Shale gas battles - and local power

Shale gas is the way forward, the boom it will create can fund the shift to renewables and it will provide the power for CCGTs to back up variable wind. That’s one view (maybe DECCs), although there are more extreme variants (maybe the Treasury’s)- it will avoid the need to bother with renewables, if linked to CCS.  A rival to both these views (from fundamentalists greens) is that as a fossil fuel, with environmental and safety issues surrounding fracking, it had no place in a green energy mix. We should be cutting all fossil fuel use-via renewables and energy efficiency. A new dash for gas will just delay that. A pragmatic green variant on that is the vjew that, if we need gas to backup wind, then what’s wrong with AD biogas?

However, really it’s more complex than any of these views suggest  (the academic view!)   It is not clear how much shale gas there is, or how much it will cost, or whether we will need a lot of backup for wind beyond what exist, given a bit of replacement of old plants. After all there is storage, smart grid DSM, imports via interconnectors. If we ignore or limit all these, then yes we may need more CCGT and more gas  at some point, but not for a while- after 2030 maybe. We would also need more CCGT if we opted for wind –to-gas, i,e. hydrogen production from excess wind, but again not maybe until after 2030.

Then again all this sits in a wider frame of the debate over electricity v gas.   DECC seems to want is to phase out most of the use of gas for heating, replacing it with (excess) electricity from wind and nuclear, powering heat pumps.  You can see why the gas lobby may want to  fight back and call for more electricity from gas.  Some greens would also  like to see ‘green gas’ being the main distribution vector, not electricity - since it can be stored, and the gas main already transmits four times more  energy than the power grid, with lower loses.   They would also like to see heat being piped around from biomass fired CHP plants

Ah, but then we come to the reality check (the pessimists view). There may not be enough green gas around to do much of this, given land use and cost constraints, and renewables may not expand enough to matter much. Nuclear neither.  So, as old coal and gas and nuclear plants close, we will need some new gas plants and shale gas to run them. 

More positively (the optimists view) all these problems could be resolved if we just accelerated renewables, CHP/DH and energy efficiency. Wind, wave and tidal can provide most of the power. Biomass, geothermal and solar fired CHP/DH, with backup heat stores, can help balance variable wind and replace gas for heating. Efficiency and smart grids can tame (and retime) demand. And to top up we have wind to gas and supergrid imports. The only issue then is can we move fast enough. But that still leave open the question of  how many CCGT we would need!. Maybe not a lot. Unless you want them for insurance-, and to leave shale gas where it is, as a strategic reserve!

You could argue that if Carbon Capture and Storage  was ready then maybe we could think about more gas and even shale gas, but it does not look very likely for some while. The UK first attempt at finding a competitor for its £1bn CCS prize failed miserably. It ‘s now having a second go.  European plans for  CCS have also been much delayed and, if they do finally get going on a significant scale, will require a network of 22,000 kilometres of CO2-pipelines to be built across Europe, to transport 1200 million tons of CO2 per year by 2050, at a cost of €50 billion. This is conclusion of an international consortium of companies and research institutions, CO2Europipe,

Nevertheless it if often claimed that that without CCS, fighting climate change will be much harder . James Smith, chair of the Carbon Trust and former chair of Shell UK, wrote in the Guardian (17^th Dec) that, around the world,  ‘like it or not, relatively cheap coal and gas will be the major fuels for the next few decades in generating electricity. Unless CCS is used to stop the resultant carbon dioxide getting into the atmosphere, man-made climate change cannot be contained’.

However, Brad Page from the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute  says that it’s unlikely there will be 130 in CCS projects in operation globally by 2020, the number his organisation. But there might be some: ‘ I think you’ll see by 2015 16 plants’ and ‘ we’re probably on track for 20 by 2020’.

According to Vaclav Smil ‘To sequester just 25% of carbon dioxide emitted in 2005 by large stationary sources of the gas (9.6 G cu m at the supercritical density of 0.468 g cu cm), we would have to create a system whose annual throughput (by volume) would be slightly more than twice that of the world's crude-oil industry, an undertaking that would take many decades to accomplish.’ (Nature 453, 154 8 May 2008)

Should we really bother? Why not get stuck into the renewables and energy efficiency?

