Nuclear talk

[miniboes]

I just got done reading a study on the potential for displacing all worldwide fossil fuel electricity with nuclear energy; http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0124074

I'll summarize:
Accounting for electricity demand growth, economic inequality between nations, construction time and retirement of current nuclear plants the authors estimate that the world could go full nuclear in 25-34 years. They come to this estimate through extrapolation of the nuclear deployment of Sweden and France in the late 20th century. By doing this, they think we could reduce global Co2 emissions by 50% by replacing fossil electricity and heating and another 20% by electrifying transport.

Some interesting data:




This shows a lag of construction when Sweden was planning, licensing and building plants without taking them online yet. Then, they increased their nuclear production at a fast and steady rate of about 4 tWh/y per year.


This shows how Swedish GDP doubled while their Co2 emissions declined by 75%. This answers the question "can we decouple co2 emissions from economic growth?" with a resounding yes. It's also worth mentioning that by the end of its nuclear expansion period Sweden had one of the lowest electricity prices in the world even though it included a charge for the full costs of nuclear construction, research and final waste storage.

I have two questions about this study:
1) Is this a realistic estimate?
2) Is extrapolation a good method for making such an estimate?

[brimstoneSalad]

Extrapolation is a fair method, although it depends on political, social, industrial, and scientific similarity.
I would see this more as a what could be done if we decided to do it today with at least the determination and open mindedness of those countries when they started... the problem is that fear mongering over nuclear power seems to be at an all-time high now.

[miniboes]

Extrapolation is a fair method, although it depends on political, social, industrial, and scientific similarity.
I would see this more as a what could be done if we decided to do it today with at least the determination and open mindedness of those countries when they started... the problem is that fear mongering over nuclear power seems to be at an all-time high now.

I guess the good news here is that once we really start to feel the consequences of climate change (eg. a flood in the NL) and people start to see green plans aren't doing enough, we can start a rapid nuclear expansion like this (hopefully augmented by modular reactors, cheap breeder reactors and perhaps even thorium reactors) and keep the climate from getting much worse than it is at that point. It's a sad kind of hope to have, but it does brighten my outlook a bit.

I extrapolated the results for the Netherlands using the data in the table above. The NL would be able to go full nuclear in just 9-12 years if we wanted to. I also did some calculations on our only nuclear plant. It's a small one with only 485 MW capacity but to replace that it seems we'd need at least 292 extra offshore 3MW wind turbines, which is about 3 times our current offshore wind turbine count. I sure hope the greens don't accomplish that.

Some more questions I got:

Do you know anything about the recycling of wind turbine blades? It seems to be quite a large issue. They need to be replaced after ~18 years, and landfills refuse to take them or levy large fees. It's estimated the wind industry will be producing 200 000 tons of blade waste globally per year by 2034. It doesn't seem like there's any use for them right now, and transporting them is really expensive. Are those costs usually included in cost calculations for wind? It seems ridiculous to me that onshore wind is getting such low LCOE scores.

What do people mean when they say 'renewables can't serve as baseload power'? The IEA doesn't even include them in price comparisons for baseload. Does it just mean they can't do it without storage, or does it mean they can't do it under any circumstances?

I notice that nuclear seems to be ridiculously cheap at low discount rates. Does that mean that if nuclear manufacturing is financed with either zero interest loans or government funding it is the cheapest soure of (baseload) energy?

baseloadcosts2015.png

Source: IEA

[brimstoneSalad]

I extrapolated the results for the Netherlands using the data in the table above. The NL would be able to go full nuclear in just 9-12 years if we wanted to. I also did some calculations on our only nuclear plant. It's a small one with only 485 MW capacity but to replace that it seems we'd need at least 292 extra offshore 3MW wind turbines, which is about 3 times our current offshore wind turbine count.

Good job.

Do you know anything about the recycling of wind turbine blades? It seems to be quite a large issue. They need to be replaced after ~18 years, and landfills refuse to take them or levy large fees. It's estimated the wind industry will be producing 200 000 tons of blade waste globally per year by 2034. It doesn't seem like there's any use for them right now, and transporting them is really expensive. Are those costs usually included in cost calculations for wind? It seems ridiculous to me that onshore wind is getting such low LCOE scores.

I don't know if it's factored in. You'd have to read the study, and maybe contact the authors?
Recycling the blades would require melting them down and manufacturing new ones. You can probably find numbers on energy saved from steel recycling compared to producing virgin metal, then apply that to the energy cost of new blades. That would be generous, though. Recycling cans is a very different beast from recycling scrap that big.

What do people mean when they say 'renewables can't serve as baseload power'? The IEA doesn't even include them in price comparisons for baseload. Does it just mean they can't do it without storage, or does it mean they can't do it under any circumstances?

Without storage. The gird would be too unstable. Storage costs are insane, though.
Some day it may work for residential power if everybody has electric cars with substantial batteries. It'll never be cost effective for industrial power, though, because we can't use residential car battery storage in those settings so effectively.

Probably better we move away from cars in general, though, and to public transportation and better designed cities which are more walkable. Solar and wind will probably never be very practical beyond limited applications.

I notice that nuclear seems to be ridiculously cheap at low discount rates. Does that mean that if nuclear manufacturing is financed with either zero interest loans or government funding it is the cheapest soure of (baseload) energy?

I don't know. It may be in the study, otherwise you may have to ask the authors.