There is an article in the FT this morning that suggests something that should be obvious, but needs saying. And that is that renewable energy is now bringing deflation into the energy market.
The article is by Mark Lewis, who is is chief sustainability strategist at BNP Paribas Asset Management. As he puts it:
With the US poised to rejoin the Paris Agreement under the incoming Biden administration and the proliferation of net-zero commitments from various governments, the romance between equity markets and renewable-energy goes from strength to strength.
But in all the excitement about the future of renewables, a bigger truth is being overlooked: the underlying reason for the astonishing transformation of renewables over the past decade from niche to mainstream competing head-to-head with fossil fuels is economic rather than environmental.
And as he adds:
Wind and solar are intrinsically deflationary, whereas fossil fuels are intrinsically inflationary. This has huge implications for the distribution of value across the global energy system over the next three decades.
Why is this? Firstly, because all the easy fossil fuels have already been extracted. The marginal cost of their extraction is now, inevitably rising. And second, once the infrastructure is in place for renewables, the cost of which is steadily falling, the marginal costs of production are tiny. So, inevitably, the trajectory of renewable costs is downward.
The change should, then, be hard baked in.
So, in that case, why nuclear? I wish I could answer that.
Of course it's neither extractive or renewable. But let's assume extractive are dying (as seems obvious) and renewable is for real, and with enhanced storage capacity it will become the bedrock of future power, what is the reason for the risk of putting anther nuclear reactor on the Suffolk coast where the chance that it will be flooded within the foreseeable future is high? I wish I knew.
We now have the option of viable energy to sustain the transition we need. More investment in it only increases its appeal. And yet still we stick with the harmful solutions. I have never got this. I never will.
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I know you are very much against nuclear power but there are good reasons why it is needed to ensure the electricity supply matches demand.
Firstly, the UK’s electricity demand will need to increase dramatically between now and 2050 (preferably sooner) if a life style anything like we have now is to be maintained. I suggest that the average electricity demand will increase from 37GW now to 130 GW when zero emissions are achieved. If a significantly different lifestyle is to be forced on the populations of the developed countries, they need to be told what that will involve and what they are going to lose.
Secondly, the UK’s minor renewables (tidal, wave, hydro-electric, waste and biomass, and geothermal) can provide an average of about 30 GW.
Thirdly, energy storage technology will need to improve dramatically to meet the needs of a renewables only system. I suggest the UK’s storage capacity will need to be a few hundred gigawatt-hours with an output of about 30 GW.
Finally, to achieve anything approaching a stable system the installation rate for both wind and solar will need to increase by at least 5% every year from now until 2050. Even that increase gives no guarantee of success if the weather patterns across northern Europe change significantly. That will require global production capacity to increase by at least 5% throughout the period to meet the demand from the rest of the World.
To provide a stable electricity supply system that can match demand throughout the year, there will ned to be a significant contribution from a zero-carbon, thermal power source. The only source available is nuclear. Natural gas with carbon capture and storage is an alternative, but the storage might compete with other storage needs, such as green hydrogen (or synthetic gas) or compressed energy storage.
However, distasteful nuclear may be, to rule it out before other technologies are proven is extremely dangerous and could prevent a zero-carbon economy developing.
If anyone has access to data that demonstrates renewables meeting demand continuously over several years against varying weather conditions, I’d be interested in a link.
Robin,
“the average electricity demand will increase from 37GW now to 130 GW”, are there good literature references, if so I’d be grateful for them.
Simply put, we need it yesterday. We should have started on the next generation of nuclear power plants 5 to 10 years ago so they would be built and ready now, or at least in the next few years.
Nuclear currently generates about 20% of UK electricity. We also import a chunk from France which is mostly nuclear. All of the Magnox plants are closed and we are left with seven AGR plants (two at Heysham) and one PWR. Eight nuclear plants, with 15 reactors. Half of them are scheduled to be closed down in the next five years, and the rest in the following decade. Yes, renewables are already more than that, mostly wind, but with the best will in the world, we are going to struggle to replace all of the existing nuclear capacity with renewables in five to fifteen years. There is no hope of fusion being ready to install on that timescale, so we need more fission, and the lead time is considerable. Without it, there are very significant risks of generation capacity falling below demand within a few years. And then there are some serious technical challenges in moving to heat pumps and electric vehicles, not least storage and distribution.
Alongside climate change, this is a real and serious technical challenge. Frankly, I doubt our politicians quite grasp the scale of it, certainly not this government.
If that figure of almost quadrupling electricity demand is correct then we need to start thinking of other solutions, such as “degrowth” as advocated by Jason Hickel in his book “Less is More”.
We cannot combat global warming, phase out fossil fuels and simply continue as if nothing has changed and demand the growth based lifestyles we seem to have become accustomed to over the past couple of centuries. There are too many damaging “externalities” involved in a perpetual growth-based economy, such as extractive industries, industrial agriculture, pollution of the oceans that simply moving to renewables will not solve.
And nuclear involves a lot of damaging and unknown externalities.
The electricity demand of 37 GW is from the BEIS DUKES 2018 data book and refers to the total electricity consumption in the UK for 2017 (Table 5.6).
The 130 GW is my estimate based on 2017 energy consumption assuming that, in future, cars will be battery powered; trucks and coaches will use hydrogen fuel cells; ships and planes will also use hydrogen fuel (either via fuel cells or IC engines (Airbus are planning to certify a hydrogen powered airliner by 2035)); most railways will be electrified with those that can’t be electrified being converted to hydrogen fuel cells; and UK buildings will have 30% better insulation. All hydrogen will be green hydrogen – ie produced by electrolysis.
I estimated that total electricity demand would be about 130 GW, with 84 GW being consumed to produce green hydrogen and 46 GW for everything else.