It is true that, despite having the best wind, wave and tidal resources by far in the EU, we are lamentably behind in developing them. While the leaders are at 30 and 40%  (of total energy coming from renewables) we are at about 4%, only just beating Malta and Luxembourg.  See www.eurobserv-er.org/pdf/press/year_2012/RES/English.pdf

It’s embarrassing and shameful. But if the government doesn’t want to, then maybe we had better do it ourselves. That is what is helping push to government on in Germany; they are now 600 local energy co-ops there. We could do the same. Last year’s report ‘Co-operative Energy in the UK’ written by Rebecca Willis and Jenny Willis provides some inspiring UK case studies, http://www.uk.coop/sites/default/files/renewableenergy_0_0.pdf

Also see the  ‘Community Energy: Manifesto for a Community Energy Revolution’ at   http://www.co-operative.coop/Corporate/CSR/downloads/community_energy_manifesto_2012_the_co-operative.pdf   

And 'Community Energy in the UK' by Seyfang, Park and Smith (2012) http://www.3s.uea.ac.uk/publications/community-energy-uk

Also The Rough Guide to Community Energy
http://www.roughguide.to/communityenergy/


Finally from  Germany: http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/20593576/937211628/name/Energy_Cooperatives%20DGRV%202012%20how%20to%20Establish1%2Epdf

Our nuclear legacy

 

 The UK has 112 tonnes or more of UK (and Japanese and German) plutonium (Pu) stored at Sellafield. 84 tonnes of it is ours.  Germany has said they don't want theirs back, and the Japanese probably won’t need any more either; we used to convert it to Mixed  Oxide (MOX)  fuel for them (Pu/U239). But the MOX fabrication plant was a disaster  (it rarely worked) and has now been closed.

 Options for using the plutonium are: 

1. Convert it to MOX and burn that in converted old conventional UK nuclear plants (the proposed new UK plants are not at present licensed to use MOX). DECC says that ‘if all our plutonium was converted to MOX fuel it would be about enough to power two reactors for about 60 years utilising a 40% MOX core’. That's just once through, no breeding. But that would mean building a new maybe £1bn MOX plant and spending a lot of money on conversion and subsequent clean up (it would generate a lot of waste, including more Pu!) See  2 below. Building a new MOX plant just for the ~100 tones of Pu would be silly, if we weren't going to make more (which would mean a new multi billion reprocessing plant to replace THORP, which is due to close soon) and then breed more Pu from spent fuel. But at present, to save money, the spent fuel from the proposed new plants is not going the be reprocessed, just stored, so, with the existing plants mostly all closing soon, there wont be any new UK Pu sources.

 2.  Try to find someone else who still wants to buy MOX.   MOX is a dodgy thing to transport- an ideal terrorist target!  And selling it would not be commercially viable. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority says the cost of constructing a new MOX fuel plant in the UK and operating it for about 30 years ‘could be expected to be around £5-6 bn’, with the resulting MOX fuel being worth ‘in excess of £2 bn', so it’s sale would not offset the cost of its manufacture.

3. Build a new MOX-using plant: the Canadian CANDU has entered the fray as an option. That means we would have to build a new MOX fabrication plant, and maybe, unless  the CANDU plant  was just for interim use once through, a new reprocessing plant to keep it fed.

4.. Burn the Pu  in a new-build fast reactor  like PRISM, once through, without breeding more. GE say they could burn it all off in 5 years. But this is untried technology, which would also create new wastes.  PRISM is quite small (600MW), but  no one has yet offered a price  that I know of, but we must be talking £4-5 bn.   Pity in a way not to get the full value of  the Pu by breeding, just a bit of expensive power for a short while  But it would get rid of the Pu.

5.  Burn the Pu in a fast breeder- to get the full value. And extract fresh Pu  from spent fuel . But that opens up all the problems of a long-term (100s of years) plutonium economy- more and more of it circulating and more wastes being produced. And you would need a new multi £billion reprocessing plant or two (or three)!  France, the UK, US all gave up on Breeders some while back. Japan too. Too expensive, risky and proliferation prone. Russia though is still keen. And China.

6.  Build a Thorium fired reactor which would need Pu to make it work (Thorium is not fissile). Molten flouride salt systems look promising but are a long shot: we are maybe  a decade away from knowing  (e.g from China’s efforts) if that’s a viable option. Guess the cost!! Especially if you as wanted to continue into the future- you’d need fresh Pu from somewhere (i.e. new conventional reactors and reprocessing plants).

7. Just carry on storing it!  Its continued long-term storage for about 110 years would cost about £8bn and then it would still need to be dealt with.  Rendering it less proliferation  risky e.g. by mixing it with more radioactive materials (i.e undoing reprocessing!)  might cost  £5-7bn - the so called 'immobilize & dispose' option, making it is hard to steal for Pu extraction. 

There are no good options. 7 appeals to some nervous eco-people,  6 to nucleholics. DECC likes 2 but may try 3 or 4 or even 1. 5 seems too big for anyone to think about. We shouldn’t have produced it! It was initially done for to make bombs, then for fuel for Fast Breeders. What now? Back to Breeders and a big expansion of reprocessing?

