichment process. Olympic Dam mine is to use less energy intensive mining and extraction methods. We could cut our emissions by large amounts in an affordable way if we really wanted to. Perhaps we don’t.
@ John Quiggin 43
“the attempt to plan a feasible timetable pushes you rapidly to Gen II or II+ designs dating back to the 1970s, rather than to the safer modern designs (Gen III and III+) let alone vaporware like PRISM and SMRs.”
Not quite. If you look back you’ll find that my suggested timetable referenced the Korean APR1400, which is a Gen III design. Japan also had good results building four Gen III ABWR reactors in the 1990s and 2000s, with the builds coming in on time and on budget.
The point I was making about China’s Gen II+ is the simple one that reactors, Gen II and Gen III models alike, get cheaper and faster to build with state support and long production runs that build proficiency in the construction industry and supply chain. No mystery there, just smart industrial policy, the same as renewables have benefitted from. The Gen III+ builds, (AP!000 and EPR) are currently a mess, but if the AP1000 gets supportive industrial policy, as China is planning, it’s plausible that it’s cost and schedule will also shrink. Industrial policy is the key.