The National Grid 2020 ‘Future Energy Scenarios’ under the ‘System Transformation’ scenario gives the following values for electricity and hydrogen demand in 2050:
Average Electricity Demand: 54.6 GW, of which 8 GW is required to produce 6.4 GW of green hydrogen.
Average Hydrogen Demand: 67.5 GW
Electricity required to Produce 67.5 GW of Green Hydrogen: 84.4 GW
Total Electricity Demand: 54.6 — 8 + 84.4 = 131 GW.
Thanks Robin, this has stoked my interest; good references too that I just looked over.
Total energy consumption in the UK between 2018 and 2019 was 142.0 mtoe (million tonne oil equivalent) [1]. Using 1 toe = 0.01163 GW hr, UK total energy consumption is 188 GW hr-1, your estimate is in the ballpark. I have too many questions for you, to write further here.
I’m anti-nuclear on environmental and long term waste concerns, despite having applied to work in the industry after my atomic/nuclear physics PhD. I was much younger then.
So where does the missing ‘green’ energy come from and/or how do we cut demand significantly (circular economy?)? A question for open debate.
[1]_https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/928350/2020_Energy_Consumption_in_the_UK__ECUK_.pdf
There is no such thing as “average elec demand” you plan for peaks.
In terms of storage, given off-shore wind build out, UK will probably need to re-purpose gas caverns for hydrogen storage. Will need something like 50TWh — at least an order of magnitude greater than you propose.
In terms of wind capacity, for off-shore the UK (actually mostly Scotland) has in the range 600GW to 1100GW — about enough to power Europe and then some. You are correct with respect to: “there will need to be a significant contribution from a zero-carbon, thermal power source” — CCGTs repurposed for H2 and delivering heat to heat networks will meet this need quite nicely. They already exist (it’s mostly a burner problem). Couple that to fuel-cells for home heating in some houses and the problem (multi-day calm and dull periods) is solved.
As for nat gas & CCS — I await with interest a demonstration — renewables with electrolysers can do the job cheaper. I don’t rule out nukes — let’s see them competing with the same level of subsidies as off-shore wind. “If anyone has access to data that demonstrates renewables meeting demand continuously”, interesting straw man.
I contribute to the Nat Grid FES. In terms of demand, you need to talk GWh or TWh, GW have no meaning (apart from peak/momentary demand).
Thanks
Thanks Mike.
I quite agree that GWh that it is more correct than average power and that the energy system needs to cope with peak demand. I use average GW because it is used by the National Grid for their half-hour demand reports available at the Elexon Portal and is quite common in energy plans I have seen.
I question that needs answering is when is this wind capacity going to deployed, from the NG FES it appears that the best that is expected is 87 GW of installed generation (System Transformation sheet SV30). The NG FES also proposes that most hydrogen will be produced by methane reformation, I hope CCS works! The government really shouldn’t have cancelled their £1 Bn trials in 2012.
Even 87 GW of offshore wind will require 5,200 offshore turbines to be installed, assuming they are 15 MW units, more if they are lower rating. That’s one every other day for 30 years! My estimated peak demand is about 180 GW, which includes up to 100 GW of electricity for hydrogen electrolysis.
My completely renewable scenario requires an installed capacity of 550 GW of wind or a combination 350 GW of both wind and solar, and, as I wrote earlier, several hundred GWh of storage with a power rating of 30 MW.
I really don’t see how the UK and Europe can achieve zero carbon energy by 2050. I don’t buy net zero as a solution as it seems to allow the continued use of fossil fuels, with unworkable offsetting proposals.
Thankfully others do think it possible
Could the reason be fear of losing Scottish renewables and a need to have some sort of alternative available if England can’t provide enough of its own green energy? That said, flawed though it is, that smacks of forward planning which the Westminster government doesn’t shine at.
The only reason I can think of for the Tories wanting to build Sizewell C and other nuclear power stations even though they are so much less economic than renewables , is that some powerful Tory doners must be looking at their short term private gain from construction and engineering sub-contracting companies or in uranium mining companies. They know that the huge losses and costs of nuclear waste management and decommissioning will be borne by the public and not the private sector. I think we need to be cautious about expecting any magical technical fixes from the yet developed carbon capture and hydrogen technologies. This does not excuse the enormous risks both environmental and economic from a renewed nuclear energy programme. Rather than thinking that we need to produce even more energy than at present the vast capital being planned for nuclear would far better be devoted to energy conservation and efficiency programmes.
A warmongering nation intent on projecting power around the world needs nuclear power to produce nuclear weapons. The comments about Scottish renewables is right on the money. Energy available from tidal is easily computable from tide tables and charts. Hydro is similarly computable from rainfall figures and geography. The developing technology is going to get us there without nuclear. Another Scotland/England differing logic. Time will tell.
The UK’s potential tidal power is estimated to be about 5.7 GW (‘Turning the Tide – Tidal Power in the UK’, Sustainable Development Commission 2007).
For wave power it’s 5 GW (‘The UK Wave Power Resource’, D. Mollison, assuming 25% of the wave front can be intercepted at 50% efficiency).
For geothermal energy it’s 9.5 GW of electricity and 97.2 GW of heat (Geothermal Potential of Great Britain & Northern Ireland – May 2012: SKM/REA(UK)). This does assume the electricity potential is sustainable – the paper suggests it may only be viable for 25 years, also the heat is not available to any large conurbations, so is not very useful.
Hydro is maxxed out in the UK without a significant loss of amenity value from open country.
I am in despair. The argument about nuclear was won many years ago. The simple fact is that when energy accounting is done over the hundreds of years necessary, it is found that more is put in than is got out.
It is as simple as this.
Uranium mining and refining – Energy input.
Building the plant – Energy input
Generating for 30years+ – Energy output
Decommissioning – Energy input
Safely looking after the waste for hundreds of years. – Energy input.