Reprocessing has added vastly to the nuclear wastes we also have to deal with.     So will the decommissioning of our old nuclear plants. And if any new ones are built, they will add to the pile. Some of the low level waste seems to be destined for landfill sites. In theory, a ‘final’ deep geological waste repository for the high level wastes will be built somewhere by 2040- or perhaps a bit earlier, if a willing community can be found to take it (and lots of cash). But that will be earmarked for the existing wastes. The wastes from the news plants will have to be stored somewhere - until 2130! Probably on site at the new reactors. Since, to cut costs, the spent fuel from these plants is not, on current plans, going to be reprocessed, it will still contain plutonium, and be classified as high kevel waste.  And since, again to improve the economics, the new plants will adopt a ‘high burn up’ strategy, the spent fuel will be much more radioactive.

We’ve got a lot of problems ahead... and they will be made even worse if we build new plants. Unless, that is, you believe new Molten Salt Thorium reactors can be used at some point to burn up some of the wastes. That’s a very long shot - decades away at best with unknown costs. What we do know is that the planned clean up will cost at least £90 bn and probably a lot more. Why did we ever go down this route? And should we contemplate yet another costly round, with Thorium breeders, as a possible way out?  Double or quits?! That depends of on whether you see nuclear as just a dead weight from the past, or as having bright new future, and redeeming itself.

Pugwash report

 

The Pugwash High Renewables Scenario   

It was with some trepidation that I accepted the invitation to help Pugwash with its 2050 UK  Energy Pathways project.

Firstly I was asked to produce a ‘low nuclear’ scenario, to go alongside its planned High Nuclear and Intermediate nuclear scenarios. That made me worry about the mindset of the British Pugwash group! I said no, it had to be a non-nuclear mix, since, unlike the UK, that was what many countries around the world were now aiming for, or already enjoyed.  So we agreed instead that I should produce a High Renewables scenario.

Secondly, I was asked to run it through DECCs Pathways 2050 Calculator.  I said I wasn’t a great enthusiast or practitioner of modeling, but NATTA member Dr David Finney helpfully stepped in and so we tried. 

Thirdly, I was aware that there were already many dozens of studies based on achieving 100% renewable futures, including some for the UK, Germany, Denmark, the EU as a whole, the US, Australia and the world – I’ve counted 60 or so. More are emerging. Why do another? But we did and it has I hope been a worthwhile exercise.

Much as I expected, it proved to be relatively easy to meet projected electricity demand by 2050 from renewables, mainly offshore wind (76GW) and onshore wind (30GW) but also wave and tidal stream, biomass and geothermal CHP and solar PV, plus hydro. I based our scenario on an existing one from Poyry which generated 94% of UK electricity from renewables by 2050 although we cut its offshore wind allocation by a half, to be cautious.  

Heat was relatively easy too, given that we assumed a significant energy saving programme, cutting demand by 40% by 2050. That of course is much lower that Germany’s energy saving plan (a 50% cut by 2050), but we wanted to be cautious. On the heat supply side, along with solar and geothermal CHP/DH, biomass-fired CHP and district heating then played a key role, which meant that although we would use a lot of food and farm wastes and forestry residues, we needed quite a lot of land for biomass fast-growing SRC and the like, about 10% of UK land area, with consequent changes in farming practice and possibly diet.   

We wanted to avoid biomass imports, so dealing with transport demand was harder. The DECC calculator would not let us replace fossil fuel with hydrogen produce using excess electricity from wind- it just exported it all. That was fine, up to a point. It meant the UK would earn £15 billion a year by 2050 from selling it, but it would require more interconnectors; we included 15GW worth.

What we would have preferred is to be able to convert some of the excess wind derived electricity to hydrogen, use some of it of it for transport (rather than oil) and store the rest for electricity generation when the wind input was low. That was because, although we had included some storage and some demand-side management, plus interconnector imports, we were worried about the needed to back up renewables when they were not available and demand was high.  It turned out that we didn’t have to worry. With its large wind element, our scenario happily passed the DECC Calculators  ‘stress test’, meeting demand peaks even when the proportion of wind etc was low.  It just meant we couldn’t export any excess then.

I have to admit to being surprised. The Poyry scenario had found that by 2050 there would be a need for 21GW of fossil backup plant.What this outcome suggests is that, if we could use the wind-to-gas idea, which is now being pushed hard in Germany, then we could get to 100% renewables fully backed up with no need for any fossil input at any time.

Leaving that aside, what we do have is a Pathway which reduces emissions by 82%, meets demand at all times and has a capital cost that is slightly lower than the rival Pugwash scenarios, with, unlike them, no biomass imports, very little CCS and no nuclear.  The details are in the report.

