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DSL at 02:25 AM on 3 October 2014Arctic sea ice has recovered
jetfuel, you're cracking me up. You toss out 2012 but don't toss out 2007 for similar reasons. Why? Because if you did, you'd have no "recovery" claim. Instead, the long-term decline would be even more obvious, and 2013 would look like a normal year in that long-term trend. Your logic is identical to the "no warming since 1998" logic, and it's just as goofy.
I wonder: did you run the same analysis after 2007 and conclude that science had massively underestimated future sea ice loss and that the Arctic would be ice free at summer minimum within three years?
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ge556 at 02:24 AM on 3 October 2014Global warming: a battle for evangelical Christian hearts and minds
Thanks for the good article. Unfortunately, the end is cut off.
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Arctic sea ice has recovered
jetfuel - Let's see, insufficient data to establish trend significance (2-8 years, check)? Cherry-picking established.
Tamino had an interesting post in 2012, Sea Ice Forecasts, noting that Arctic ice extent statistics demonstrated a change in 2007 - with an amplified annual cycle, more year-to-year variation than before. This change persists today with yearly swings in extent averaging larger than previously observed. A reasonable understanding of this change is that the much reduced ice volume and thickness has made Arctic ice extents more susceptible to wind/weather effects than earlier, thicker ice.
Meanwhile, ice volume continues to decrease.
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Rob Honeycutt at 01:29 AM on 3 October 2014Arctic sea ice has recovered
jetfuel... Them's bettin' words! I'd put $100 on seeing a new Arctic sea ice minimum within the next 3-5 years.
Do you really not understand the difference between the two sides here, jetfuel? You're taking a small group of data points – isolated from any science – and are trying to extrapolate what you would prefer to see happen.
The other side is looking at science. We're looking at what's been happening over the past 150 years. We're looking at the changing radiative forcing of the planet. We're looking at interconnected climate systems with ocean/atmosphere/land/ice, and hundreds of other factors.
When you look at all these things combined you get exactly one answer relative to Arctic sea ice: It's going away and, at this point, there is nothing we can do about it. Even the oil companies know this and, in a very sad irony, are spending lots of money planning how to drill the Arctic ocean.
You can play around with Excell and make plots for what you want to believe, but it's wrong. There is functionally zero chance that Arctic sea ice is going to see a recovery to anything like we saw 20-30 years ago.
I would almost be willing to bet that we'll see initial ice free conditions (defined as <1M/km2) within the next ~5 years.
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jetfuel at 00:53 AM on 3 October 2014Arctic sea ice has recovered
per nsidc: "The multi-year ice in the Arctic Basin increased from 2.25 to 3.17 million square kilometers during the year.
Multi-year sea ice made up a total of 30% of the Arctic icepack the previous compared to 43% this winter." (2014)
Also from another nsidc article: "It was the sixth-lowest extent recorded since satellites began measuring sea ice in 1979. The number is above the 2012 record extent but is still below the long-term average. "
3.17M out of the 5.02M min for 2014 is 63% of remaining ice being multiyear ice. 3.17M of the 2014 max of 14.9m is 21.3% multiyear ice. The 7% number is stale news as of today. Out of the last ten years, only one year, 2006, had more min sea ice worth mentioning than 2014. Any trend line drawn for the last 2-8 years shows upward trend in Arctic minimums, if it accounts for 2012 as being an anomolous year due to rare wind storms that caused unusually high melting by pusing huge sections of sea ice south. Throw out that datapoint or bump it up to 4.4M and the trendline is unquestionably upward since summer of 2007. It appears as though we are headed more towards another 5.0M+ min next year, making it a 9 year upward trend in Arctic SI mins. At what point can we call this a turnaround? At what point do we stop being so confident that the Arctic will be seasonally ice free by 2030? Not when 8, going on 9 years are pointing the other way? My guess is that 9 years won't be enough to quiet the 2030ers.
Moderator Response:[JH] Future posts of this nature will be summarily deleted.
[PS] Jetfuel, you have had cherry-picking explained to you. You were invited to respond if you didnt understand. Your continued use of cherrypicking as an argument would imply either wilful ignorance or trolling. Moderator tolerance is at the end.