It is all here if you want to wade through it.
https://www.stormsmith.nl/Resources/m38SecondLaw20191025F.pdf
The only hidden reason for this is – bombs. And/or led by donkeys.
I had a quick look at your link. It’s very reminiscent of the junk science I’ve seen on global warming denial sites. It also appears to have quite a few papers written in rebuttal.
I have always found that any paper that refers to the 1st and 2nd Laws of thermodynamics, and entropy that isn’t about thermodynamics or cosmology is probably worth avoiding or , at least, treating with a good degree of caution.
Any thoughts on the proposals for multiple small scale reactors, potentially offering lower cost and risk and greater reliability through volume production?
The nuclear industry in the U.K. has a dismal track record and a legacy of waste that has not been resolved. It’s origins in the nuclear weapons industry, experimenting with different technologies and poor project management have all been factors. That said, France has been very successful and I’ve not heard a convincing explanation of why.
In terms of forward projections for demand from transport, I wonder what assumptions were made about types and numbers? Projections based on like for like replacement don’t tend to allow for the role of EV/AVs in massively changing ownership and useage patterns.
Electric or power greenhouses are Another Means of harvesting energy without using fossil fuel or releasing more CO2. Like photovoltaic and windpower systems.
Power greenhouses can be used to replace fossil fuel power stations for electrical power generation.
The plants grown inside the greenhouse are pulverised and desiccated before use as the fuel source in the electrical generation process. They are closed carbon cycle as the heat and the CO2 released in the combustion process are captured (and recaptured) within the gas impermeable greenhouse structure by the plants. A constant temperature is maintained by using the ground beneath the greenhouse as a very large thermal energy store.
The plants experience a huge increase (The synergy effect) in their growth rates because of high CO2 and being at the perfect temperature. Perhaps as much as 40 times per year in the UK. A lighting system and IR loss curtainage system allow night time and 365 day operation. A reliable jungle in a bottle. More reliable then PV or wind… AND nuclear!
Fan driven horizontal flues. Chimneys are very good at by passing the plants that are on the ground. 🙁
The greenhouse biosphere is supercharged by starting with pulverised domestic rubbish
as the fuel/CO2/heat source. Once a suitable biomass in the greenhouse is achieved, fuel cropping can begin.
The best way to save is to cut consumption
We need around 35 GW of reliable base load electricity and current storage costs are not economic. Nuclear energy has served France well and it’s very safe. A commercial reactor cannot explode the fuel enrichment is only 5%: way below explosive levels. Even Fukushima, which was pretty inexcusable on location grounds had no deaths or serious injuries from the nuclear accident but 19,000 were killed by the tsunami.
Oh come on….what happens when Sizewell sinks below the waves…as the Suffolk coats will
And storage costs will not be economic until we invest in it, as was the case with renewables
There is no earthquake risk – therefore no tsunami risk – to Sizewell B. The risk from flooding is put at 1 in 10,000 years by the Environment Agency. London is more likely to flood without further defences. In any event Sizewell closes in the 2030s.
As regards storage, this government turned it’s back on Swansea bay lagoon and mountain water storage is even more expensive. Other methods, such as molten salt are also very expensive and conventional battery research doesn’t appear to suffer from lack of investment worldwide. Gresham House Energy Storage Fund was oversubscribed only last month. We need a science breakthrough, which may come sooner rather than later as may nuclear fusion, one day.
But in the meantime nuclear is what is available.
You dop know that closing a nuclear power station does not take the nuclear risk away, don’t you?
Have you ever been to that coast?
Patrick Byrne. Earthquakes aren’t the only source of tsunamis. The Storegga submarine landslides off Norway 8000 years ago inundated the East Anglian coast. Tidal surges and floods 7-800 years ago caused the loss of barrier islands off Lincolnshire and Dunwich has been progressively disappearing since that period. It takes a suspension of disbelief to think Sizewell cannot be lost over the next 100 years with an ensuing radiation disaster zone in the southern North Sea and littoral, including the Thames estuary.
Correct
I don’t know how accurate this is, but it is fascinating.
* https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/live
* https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/fourtyeight
* https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/map
As I write at about 1pm it says the UK is generating a total of 43.3 GW with 31% gas (13.3 GW), 2% coal (1.0), 14% nuclear (6.2), 37% wind (16.1, wow!), 6% biomass (2.6) , 7% imported (2.9) , 1% hydro (0.5) and 1% solar (0.5). In the middle of a mild, dreary winter day with light winds.
At 4:30 this morning it was about 27.3 GW and 18% gas (4.8), 0 coal, 23% nuclear (6.4), 47% wind (12.7, wow again!) 8% biomass (2.2), 3% imported (0.7), 2% hydro (0.5), 0 solar.
I still think there is an important place for nuclear for at least a few decades to replace a chunk of that gas, and provide baseload generation which is not intermittent until we get the storage of renewables sorted out adequately.
Wind is classed as “intermittent” power.
The grid has large problems balancing demand to supply when faced with a widely-varying supply source. The govt is currently, and quietly, going about relaxing planning requirements for construction of grid storage (batteries) near various windfarms. Currently the UK has around 1GW of available battery capacity. It will need a lot more than that if fossil and nuclear power generation is ended. In fact, it will need batteries sufficient to supply the entire country with a constant supply in the event of complete wind failure (currently up to 45GW will be needed). So 45GW for a 24-hour period in the worst case.
Get rid of nuclear and gas and both baseload and dispatchable are gone. The UK also uses diesel-powered backup generation, and another 300MW is planned to be online next year. That goes with the large amount of STOR (short-term-operating-reserve) power available, which consists of places stopping using power (and closing) (but getting paid) or stopping using grid power and going over to their diesel generating plant (my local hospital is part of that)(as are many others). Wind with no storage is a power-disaster waiting to happen. The [fairly] recent shutdown of some areas of the UK supply, caused by two generating plant being detached from the grid, is what can be expected in a system featuring large elements of intermittent generation. The days of “brown-outs” is in the past as well, most lighting is now either fluorescent or LED, and they can function from 115v to 350v. In the event of sufficient power outages causing the frequency to drop, the system automatically shuts areas down to compensate.