Pathways to 2050: three possible UK energy strategies:  http://www.britishpugwash.org/

Nuclear Overview

 Given the very positive prognosis for renewables reported in my last Blog, I thought I would take a new look at the state of play with nuclear power. Judging by several critical, independent reports, it’s pretty grim. The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2012 portrays an industry suffering from ‘the cumulative impacts of the world economic crisis, the Fukushima disaster, ferocious competitors and its own planning and management difficulties’.

Key results of the assessment include:

• Only seven new reactors started up, while 19 were shut down in 2011. On 5 July 2012, one reactor was reconnected to the grid at Ohi in Japan followed another on the same site. However, it remains highly uncertain how many others will receive permission to restart operations in Japan.

• Four countries announced that they will phase out nuclear power within a given timeframe- led by Germany.

• At least five countries have decided not to engage or re-engage in nuclear programs.

• In Bulgaria and Japan two reactors under construction were abandoned.

• In four countries new build projects were officially cancelled. Of the 59 units under construction in the world, at least 18 are experiencing multi-year delays, while the remaining 41 projects were started within the past five years or have not yet reached projected start-up dates, making it difficult to assess whether they are on schedule.

• Construction costs are rapidly rising. The European EPR cost estimate has increased by a factor of four (adjusted for inflation) over the past ten years.

•  Two thirds of the assessed nuclear companies and utilities were downgraded by credit rating agency Standard and Poor’s over the past five years.

•  The assessment of a dozen nuclear companies reveals that all but one performed worse than the UK FTSE100 index. The shares of the world’s largest nuclear operator, French state utility EDF, lost 82 percent of their value, that of the world’s largest nuclear builder, French state company AREVA, fell by 88%.

In contrast, it says renewable energy development has continued with rapid growth.   Installed worldwide nuclear capacity decreased again in 2011, while the annual installed wind power capacity increased by 41 GW in 2011 alone. Installed wind power and solar capacity in China grew by a factor of around 50 in the past five years, while nuclear capacity increased by a factor of 1.5. Since 2000, within the European Union nuclear capacity decreased by 14 GW, while 142 GW of renewable capacity was installed.

http://www.worldnuclearreport.org/

To balance that assessment I looked at the World Nuclear Association’s web site, and their views on the long term potential for nuclear. A key issue must be uranium reserves- if they are not sufficient then there is no future economic or otherwise for nuclear.    They reported that the World uranium resources are ample to meet requirements for the foreseeable future but timely investment in facilities will be needed to make sure production keeps pace with growing demand, based on a new edition of the ‘Red Book’, the Nuclear Energy Agency’s  biannual Uranium Resources, production and demand  survey.

It said that total identified uranium resources had increased by over 12% since the last edition, although lower cost resources have decreased significantly because of increased mining costs. However, the total identified resources stand at 7,096,600 tU recoverable at costs of up to $260 per kg. An additional 124,100 tU of resources have been reported by companies but are not included in official national figures. So-called undiscovered resources - resources expected to exist based on existing geological knowledge, but requiring significant exploration to confirm and define them - currently stand at 10,400,500 tU.

It noted that 440 commercial nuclear power reactors were in operation around the world at the end of 2010, representing 375 GWe of capacity and cumulatively requiring 63,875 tU per year. By 2035, the report found, this can be expected to grow to between 540 GWe of capacity requiring 97,645 tU and 746 GWe needing 136,385 tU.

It claimed that currently defined uranium resources are "more than adequate" to meet the high case demand to 2035, but not without "timely investments" in uranium production facilities. ‘Significant investment and technical expertise will be required to bring these resources to the market and to identify additional resources. Sufficiently high uranium market prices will be needed to fund these activities, especially in light of the rising costs of production’. Secondary sources of uranium (stockpiles of natural and enriched uranium, downblended weapons-grade uranium, reprocessed used fuel and the re-enrichment of depleted uranium tails) will still continue to be required, although their role is expected to decline post-2013 when agreements between Russia and the USA to downblend ex-military highly enriched uranium for use in nuclear fuel expire.

Well if we really do get to 764GW by 2035, then, at say an averaged 100,000 tU per annum over that period, we would then have about 30 years worth left, assuming no further nuclear plant expansion or new uranium finds.  Using lower grade, higher cost ores might extend that a bit, but mining and processing it would increase the production of CO2, assuming that fossil fuels had to be used for this energy. And using nuclear energy for this would just exhaust the reserves faster.  It doesn’t sound like nuclear fission has much of a long-term future, unless new breeder technologies and/or thorium based systems are developed, or, perversely, we use renewables to provide the power for uranium fuel extraction and processing!  Otherwise, 2070-75 or so, and then that’s it…

So what about thorium? I turned to the Weinberg Foundations website, which was set up to support the idea.  It would be cheaper, safer and cleaner. www.the-weinberg-foundation.org/  But I also looked at a briefing by Oliver Tickell. That challenges the idea that thorium as fuel might provide a viable alternative to reactors using uranium. This he said had become something of a rallying cry for those who  assert that conventional nuclear technologies are in terminal decline – including a handful of environmentalists who believe that thorium could provide some kind ‘silver bullet’ solution to the nuclear industry’s woes.