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jmdesp at 23:26 PM on 2 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
@sweet : Blame the victims for their death ? No, blaming the goverment for non-sense evacuation decision including the non-sense deliberate decision of ignoring the SPEEDI warning system data. Pregnant women and childs had very good reason for evacuation. Nobody else was encuring a radiation risk that really justified immediate evacuation, especially the elderly citizens that the governement sometimes pushed to suicide.
Early report indicate that the Hazelwell coal mine in Victoria, Australia has have had more direct impact on the population that Fukushima, with 11 direct and short term deaths suspected. Statistics on small particle pollution say the exposition suffered was highly dangerous, but nobody was evacuated. The trouble is here in the double standard.
The nuclear plant in St. Lucie and Turkey Point work very well, and save massive amount of carbon emission in Florida every year. The owners of Crystal River 3 made a stupid decision to try to save money, that ended up massively expensive for them. Tens of nuclear reactors have had their steam generators replaced without problem when the proper company with the corrrect knowledge was used. Meanwhile I know we can find many wind turbines where improper maintenance has resulted in catstrophic costly failure or fatal fires. The lesson here is not that you should abandon the technology but that incorrect maintenance fails really badly. -
CBDunkerson at 22:40 PM on 2 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
sotolith7, your conclusions seem based on 'facts' and 'logic' which aren't.
Germany - Carbon emissions have risen, though only slightly, in Germany because they are trying to quickly replace nuclear power. Claiming this as a "real life example" of the inability of renewables to decrease CO2 emissions is patently false. Actual instances of using rapid renewable development to decrease carbon emissions (e.g. Hawaii, Spain) consistently show them succeeding at that goal. Once nuclear power in Germany is shut down any continued significant development of renewable power there will perforce lead to reductions in CO2 emissions.
Fukushima - Yes, most of the immediate deaths were caused by the evacuation (though more due to poor living conditions than 'panic') rather than radiation exposure. However, claiming this as evidence that there was no danger requires dismissal of any trace of logical thought. That is, had they not evacuated then there would have been more radiation deaths. Likewise, your claim of "zero" radiation related deaths in the future is unsupportable. Statistically significant increases in the incidence of thyroid cancer have already been detected in the surrounding areas.
The reckless management of the nuclear industry, leaving old plant designs running long after they should have been shut down, prevented it from ever becoming a major power source... and now any chance of that has passed because nuclear is simply too expensive. Why build nuclear when wind and solar power already cost considerably less... and costs are projected to continue declining rapidly for years? World nuclear power production peaked at 17.6% of total in 2006. Last year it was down to 10.8%. That decline has mostly been due to nuclear production being flat while global demand grew, but now total nuclear production is declining. Most of the active nuclear reactors in the world should have been shut down years ago, and very few new ones are being built. The industry is heading towards a rapid collapse.
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michael sweet at 20:04 PM on 2 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Sotolith7,
It is morally bankrupt for nuclear supporters to blame the victims for their deaths in the Fukashima and Chernobyl disasters. If you want me to support nuclear, and I used to, you must accept responsibility for your past problems. If you insist that it is other peoples fault that you killed them I will never believe that you are keeping safety first in mind. Disclamer: I have extensive radioactivity training. I worked with radioactivity for 4 years and have held a Curie of unshielded radiation in my hand.
Holding renewables responsible for the failure of nuclear power in Germany will not win you many converts. Nuclear failed on its own and renewables are taking up the slack left by that failure. You cannot expect renewables to take over immediately for a business that took decades to build.
I liive in Florida and the governmet here could not care less for environmental issues. Nuclear has failed here, at great cost to ratepayers, on its own legs. Blaming environmentalists will not help you to solve the problems with nuclear.
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Phil at 19:54 PM on 2 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
ubrew12 @4
I've often wondered why wave/tidal power was not more developed in the UK. I gather (sorry no reference) that tidal/wave presents a challenge due to the complexity of the wave motion. However there is some glimmering hope
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sotolith7 at 16:31 PM on 2 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
The arguments on how good renewables are mitigating CO2 are indeed technically not straightforward. It may be useful to take a real-life example, and look at the major industrial country that's gone furthest down the renewable road: Germany. Its CO2 emissions have continued to rise during 2012 and 2013 and it's not meeting it's Kyoto goals:
http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/klimaziele110.html
while burning of coal (often lignite) has risen to levels not seen for 20 years:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24914#.VCzuY-U_rmEThose who refer to Fukushima ought to be candid about how many people have died or will die because of radiation: zero. Virtually all of the casualties were caused by the panicky reaction. Even Chernobyl is vastly exaggerated: the number of directly attributable deaths is less than 100 (virtually all firefighters or technical emergency workers).