If you want wind/solar, you need a very large amount of storage. Sufficient to supply 45GW for 24 hours. Global requirements for Lithium-Ion storage cells are forecast to be 4500GWH by 2040. We need a lot of very big non-lithium batteries.
Another couple of data points. The sun came out earlier today. At 1pm we generated about 42.4 GW, which was gas 15.5 (37%), coal 1 (2%), nuclear 6 (14%), wind 12.4 (29%), biomass 2.2 (5%), import 1.7 (4%), hydro 1 (2%), solar 2.7 (6%).
At the evening peak, 5:30pm yesterday, it was 47.5 GW, which was gas 17 (36%), coal 0.9 (2%), nuclear 6.4 (13%), wind 15.4 (32%), biomass 2.9 (6%), import 3 (6%), hydro 1.9 (4%) and zero solar. the hydro peaked at 2.2 GW at 6pm. I guess someone switched on Dinorwig…
Still breezy today. It would be interesting to see how these numbers look on calm and foggy or overcast day, or a sunny day in the summer.
I’ll admit, there is more wind power in the mix, and less nuclear, than I expected. To replace all of the nuclear and gas, you’d need something like three times as much wind power, all the time. What is a realistic estimate of the cost of doing so, with all of the storage required, and timetable for installation? My suspicion is that you are still going to need a significant amount of nuclear in there for a substantial period, particularly if you eliminate gas generation, and switch away from gas for heating and cooking.
Robin Trow et al argue as though nuclear is a ‘going concern’/viable option. All the evidence of the last twenty years (Finland, France, Hinkley) is that it is not demonstrably technically feasible, and certainly not economically viable – an order of magnitude less so than when the nuclear option was resurrected after 2000. The obsession with nuclear is just another aspect of the national multiple personality disorder, along with ‘great power’/’top table’/’nuclear weapons’/’lost empire’ longings. My old physics prof chaired the Royal Commission, which decades ago recommended no more nuclear before the waste disposal problem had been solved. We are still faced with a hundred year multi billion pound clean up – and the most dangerous site of nuclear -waste in the world.
To paraphrase a quote from the late Prof. David MacKay ‘I have no reason to believe in nuclear power, but I do believe in arithmetic’ and so far I have seen no study where the arithmetic demonstrates that renewables alone can provide the power needed to maintain the global energy system and bring the developing world up to a good standard of living.
If someone can point in the direction of such a study, I would be grateful.
We’ve now left it so late that we probably only have one chance at solving global warming. My main concern is that if we go down the renewables road and they really don’t match the hype (I’ve seen no evidence that they do), we’ll be stuck and future generations will greatly regret our failure to get the energy system right.
To be clear, I have no ‘great power’/’top table’/’nuclear weapons’/’lost empire’ longings. I do think the UK has punched above its weight in some areas, particularly in the sciences, but we also have a lot to regret in our history.
I leave it to others to address this
Mr Trow,
I trust I am not being unreasoable in oserving that I do not think you actually answered Mr Broadbent’s critical question; so allow me to set it out, as I understand the issue. I claim no special knowledge of the industry. I am trying to apply reason and common sense.
What is your plan for decommissioning at the end of the plant’s useful life (to us); but which is not the life of the decommissioned plant, which will long require management into an unkown future? How many years (decades or centuries) should be factored into the investment DCF? How do you propose the site is managed responsibly for its total decommissioning life? What does a plan for the whole management of something on such a timescale actually look like? What successful precedents can you identify, allowing for the fact that there are no decommissioned plants even one century old?
Or do you propose that we just say we need the plant output now, at any cost; and leave the full decommissioning problem to fix itself, since none of us will be around to clean up the mess, or be required to explain our thinking?
I don’t know how a nuclear power plant is decommissioned, but things have changed since the current stations came on line. The Construction (Design & Management) (CDM) Regulations require that designers provide viable plans to allow the safe decommissioning and demolition of any structure. I think the original regulations were introduced in the late 1990s and it certainly changed the attitude of designers to the end of life of their designs. Before CDM, designers rarely considered decommissioning and demolition, even maintenance procedures were a bit hit and miss.
Nuclear is dangerous, but no more dangerous than other toxic substances. It can have a very long half-life but so do other waste products. With some generation 4 reactors the long half-life materials can ‘burnt’ to produce power and are turned into relatively short half-life materials that will only need storing for decades or centuries.
My only concern is that global warming is addressed in such a manner that the 9 or 10 billion people on the planet can continue to exist with a reasonable standard of living. We have left action on global warming too late and now have only one chance to reduce its impact, get it wrong and our current civilisation may not survive. I don’t believe a viable energy system without carbon free dispatchable electricity is possible and only nuclear power fits that description.
If, globally, we build a system around renewables only and it doesn’t work, there is no coming back. If we include nuclear and don’t need it, turn them off, decommission and demolish in accordance with the CDM procedures and put it down to a life lesson.
Locally, we could build a system around renewables only and, if it doesn’t work, buy our nuclear from the Chinese or Koreans.
Risking nuclear power to avoid Armageddon is a heads you win, tails you lose scenario
Another way if looking at it is risking Armageddon from Global Warming to avoid using nuclear power. If renewables on their own can’t provide the energy needed to maintain a reasonable life style, then fossil fuels will continue to be used.
So the possibilities are:
1 Use renewables alone and it works, everything is fine.
2 Use renewables and it doesn’t work, revert to fossil fuels and face Global Warming.
3 Use renewables and nuclear and avoid Global Warming – possibly find the nuclear plants are unnecessary.
That’s the options I can see.