He says that they are deluded and highlights many drawbacks facing thorium reactors, including

·      the very high costs of technology development, construction and operation;

·      marginal benefits for a thorium fuel cycle over the currently utilised uranium /                             plutonium fuel cycles;

·      serious nuclear weapons proliferation hazards: the molten salt reactor (MSR) technology promoted for thorium could be used to produce fissile uranium and plutonium at very high purities well above ordinary ‘weapons grade’;

·      the danger of both routine and accidental releases of radiation, mainly from continuous ‘live’ fuel reprocessing in MSRs;

·      the very long lead time for significant deployment of MSRs of the order of half a century – rendering it irrelevant in terms of addressing current or medium term energy supply needs. It claims that it  ‘will not be deployable on any significant scale for 40-70 years.’

http://www.claverton-energy.com/thorium-no-silver-bullet-for-nuclear-industry.html

Well, so it could be that they might  possibly be ready when the uranium runs out!  But  at what cost? And with what safety and security implications?  See http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v492/n7427/full/492031a.html

 Overall, on the basis at least of this survey, I don’t see much a future for nuclear.

Renewable Prospects: a positive new year view

 The prospects for renewable energy look wonderful. While hydro remains the largest renewable source globally at around 800 GW, the new renewables are coming up fast behind. There is now over 238GW(e) of wind turbine capacity in place globally, while PV solar has reached 70GW(pk), and both are still expanding rapidly- wind could double in the next 5 years, PV treble.  For now however, taken together, wind and PV capacity is about the same as that of the global nuclear fleet, although the load factors are of course much lower. Even so, wind now supplies more kWh than nuclear in the USA and in Germany wind supplies about the same kWhs pa as gas, while overall renewables there now supply about the same kWh pa as hard coal or about the same as nuclear.

 In addition to the headline-grabbing wind and PV, in the background few realise that there’s 245GW(th) of  solar thermal in use around the world, more capacity that wind, delivering heat. There is also an ever expanding amount of biomass use- UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) suggests that up to 20% of global energy could be provided by modern biomass/biogas/AD  technology without damaging food production. http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/support/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=1606

 The new marine technologies are moving ahead well. Global spending on wave and tidal energy may reach US $1.2 billion  by 2015, according to the energy business analysts Douglas-Westwood in  their World Wave & Tidal Market Report 2011-2015. And according to the UK Carbon Trust, the total global market for both wave and tidal energies could be worth £40 billion per annum by 2050.

The UK is well placed to exploit most of these technologies and markets.

Technology Innovation Needs Assessments (‘TINAs’) for UK green energy technologies have recently been produced by the DECC backed Low Carbon Innovation Coordination Group (LCICG), on offshore wind and marine energy. The offshore wind TINA says ‘innovation is critical to enabling the deployment and cutting the cost of offshore wind power, with an estimated saving to the energy system of £18-89bn to 2050’. It adds, innovation can also help ‘create UK based business opportunities that could contribute an estimated £7-35bn to GDP to 2050’.

The Marine TINA says that ‘the UK has a large natural resource of marine energy that could make a meaningful contribution to the UK energy mix from around 2025. Cost of energy generated will need to reach around £100/MWh by 2025 for marine energy to be competitive with other technologies. This pathway is ambitious but possible with significant innovation. If successful, innovation in Marine energy could save the energy system approximately £3-8bn and help create a UK industry that could contribute an estimated £1-4bn to GDP up to 2050.’

LCICG also looked at advanced electricity networks and storage (EN&S) technologies, which it says ‘have the potential to address new stresses that are likely to be placed on the electricity system, and to do so more cost-effectively than would be possible through traditional methods of grid reinforcement and fossil-fuel-powered system balancing capacity. EN&S technologies could play an important role in the future energy system, supporting the uptake of renewable electricity generation, renewable heat, electric vehicles (EVs), and other low carbon technologies. Innovation in EN&S technologies could save the UK £4-19bn to 2050 and could help create UK-based business opportunities that could contribute an estimated £6-34bn to GDP to 2050.