Of course there's a lot of political careers based on fostering hysteria - see the success of the greens in Germany.
For the facts :
http://www.radiationandreason.com/index.php?biography -
Rob Honeycutt at 11:27 AM on 2 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Ingvar... In other words, you can't just make up your own version of science. You have to dig in a learn the science.
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ed leaver at 11:05 AM on 2 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Hi Ingvar! You seem to have come to the right site! Welcome, and please feel free to avail yourselves of Skeptical Science's resources, e.g. Explaining how the water vapor greenhouse effect works!
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Ingvar at 10:36 AM on 2 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
I noticed that gas is higher on the generating table. Natural gas produces twice the amount of water vapour than carbon dioxide. Water vapour is the main contributor to weather and is the 'dangerous' greenhouse gas. Because scientists cannot establish the water vapour conontent in the air at any time, any temperature, the most important gas for the human existence on the planet is ignored. But not only that scientists, deniers, politicians and other fools don't seem to know the difference between weather and climate.
Climate is the average of past weather as recorded faithfully by the humble thermometer. In that airmix water vapour content could be anything up to 4% - or 40,000 ppm. To even suggest that carbon dioxide has a major impact on weather or climate (a desk figure) is fooling himself.
Moderator Response:[PS] Please acquaint yourself with the comments policy on this site. Note particularly the rules concerning sloganeering and commenting on topic. You can use the search function on the top left to find appropriate threads. You might want to look at "Water is the most powerful greenhouse" for starters. You might also like to look up the formal definition of climate as per WMO. When scientists talk about "climate", this is the definition that is understood. If you wish to debate the science, then do so with backing from data and/or references, preferrably peer-reviewed. Unsupported repetition of long-debunked myths will simply be deleted.
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ed leaver at 09:00 AM on 2 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Thanks cosmicomic. I think I already posted a cost comparison of wind+caes vs new foak nuclear at VC Summer and Vogtle. These plants include cooling towers, as do many others including coal.
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cosmicomics at 08:35 AM on 2 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Ed Leaver –
No one is claiming that wind energy alone is the solution. Wind and solar are complementary technologies. Wind is strongest during winter and when the sun isn't at its highest. The sun is strongest during summer and the hours around noon. Solar is strongest during peak consumption hours, and that's why it's seen as a threat to utilities. It cuts into their greatest period of profitability. There are other kinds of renewable energy that can supplement wind and solar, and that can provide power when those sources are insufficient: geothermal, hydro, biomass and biogas. There are storage systems such as pumped hydro and compressed air. The collaboration between Denmark and Norway benefits both countries, and a grid based on a diversity of renewables is doable, and a number of energy plans based solely on renewables have been developed by extremely competent experts.
We agree that, because of climate change, we have to get away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible. My view is that nuclear energy will not enable us to do that. It takes approximately 9.4 years to construct a new plant after it has been designed and the plans have been accepted by the relevant authorities. Construction is beset with delays and cost overruns (Vogtle, Olkiluoto 3) and the power would not be available when it's needed. Moreover, there's the very relevant question of whether nuclear is a suitable technology for a world undergoing warming and subject to more intense heat waves, droughts, and floods:
“Unlike power plants fired by coal and natural gas, nuclear fission produces no carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas.
But there is a less well-known side of nuclear power: It requires great amounts of cool water to keep reactors operating at safe temperatures. That is worrying if the rivers and reservoirs which many power plants rely on for water are hot or depleted because of steadily rising air temperatures.
If temperatures soar above average this summer - let alone steadily increase in years to come, as many scientists predict - many nuclear plants could face a dilemma: Either cut output or break environmental rules...
'We're going to have to solve the climate-change problem if we're going to have nuclear power, not the other way around,' said David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer who is with the Union of Concerned Scientists.