The genie is out of the bottle with nuclear weapons and that problem isn’t going away any time soon.
Mr Trow,
Thank you, at least for trying. The paucity of facts in your answer; the lack of figures or details compared with your fulsomely supported earlier comments speaks for itself. I think you may see on reflection that you have not made much of a fist of your case. Here is a distillation of your comments, which offer a very strange opening and ending:
1) “I don’t know how a nuclear power plant is decommissioned …. …. put it down to a life lesson”. There is the flaw; if that is the ending (and you provide no evidence it isn’t the most likely ending), why should we ever deliberately embrace it? As advice, it is merely eccentric.
2) “Nuclear is dangerous, but no more dangerous than other toxic substances.” I have no idea what that remark is intended to signify, or what anybody is supposed to do with it.
The problem is neoliberal business modelling is very bad at identifying the long-term costs associated with toxicity problems, because investment selectivity conventionally selects against close ‘a priori’ scrutiny of vital critical issues. It is a methodological flaw in capitalism that is overlooked by practitioners, who rely on simple, optimistic modelling because the ideology requires fast, usable, highly simplified answers. This is just a historically demonstrable fact. Allow me to provide an example:
The toxicity of substances are often by-products of their business purpose, and are therefore simply, and all too easily overlooked altogether; but the products in consequence were often better for everyone if they had never been produced; like asbestos. Asbestos totally destroyed the established financial structure of Lloyds of London (many ‘names’ were obliterated); the world’s largest insurance market, and it has ruined the lives of many thousands of ordinary people whose health was destroyed, or whom died of a horrible illness caused by the toxicity. The profitability of the enterprises that developed asbestos, or used asbestos, and the benefits of its protection were never weighed against the damage of the toxicity, until it was too late. And we still live with its current effects on people still alive, decades after the product was – sensibly in the end – abandoned. So in asbestos we have a reasonable example of the low human or even business value, of developing toxic-substance technologies.
If your model for nuclear is the general prevalence of toxicity among products already in the world, it is a rotten argument. In addition, the scale of the lethality from the particular toxicity of nuclear, the ‘cordon sanitaire’ required and risks around the site when the product is subject to an untoward event, are other critical factors. I suspect that investment in nuclear is only a possibility if the risk-takers are simply able, effectively to ignore the decommissioning downside cost altogether; presumably by palming it all off on a weak government. The serious weakness of your approach to the proposition is that you do not even know the whole (as in all) benefits and costs of nuclear, because nobody has ever thought it through; presumably because nobody knows how to do it. So we are being asked to go ahead, based on ignorance; a poor basis for investment. The smart move when faced with an established toxic technology when nobody can fix realistically on the full costs (human and financial) and the benefits, is to abandon it. That is, or should be the real meaning of being “green” .
My arguments is really quite simple, we need to stop Global Warming.
I don’t think renewables alone are able to do that.
I have seen no reliable evidence that renewables only can power the world.
Have you any links to detailed plans for renewables that demonstrate that they, alone, can achieve an equitable world?
Nuclear waste is dangerous but so are many things that we use every day and deal with the risk safely. I see know reason why nuclear waste is any different. Deep burial seems to be a viable option, although it would be better to use the waste and reduce its half-half to a more manageable time scale.
I’m not a nuclear plant decommissioning engineer (or a nuclear specialist of any sort) so can’t say how the job is done. In the UK and EU the CDM Regs will ensure that next time round it is much easier and cheaper. The historical safety record of nuclear power compares favourably with most other contemporaneous industrial and power generation processes, I’m sure the latest and next generation plants will be much safer. Chernobyl shouldn’t have happened (the Chernobyl plant would never have been built outside the USSR) and Fukushima was a bad accident that shouldn’t have happened. Many generation 4 nuclear plants have passive safety features and could not suffer a similar failure to Fukushima.
If renewables don’t provide the energy needed for an equitable world, we will revert to using fossil fuels.
Almost certainly, some country (possibly China, India or Russia) will develop and deploy nuclear power plants, so the risk remains whatever we do.
Much of my reasoning is based on two books and lots of internet surfing. The books are The Long Decline by John Michael Greer and Collapse by Jared Diamond, the first I found very depressing, the second slightly less so!
It seems perverse to me to choose a path out certain Armageddon that might not work because the alternative path, that will work, has a very very small chance of leading to Armageddon. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe all will be sweetness and light with renewables and I have missed the evidence that is available. As I’m getting on a bit, I probably won’t be around to find out but I have to try to make a point.
Like many engineers, I am living with having worked with asbestos in the 60s, 70s and 80s (I even visited an asbestos mine in Greece in the mid 80s) and sometimes I find it scary.
“I’m not a nuclear plant decommissioning engineer (or a nuclear specialist of any sort) so can’t say how the job is done. In the UK and EU the CDM Regs will ensure that next time round it is much easier and cheaper.”
Nobody knows the long term risks of your proposal, or of nuclear sites already decommissioned. Nobody. All they can do is extropolate current conditions, a very weak methodology; forget the technology; nobody knows what form society itself will take, 150 years from now. It is beyond any feasible planning horizon. Such forecasts are mere, wild speculation; and they cannot conceivably be adequately resourced either financially or managerially, now. So the UK and EU CDM Regs are in no position to guarantee anything. Their view of the future 150 years from now is, in serious value terms, worthless. In short you want to undertake an investment without knowing the risks; that is how empty your proposition.