TINAs on bioenergy, hydrogen, heating are due soon. www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/funding/funding_ops/innovation/tinas/tinas.aspx

When you put all these technologies together, it is relatively easy to create a scenario in which renewables can supply around 75% of UK electricity by 2030, as Friends of the Earth have just done: www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefing_notes/electriciy_mix_2030.pdf

Going further there is the EPSRC backed 2050 Transition Pathways study includes a grass roots community based scenario with ~120TWh of local  CHP! See www.lowcarbonpathways.org.uk/lowcarbon/conference/A_Short_Guide_to_UK_Transition_Pathways.pdf

And coming soon, a set of scenarios for Pugwash UK, using the DECC 2050 Pathways Calculator, including one in which renewables supply 100% of all UK energy by 2050

Systems with large contributions of variable renewables like this will need balancing, but it turns out that there are plenty of options.   When necessary, some demand can be managed to delay peaks and power can be imported via supergrid links when there are local shortfalls in supply and be balanced by exports of the occasional excess power we will have from the variable renewables.  In addition, for longer term balancing, we could convert some of the excess wind, wave, and tidal power that will sometimes be generated to hydrogen gas, to use as a fuel for when wind etc availability is low and demand high. So you don’t need fossil fuel plant for backup.  Or of course nuclear.

In parallel with these larger scale developments, there is also a role for local community based projects. 3.5GW worth of locally-owned renewable schemes could be installed by 2020 if the Government supports community energy, according to a coalition of organisations including the Co-operative, the National Trust, the Church of England and the Women's Institute.

A poll commissioned by The Co-operative found 68 % of the public would support local renewable energy projects that were owned by and benefited the community, compared to just 7% that would not. Paul Monaghan, head of social goals at the Co-operative, said: " Our towns, villages and districts are full of hundreds of groups all chomping at the bit to do their bit to generate and save energy locally and fight climate change."

Ed Mayo, secretary general of Co-operatives UK, said: "There is huge enthusiasm for co-operatively-owned energy. But it is very difficult for co-operatives to compete in the energy market as regulations and incentives are designed for the bigger players”.

They want national targets for community energy, promotion of local ownership to increase public acceptance of renewables, Government-backed advice and support, higher subsidies for community schemes, tax breaks for investors and access to finance through the new green investment bank. Let’s hope that can be fought for and obtained.

Nuclear Contentions

In the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear accident, the nuclear industry became increasingly bullish about the prospects of nuclear power. The World Nuclear Association asserted that ‘people can draw confidence from the absence of any health harm even from this extreme, highly unusual event,’ while its then director general, John Ritch, claimed that  ‘countries like Germany will soon demonstrate the economic and environmental irresponsibility of allowing politicians to set important national policies in the middle of a panic attack.’

While it accepted that there were short term impacts, in a report marking the first anniversary of the Fukushima disaster in March, the World Energy Council (WEC) commented  ‘Very little has changed... in respect of the future utilisation of nuclear in the energy mix.’ After surveying its members in 94 countries, according to senior project manager Ayed Al-Qatani, WEC had found that ‘The Fukushima accident has not led to any significant retraction in nuclear energy programs in countries outside Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Japan’. Progress in some countries had been delayed, but there was ‘no indication that their pursuit of nuclear power has declined in response to Fukushima.’ A subsequent report from the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), said that the Fukushima Daiichi incident had slowed nuclear growth by about 10% compared with projections before the accident.

This positive assertiveness, that all was, and will be, well, may overdone: the prospects for nuclear may not actually be as bright as portrayed. The NEA admitted that ‘as retirements increase in the 2030s and 2040s, a greater fraction of new-build will go to simply replace what already exists. Hence, it says ‘the growth of nuclear capacity could slow after 2030 unless there is a strong upturn in new construction at that stage’.

Moreover, there could be problems well before that.  In addition to the increasing economic problems facing the proposed nuclear programmes in the UK and USA, France is rethinking its policy on nuclear.  And Germany, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Ireland, Denmark, Norway and several other EU countries, are anti or non nuclear. Bahrain, Kuwait, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan have also now adopted critical stances. Brazil has delayed work on a new nuclear plant and of course Japan in unlikely ever to build a new plant and may well keep most of the existing ones shut.

A 24-country public opinion study carried out by Ipsos in May 2011 found that 62% of those asked opposed nuclear power. 26% had changed their mind after Fukushima, with opposition in some countries being very high, ranging up to 69% in Brazil and 79% in Germany. Interestingly, it was at 62% in Russia and 58% in China- two of the key areas the industry looks to for future growth. A GlobeScan opinion poll, commissioned by the BBC, and completed in Sept 2011, put opposition in France at 83% and in Japan at 84%.