'As the climate warms up, nuclear power plants are less able to deliver,' he said...
During the extreme heat of 2003 in France, 17 nuclear reactors operated at reduced capacity or were turned off. Électricité de France was forced to buy power from neighboring countries on the open market, where demand drove the price of a megawatt hour as high as €1,000, or $1,350. Average prices in France during summer months ordinarily are about €95 per megawatt hour.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/health/20iht-nuke.1.5788480.html?pagewanted=all
For more, see:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028138.200-the-climate-change-threat-to-nuclear- power.html?full=true
https://www.citizen.org/documents/HotNukesFactsheet.pdf
The problems can be mitigated, but at a cost that makes nuclear less economic than it already is. Please see:www.worldnuclearreport.org/IMG/pdf/20130716msc-worldnuclearreport2013-lr-v4.pdf
pp.7-8
and
https://will.illinois.edu/nfs/RenaissanceinReverse7.18.2013.pdf
(A 2014 version of the nuclear report is available, but I haven't read it yet.)
Moderator Response:[RH] You're probably going to end up with the same problem as before if you just hot link the entire URL. The problem is that sometimes a URL gets read as one very long word, and thus breaks the page formatting. Better to type a short phrase or the word "LINK" and then hot link that phrase or word.
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ed leaver at 08:03 AM on 2 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
cosmicomics, when preparing a comment the text opens in "Basic" tab. When you want to inclue a URL, click "Insert", then click the little lchain-link icon that says "Insert/edit link" when you mouse over it. An "Insert" widget will pop up. Paste your link's URL into the "Link URL" field, and its title into the "Link text" field. Works great!
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cosmicomics at 07:32 AM on 2 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Dear Moderator,
I don't understand how my comment 29 reappeared as comment 31. Please delete whichever you prefer. I don't know what a hot link is and I'm not familiar with your commenting options – Insert, Source – but I'll try to figure them out.
Moderator Response:[RH] Above the text box where you type your comment, there are some tabs. Look through those tabs and find the icon that looks like a chain. Select a segment of text to link, then click the chain icon. Enter the website address into the box that pops up.
Hope that helps.
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ed leaver at 06:45 AM on 2 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Thanks cosmicomics, that was quite a breath of fresh air! I don't think many of us nuclear advocates deny the benefits of wind, particularly over the critical next few decades. But we do need recognize that 80% overall reduction of society's carbon emissions will require essentially 100% elimination from stationary sources, electric generation in particular, reliably and at reasonable cost. We must plan in advance for that eventuality, and wind and solar cannot possibly do it on their own.
Denmark is no different. The Danes might generate an amount of electricity from wind same as the amount of electricity they consume, and that will be well and good. But Denmark is not isolated, an island unto itself, but rather is at the crossroads of major interconnects between Norway, Sweden, and Germany. Denmark's wind is buffered by Norse hydro, Swedish hydro and nuclear, and German coal.
Speaking of which, today Germany burns more lignite than at any time since 1990, and Denmark still relies upon it. Doesn't mean Danish wind is bad, or German for that matter. Only that someone has lost focus on the ultimate goal.
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sidd at 06:07 AM on 2 October 2014New and Improved Ice Loss Estimates for Polar Ice Sheets
If I may add some recent references:Bouman(2014) doi:10.1002/2014GL060637Velicogna(2014) doi:10.1002/2014GL061052
1)"Overall, in Greenland, SMB has contributed 68% of the GRACE-derived mass loss (-180±33 Gt/yr versus a total loss of -265±59 Gt/yr) and 79% of the observed acceleration (23.3±4.7 Gt/yr2 versus a total acceleration of 29.7±1.3 Gt/yr2 ) during 2003-2012."
Agrees with Enderlin(2014) doi:10.1002/2013GL059010 in that SMB dominates linear term, but they have shown it dominates quadrature (acceleration) term as well. Interesting that they see little regional acceleration in NEGIS, contrary to Khan(2014) doi:10.1038/nclimate2161
2)Amundsen sea sector they get -116+/-6GT/yr for the period 2003-2013 agrees with Bouman(2014) within error for the time period in Bouman(2014). Acceleration is significant at 12.7+/- 1.6 GT/yr. Bouman(2014), interestingly, sees significant loss from Getz as well as in PIG/THW, but Velicogna(2014) does not resolve so finely.