Either renewables will work, or science will find alternatives; or neither will be enough. Not all problems can necessarily be solved: that is the world we actually live in. Worse, they are never solved by pretending we have a fix, when we do not; creating unknown risks of unknown scale, for unkown timescales and unkown events; the known and unknown unknowns. Reality is what it is. Five years ago I would never have believed we could contemplate elimination of the internal combustion engine; but it is now being widely contemplated. A vaccine for coronavirus has been produced in an unheard of timeframe. Science and technology can achieve astonishing breakthroughs given sufficient intellectual and financial resources. I do not mean that it will do so in energy, I do not know; that is why I say not all problems can be fixed because we need a solution. We can only do the best we can.
I do not wish to be unkind, you know more about energy than me; but perhaps precisely there, is the problem. Your kind of approach, without thinking of long-term consequences over the long-term, it seems to me is exactly the thinking that is most likely to produce the mess we find that we are now in; the Stan Laurel solution from Oliver Hardy’s perspective – ‘another fine mess you have got us in’.
We need new thinking, not a rehash of phoney-green, out-of-date technology.
If you go to the fascinating Devil’s Porridge museum (https://www.devilsporridge.org.uk/) in Eastriggs near Annan in Dumfries & Galloway they have a section dealing with Chapelcross nuclear “power station”, also near Annan. It was one of a number of “power stations” built soon after the second world war and only relatively recently closed, though not necessarily decommissioned.
According to the museum, and I believe them, these post war installations were primarily built to produce weapons grade nuclear material. The fact that they produced some electricity was incidental. The power produced was essentially a bi-product of the military purpose.
I haven’t been to Sizewell, but it looks very similar to Dungeness, which I drove past when I took my boat over to France. I cannot think of a risk – from a defunct nuclear reactor – that cannot be solved by covering it, and any residual nuclear waste, with several feet thick concrete. The fuel rods will have gone to Windscale. I feel I should warn you that the French were considering underwater power stations around 2010.
Sorry, but it is not the same
And if you think a little concrete works think again – the tune of many, many billions of pounds
The answer to why nuclear, is perhaps, it’s good for the profits of those that build the things.
Sizewell is perfect for a nuclear power station, after all, two are there already. What could possibly go wrong, sitting as it does on sand and with marshes below sea level to the north (as in right on its boundary). The old port of Dunwich, also just to the north and east, is mostly under the sea. Schoolchildren visit Dunwich to see what was once there.
Meanwhile, as noted above, we have quite a lot of tidal and wave energy that could be harnessed if the will and a bit of that nuclear cash was available. That could even be built at…..Sizewell…the wiring is already in place.
Spot on
Dunwich only only list well over a mile under the sea. Benacre is nearly gone too
To my very simple mind there is one question to answer before a proliferation of nuclear power generation should be allowed.
Is there a way to dispose safely and economically of the waste products produced?
I have been asking this since 1971
If the pro nuclear idealogues on this blog can’t do better than – ‘concrete’, ‘cant think of a risk’. ‘will soon be closed’, ‘it looks very similar to ‘, then the anti nuclear case has not much to worry about. The vested interests behind nuclear are much more worried about the failing technology and economics of the present generation of yet -to- operate stations in Finland, France and HInkley – hence the desperate lunge for the next nuclear mirage – ‘mini stations’.
I don’t think it helps rational debate to label people who hold different ideas as “ideologues”. There are points to be made for and against, and it comes down to a balancing of the points. Anyone suggesting we should let our existing nuclear power generation close in the next decade or so without replacement needs to explain in detail how we are going to keep the lights on.
The up-front cost and long-term liabilities are why nuclear power needs to be operated by the state, in my view. We should have a state-owned nuclear operator, like Électricité de France, which is c.85% owned by the French government. Except that we privatised the newer UK nuclear plants in 1996 (keeping the old Magnox ones in state hands of course as they were more of a liability than an asset) and then a decade later the operation was bought by EDF.
The real worry in the Sizewell area isnt that rising sea levels will result in the Power Station site being flooded, but that the Flora Tea Room at Dunwich will be destroyed, that would be a catastrophe.
I love Dunwich…..
A more obvious point though is that we need to learn to live with less energy, travelling less and slower as a ‘for example’
Agreed
At the risk of being tedious, “Less is More”. All the advocacy for nuclear and more generation assume it’s business as usual. When are we going to wake up to the reality that there is an existential crisis looming that will threaten the survival of the human species? The only way we are going to tackle this is through massive changes to our profligate use of energy.
The roads network is a metaphor for this madness – congestion in the village of MiddleEng, ok build a bypass; congestion on the bypass, ok build a motorway; congestion on the motorway, ok make it a “smart” motorway etc. It’s never – let’s reduce traffic.
Agreed, entirely
Maybe ought to concentrate more on over-population?
A problem seemingly with no cure.
With the age-demographic getting worse (more old people) and the opposite problem, less young people, we are fast approaching the time when we have a rather stark choice to make. The problem of not enough young and fit people is solved by importing other countries young and fit. Ditto for not enough skilled and talented. That won’t last.
Nuclear power is not going away in a hurry though. Small and local nuclear power generation is being developed ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51233444 ), which is sure to enrage the anti-nuclear lobby. Then again, we have fusion arriving (next decade/century/etc), although there seems to be a good chance that instead of massive toroidal fusion we will have small fusion reactors first ( https://lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/compact-fusion.html ).
Take your choice!
Good luck with wave power, sea water is challenging at the best of times. Estuary booms (etc) are meeting a lot of challenges from the environmentalists.
Wind power with no storage is of limited use, and then only if sufficient dispatchable generation is also available. By the way, when it is very gusty wind power is not used, the balancing problems are quite large. It still gets paid for though. By the consumer.
JohnM.
Global population set to peak by 2060 if present trends continue. China’s population is forecast to nearly halve by 2100.
UK birth rate is 1.7. needs to be 2.1 to just maintain existing level. Population rising due to immigration. And those Boomers aren’t going to live forever.
Globally, women are getting better educated and access to contraception and are choosing to having fewer babies.