Certainly, given that context, internally, within the nuclear industry, the mood is more reflective. For example, Steve Kidd from the World Nuclear Association admitted, in the Industries trade journal Nuclear Engineering International, that since the Fukushima accident, ‘public and political acceptance of nuclear power has taken something of a knock in certain countries, resulting in the revival of phase-out policies.’ He went on:  ‘Even in countries where nuclear power is still being endorsed as a useful contributor to a clean energy future, statements in support of nuclear power have been something less than strong and positive endorsements. And if this is the case, political choices in favour of nuclear and decisions made by private companies to invest in new nuclear stations are likely to get deflected by the slightest problem, and other less worthy energy options may indeed be pursued’.

His view however was that much of this reaction was mistaken. Fukushima was ‘the worst nuclear disaster in 25 years, with radiation releases and contamination in some communities. And yet there have so far been no radiation-induced deaths, nor are there likely to be any in the future. How can this relatively benign incident create such a degree of fear that it is dominating discussion of nuclear power’s future?’

He says, by way of explanation, that it is due to mistaken beliefs about the impacts of radiation.  And more specifically he says: ‘There is undoubtedly a huge economic impact of moving people from their homes and jobs in order to protect them, but the reason for this is the essentially unwarranted fear of radiation. This in itself can cause many illnesses, providing much wider implications a long way from the scene of the accident.’

He thus seems to put much emphasis on psychological and stress impacts. He admits that, in reacting to concerns from the public, the nuclear industry might inadvertently have enhanced the level of fear that surrounds nuclear power, by stressing safety issues so much.  However he comes perilously close to claiming that the main culprit was what he labeled the ‘anti-nuclear brigade’.  For them  ‘the misunderstanding of radiation is an important key to discrediting nuclear power,’ thereby raising unwarranted fears. ‘Yet they are the very people who are inducing such effects by continuing to feed the public scares about radiation! So the psychological impacts become essentially self-fulfilling; they stoke up an (illusory) fear and then complain about the consequences of this.’ http://www.neimagazine.com/story.asp?storyCode=2061613

In a subsequent article, he even suggested that ‘the high and apparently rising capital investment costs of nuclear plants in the western world’ might in part be due to the success of the anti-nuclear movement, asking  ‘could it be that public acceptance issue is at least partly to blame for the high costs of nuclear; indeed, perhaps not only the capital investment costs but also the operating costs of plants?’ www.neimagazine.com/story.asp?storyCode=2062210

As I argue in my new book, given that the nuclear industry is clearly suffering economic problems, with Fukushima adding more, while  renewables are doing very well around the world, it is perhaps not surprising that some of its supporters have become a little shrill. But it seems a little odd to try to blame the opposition for their problems. It may be true that the anti-nuclear movement can at times be less than rigorous in its use of campaigning arguments, but the issues it seeks to raise are, arguably, real ones, reflecting real concerns and risks, and technological choices. The relative significance of some of the risks can be debated, as can the benefits or otherwise of the various technologies, but to suggest that the nuclear lobby has a unique grasp of the truth seems, to put it mildly, unconvincing and possibly inappropriate.

In addition to health impacts, and the unresolved issue of waste disposal, there are other contentious issues.  Although the cost are high, the nuclear industry has stressed the economic benefits.  A report commissioned by EDF Energy claimed that expanding Britain's nuclear reactor fleet could boost the UK economy and create 32,000 jobs. Well maybe. But so would a renewables/efficiency programme on the same investment scale. The London based Citigroup financial assessors have suggested that the ‘strike price' needed to support nuclear plant construction under the proposed new government EMR arrangements might be £166 per MWh.  That’s more than is needed by offshore wind projects and much more than is needed for on land wind.

My new book ‘Fukushima: impacts and implications’ is published by Palgrave Macmillan as part of their new Pivot e-book initiative.

www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=635859

No Fukushimas here!

The UK is to host a series of new nuclear plants of the same basic type as at Fukushima- Boiling Water Reactors, following Hitachi’s take over of the Horizon nuclear programme, which aims to build coastal plants at Oldbury in Gloucestershire and Anglesey in Wales  E.ON and RWE had previously pulled out. 

The new plants will be Advanced Boiling Water Reactors (ABWR), with improved safety features, some of which have already been built in Japan. But, following the  Fukushima accident,  the Japanese government has decided to phase out all nuclear capacity ‘in the 2030s’.   All its nuclear plants were shut down for testing after the accident, but two have now been restarted and work had recommenced on one part-built plant. Despite massive pubic opposition, further restarts may follow.  However, it seems unlikely that any new ones will be ordered, whereas in the UK there is strong government support for new nuclear.