Population decline has its own set of problems though!
JohnM
Given the impressive figures for renewables and the work being done on storage, does it not seem uneconomic to pursue fusion generators? They have been researched for many years and the results from prototypes are still quite unimpressive. I don’t have figures for the hoped-for costs of the energy, but if it is similar to fission, it does not seem sensible, economically speaking, to continue.
England can have its nuclear industry if it wants but it will have to dispose of its nuclear waste in England not Scotland. There are a fleet of rotting nuclear submarines in Rosyth on the Forth a short distance from Edinburgh. They have been there for years. I wonder when the MOD will get round to dealing with them.
They need to move to Plymouth
They are slowly moving. All have had the nuclear fuel removed. There are seven remaining. They will be taken to Plymouth.
Where is the nuclear fuel now?
Used fuel to Sellafield, Reactors to below.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/mod-selects-nuclear-storage-site-as-submarine-dismantling-project-progresses
I looked into the current required for fast-charging electric cars. It is horrendous at between 200 and 400 Amps.
Most households rarely take as much as 13 Amps for any one appliance. Kettles and washing machine heaters are often the most hungry in ordinary houses.
Electric cars will require charging at home to be convenient; that may well need new power cables.
The UK electricity system is nowhere near able to cope with a general increased number of electric cars – and we do want them.
That is one powerful argument for a generation system capable of providing high power 24/7.
Nuclear may be expensive and have decommissioning costs, but if it allows us to go carbon-neutral, it may be worth the pain.
Electric showers use between 7.5KW and 10KW. That would be 30 to 40 amps (ish).
Cookers carry a 30 amp rating.
The average domestic electric system is fused at 100 amp by the supplier fuses (which cannot be [legally] changed by a householder.
Maximum charge current for an EV charge is only available at a three-phase DC supply and would be around 300 amp.
The maximum charge at a house would be 32 amp, from a specially-installed socket.
Far more interesting is that the household supply, which is single phase, is derived from a substation transformer, which has three phase output, with each phase supplying a “ring” of houses. The supply would not be happy supplying a load of houses with evs’ being charged at night if they are all on the same single phase..
..and your plugged-in electric cars will either be used as part of a “smart” electric system, or just switched off if there are supply problems. Or did you think that “smart” meters had any other use?
Smart supply meters are part of the emergency planning to maintain grid balance: they can be remotely ordered off.
Smart meters are sold like smart phones; consumer technology that gives us undreamt of personal advantages in the form of what I term ‘effortless convenience’. In fact it is in each case a technology devided to provide a device that seems to be our servant, but it is actually supplied principally to facilitate access to our data (smart phone), or behaviour (smart meter); or both.
I keep warning of this critical change and its dangerous implications; George Orwell’s Big Brother need no longer be a political tyrant. He has gone corporate. If you want to understand the issues read Shoshanna Zuboff, ‘The Age of Surveillance Captialism (2019)’; please!
The David Mackay analysis of the area required for renewables is flawed because he makes the assumption that the land cannot be used for dual purposes , when in reality land can be used for agriculture and wind turbines simultaneously. The University of Sussex carried out research a few years ago and concluded that the only viable reason for the governments support for new nuclear is to maintain the nuclear expertise required for nuclear weapons. This was discussed by the Public accounts committee into the damming report on the financing of Hinkley Point C in 2017.
Nuclear power is not compatible with renewables because renewables require additional generation to be flexible enough to spin up and down as needed to fill the gaps at times when the renewable sources are not sufficient. Nuclear power is inflexible.
If the £20 billion + was spent on insulating homes instead of Sizewell C, the power station would not be needed.
The figures that the government based the need for nuclear on are also deeply flawed. Their predictions for energy requirements are way off kilter, because the decision was made first that we should have nuclear , then the figures were found to justify that decision.
Alongside climate change , biodiversity is a major concern, and turning Sizewell, which is an area of outstanding beauty, a SSSI and Ramsar site with all manner of habitat protections, and which borders directly with the world renowned Minsmerebird reserve , into the biggest building site in Europe is a environmental crime of immense proportions.
Thanks
Appreciated
Nuclear power is baseload. Currently 6GW.
Dispatchable is gas. 27GW available.
That fills-in the gaps when wind isn’t there, or is so intermittent that it is not used.
Gas ramped up/down from 5GW to 17GW today, while wind was from 13GW to 8GW.
I suppose you could count biomass as baseload as well….2 GW.
I understand why you suggest that nuclear power is not extractive, however I think that it is incorrect to ignore the huge damage caused by the mining of uranium. Leach mining (as used in some parts of Australia) uses a precious resource and contaminates ground water , and traditional mining methods turns the rock with uranium ore to dust which renders it far more dangerous.
Why has there not been more concern expressed in this thread about from where the required electrical energy is going to come?
There is currently just enough generation available for the country’s needs. If we are to shift to electrically powered transport, a HUGE amount more green generation will be required.
It is not just generation either. It will give a major distribution problem also.
I could not find UK figures to justify my comment. But I did find an estimate that said 38% of USA energy is used in transport. If that is similar for UK it means that we may need over 2 1/2 times the current capacity in the next 2 decades.
So a few more windmills and solar panels?
Somebody needs to get real.
Aren’t we discussing this issue
Haven’t you noticed what Mike Parr, who is a real expert in this field, is saying?
Mike Parr,
Have you any comment on the probable need for more generation specifically to meet the demand from electric transport please?
I know that it will take some time to arrive fully.
There will be a 24/7-need for some transport, but I suppose that car and train rush hours will put a significant extra demand on the grid every day. Rush hours occur when the output from solar is reduced and is non-existent during the winter, so the need will have to be provided by stored electricity or base, won’t it? In winter if we have a series of calm grey days the stored electricity would be sorely tried, I expect.
I find it a bit difficult to believe that using people’s car batteries to provide storage would be an easy thing to arrange agreeably with the owners (though with smart meters I suppose they might not notice!). Who will pay the owners for the reduction in life for their batteries? I should be a bit disappointed to start my car in the morning, only to find that the grid had swiped my energy!
Norman,
I have one word for you:
Electric Greenhouses.
No C02 emitted.
No fossile fuel.
Massive Intensity of growth twenty four/three six five to counterbalance to C02 produced.
From the horses mouth (UK national grid)…
“the most demand for electricity we’ve had in recent years in the UK was for 62GW in 2002. Since then, due to improved energy efficiency such as the installation of solar panels, the nation’s peak demand has fallen by roughly 16 per cent. Even if the impossible happened and we all switched to EVs overnight, we think demand would only increase by around 10 per cent. So we’d still be using less power as a nation than we did in 2002 and this is well within the range of manageable load fluctuation.”
https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/5-myths-about-electric-vehicles-busted
100% EVs in UK = Easy peasy!
Apologies for the slow response. Most of the work I am doing is focused on the EU, not the UK. If we look at EU overall energy demand (everything: elec, fossil, hydro the lot — total energy demand) it amounts to around 16,000TWh. Energy efficiency actions (such building thermal renovation and heat electrification & EVs) will drive this down to circa 10 — 12,000TWh. The EU’s Joint Research Centre produced a report in 2018 which analysed wind potential in the EU (including the UK). Very roughly 24,000TWh. Given that this does not include: hydro, PV, biomass, one concludes that the EU (& by extension the UK) has no shortage of renewable resource. There is a colossal resource and one which will not run out.
With respect to: how fast can we build it?: the Dutch off-shore wind farm Borsele 1 & 2 (750MW) has just commissioned. Building it, foundations, cables, etc etc was started Jan 1st 2020 and finished end-Oct 2020. — this was done in the midst of a Covid pandemic. Key point: renewables can be built very very quickly and at large scale. The reason they are not is due to the fart-around on planning etc etc imposed by the politicos. Off-shore could scale up to 10GW -20GW per year, more vessels, more factories, more employment, what’s not to like.
PV will hit levelised costs of €15/MWh next year is the Med’ region (already has in Portugal). This will drive production of green hydrogen — that will be cheaper than hydrogen from natural gas — much cheaper. Note that the €15/MWh LCOE assumes no subsidies. Moving back to off-shore, Dogger Bank A,B,C (3.6GW) will probably deliver elec at around about €35/MWh (& yes I know the CfD is somewhat different) — this still puts H2 from such electricity lower than that from SMR-CCS.
As for EVs, state-of-charge (SoC) of the battery circa 95% – you can use around 10% without impacting the life of the battery. So you can move it up and down (85 — 95 and back again) with little or no impact. But this is trivial stuff and the big action will be using electrolysers as deterministic load to replace the deterministic generation (mostly fossil) that is being lost. Impact of EVs on demand? 9kWh/vehicle/day, 20 million vehicles so 180GWh/day. UK current elec demand circa 360TWh = 1TWh/day. So 20ish% rise. Not a big deal in the context of the need to build renewables out to decarb industry via the H2 route.
Finishing on nuclear: the Uk and its erm… inhabitants (subjects? serfs? peasants?) are being taken for a nuclear ride by a construction industry that is a significant toryscum party doner. Fine. But I do not recall any vote or any discussion along the lines of: “well it costs £100/MWh for nuclear and £50/MWh for off-shore wind — which would you prefer” . It is all quite sad really.
Agreed. The last especially. The rest I believe
Thank you, Mike Parr. It is very nice to have those convincing figures.
I realised, after posting, that my comment on rush hours was rather silly, as cars ready for rush hour must obviously be already charged!
It will be convenient, though, to have windy winters. I am not the least impressed with the winter amounts generated by my small (1kW) EV panels – often 0.01kWh per day. No doubt our panels, on this small estate, were installed to tick planning boxes. Every little helps as the old lady said…………
Thanks Norman
And respect for admitting an error
Thanks Mike,
Replacing 20 million fossil fuel vehicles with 20 million EVs is not the way to go. EVs for sure, but revolutionary changes are afoot. Such as the ’15 minute neighborhood’ (as is happening in Paris and Barcelona) will reduce demand hugely. Of course such demand reduction goes without saying in a climate emergency. If only the ‘politicos’ stopped farting around!
Really enjoyed the debate on nuclear.
On reflection, I can’t get over the irrasposability of leaving the waste products for future generations to deal with.
They will have the expense of safely managing the waste, but without ever benefiting from it’s creation.
I think the debate about nuclear’s role in tackling climate changes, has been and gone.
If we need them, we need them NOW, not in 15 years time. It will come too late to safe us.
The money would be better spent elsewhere, where the results will be felt right now!
I spent a summer in a huge concrete below ground level storage bunker alongside the then recently built Somerset – by – sea nuclear power station. It was intended to accommodate low level contaminated material for thousands of years but when the adjacent tide rose the walls became damp. My job was to seal pin-prick holes with polyfilla prior to a 2 pack paint being applied. The contractors might have been called Cnut for all I knew. I presume the bunkers have never been used as intended. This simple experience has reinforced my doubts about nuclear past present and future.
I agree with this: “If we need them, we need them NOW, not in 15 years time. It will come too late to safe us.
The money would be better spent elsewhere, where the results will be felt right now!”
Hinkley is already behind schedule (we were supposed to be cooking our Christmas dinners on the back of Hinkley C by now.)
I think Olkiluoto is 13 years behind, Flamanville 8 years behind . High levels of wind solar and insulation could be achieved in the 15 years in which Sizewell C would make no contribution to the carbon reduction that is needed now, and will instead emit tonnes of CO2 through the build.