The most common type of nuclear plant in the world is the Pressurised  Water Reactor (PWR)  in which pressurization raises the boiling point of water enabling  more efficient high temperature cooling. The disadvantage is that, to maintain the high pressure in the sealed reactor unit, heat transfer requires a secondary heat exchange circuit.  In Boiling Water Reactors (BWR) this is avoided- the water boils unpressuried inside the reactor fuel core, with the steam passing straight through to the turbines. That makes them more efficient in heat transfer terms and perhaps a bit more economic. The disadvantage is that the external turbines can become exposed to radioactive contamination, and since cooling is less efficient, BWRs need more water throughput, a key issue at Fukushima.

Hitachi are talking of building at least four reactors, and perhaps six, by around 2025, in which case that would be nearly 8GW total capacity. In addition EDF is planning to build two EPRs, Areva’s  upgraded version of the PWR, at  Hinkley  in Somerset –and  possibly two more at  Sizewell. In addition NuGeneration is still developing proposals for a plant near Sellafield and other bids may be forthcoming. In all there might be 19GW of new nuclear, much more than the 10GW of nuclear capacity than the UK currently has.

However there is a way to go! There have been major problems with the EPRs being built in France and Finland-  the Finnish project now looks like being six year late and as a result almost twice over budget and the French EPR is also very behind schedule.  EDF says it can learn form these problems with the UK versions, but it is far from clear whether they will be economically viable. The UK government is developing a new funding mechanism to try to help, but to avoid being seen to provide subsidy just to nuclear,  the new ‘Contracts for a Difference’ (CfD) system will also apply to renewable energy projects. The problem then is that it’s been estimated that nuclear plants would need a subsidy of at least £95-105/MWh, but more likely £120/MWh and possibly up to £165/MWh, whereas at present on land wind projects are getting £92/MWh, offshore windfarms £135/ MWh and  Solar PV £160/ MWh.  It would be somewhat provocative for nuclear to be getting more than wind or even PV!

The nuclear lobby says that it can get prices down, but so does the renewables lobby- it’s been claimed that offshore wind could get down to £100/MWh by 2020 and some studies have PV solar  reaching grid price parity by around then.  For its part the UK government now seems to be taking about  setting a CfD set strike price of around £100/MWh. That could mean that EDF and the others would have to get additional support through other means. It's all still in flux…

EDF does have the advantage that the EPR has gone through the UKs lengthy Generic Design Acceptance procedures, something that the Hitachi APWR will now have to start. The ABWR has also had a somewhat checkered history, with technical problems and low load factors: http://realfeed-intariffs.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/hitachi-bid-more-fantasy-nuclear-power.html  So a 2025 completion date may be optimistic.

And that’s without taking account of any local objections. The new planning regime makes it hard for local people to object to anything except detail, but given the prospect of a large scale expansion of nuclear projects, with spent fuel to be stored at each site as well, opposition may grow and not turn out to be so easy to sidestep.   After all, the current programme is only the start.  The Energy Research Partnerships ‘Nuclear Fission Technology Roadmap’, produced by the UK National Nuclear Labs at Sellafield, talked of a 40GW nuclear follow up programme and the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, at University of Oxford, headed up by Prof. Sir David King, looked at a 90GW 2050 nuclear scenario: see Towards a Low Carbon Pathway: http://www.smithschool.ox.ac.uk/ and  www.energyresearchpartnership.org.uk/nucleartechnologyroadmap

It is true that the UK is one of the few places in the world where nuclear power has a degree of public support. An Ipsos-MORI Poll in August 2011 for the Nuclear Industry Association asked respondents ‘do you support or oppose building new nuclear power stations to replace the existing fleet’, 36% supported- 28% opposed, but we are now moving well beyond just a replacement programme,  to one that could undermine the rapid development of renewables, which most polls have found are much more strongly supported than nuclear. 

Now that we are actually facing major new projects, the balance could tip. In the most recent Poll for DECC, published  in September, 29% of respondents said they thought the benefits of nuclear energy outweighed the risks, while 30% thought the contrary, and 32% said the benefits and risks were evenly balanced.  By contrast 83% supported solar power, 76% backed offshore wind, 75% supported wave and tidal and 66% were in favour of onshore wind farms. 

www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/11/stats/5707-decc-public-att-track-surv-wave1-summary.pdf

Germany amongst others is pushing ahead towards a non-nuclear renewable future. Several studies have indicated that the UK, which has much better renewable resources than Germany, could reach its climate targets without nuclear, and with the Hitachi BWR  intervention, the slogan ‘No Fukushimas here’ may take on a new meaning.

My new book ‘Fukushima: impacts and implications’ is published by Palgrave Macmillan as part of their new Pivot e-book initiative.

www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=635859