3)"The signal from the Canadian GIC, which was removed from the Greenland signal, corresponds to a mass loss of 74±7 Gt/yr with an acceleration in loss of 10±2 Gt/yr2 ."
Both are very nice papers.sidd
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ed leaver at 05:42 AM on 2 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
"We need to add the costs that TMI, Chernobyl, and now Fukushima have incurred and more to nearly every single nuclear facility in the world if we want anything close to an honest accounting of the probably costs of these things".
That is an oversimplification. For one, we first need accurately assess what the true costs of each of these were, why they accrued, what we and reactor designers have learned from them, and the actual likelihood of their reoccurrance. Western insurors, for example, do not include Chernobyl in their risk analysis precisely because the industry _is_ regulated and that particular Soviet RMBK-1000 reactor design could never have been approved at any time by any Western regulatory agency.
TMI killed or injured no one. It was indeed a public-relations disaster and the reactor itself will take decades more to clean up. Time there is on our side. TMI also gave a large impetus to both improve existing reactors of that era, upgrade their safety and control systems — no, Japan didn't really get the message — and prepare the passively safe Gen III+ designs — AP1000, APR1400, ESBWR and VVER-1200 for example — currently being deployed in Europe, China, the U.S, Russia, Korea, and tomorrow the world. Regulatory changes were also made, as miscommunication from NRC made a significant contribution.
Again, it must be stressed that for all its cost and dislocation, Fukushima radiation killed or injured no one directly, and is unlikely to do so. Indirectly, from fear and dislocation stress, is another matter, and there's much debate whether Japan's massive and extended evacuation was really necessary. Some did prove to be, and Prime Minister Kan was under a bit of stress himself at the time he made those decisions so I'm not criticizing. But looking forward we owe it to ourselves to educate ourselves about the true hazards of radiation on the levels dispersed at Fukushima, and how to minimize the panic should a similar situation ever again arise.
Which might be _possible_ but is by no means given. Engineers do learn from these things, do act accordingly,. and do get support from regulators and politicians. Given the carbon crises, we owe it to ourselves and our children to learn likewise.
Yes accidents do happen, in all human endeavor. Electricity itself is dangerous, but its continued use must be weighed against the dangers of discontinuing its use, On a deaths per TWh basis commerical nuclear generation has proved itself statistically safer than any other power source: 35 times safer than hydro and four times wind. That's including what will probably prove a highly inflated 4,000 from Chernobyl and does not include deaths from the hydro and fossils used to regularize wind. Further discussion and references at Risk in Perspective: Power-related Safety by Energy Source (brief), Gen III+ LIght-Water Reactor Designs (also brief), and Safety of Nuclear Power Reactors. Not to get controversial, but some misuderstandings concerning radiation are discussed by Cuttler and Pollycove in Nuclear Energy and Health. The U.S. National Academy of Science is taking these (and other) concerns seriously enough to convene of a new Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation VIII comittee to look into them. Just don't expect conclusions overnight.
In the U.S. nuclear plant decommissioning costs are set aside over the lifetime of plant operation. Decommissioning adds about 0.5 cent/kWh to electricity price, fuel cost about 0.1 cent. Final disposition of lightly-used nuclear fuel is not a geological or technical issue. In the U.S. it is a purely political can of worms we have chosen to kick down the road. NRC has recently determined we are safe to do so, probably indefinitely. Unlike carbon dioxide, the probem opportunity will have resolved itself well before then, unless we decide to avail ourselves sooner.
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cosmicomics at 05:15 AM on 2 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
keithpickering maintains that the cost of wind energy hasn't fallen and that “the learning curve for wind has hit bottom and bounced.” What he's neglected to do is supply some context that can explain the cost increase. At the same time he pays little attention to the undeniable fact that prices have fallen steeply in recent years, and that there's no reason to believe that this won't continue:
“After hitting a low of roughly $750/kW from 2000 to 2002, average wind turbine prices increased by approximately $800/kW (more than 100%) through 2008, rising to an average of more than $1,500/kW. The increase in turbine prices over this period was caused by several factors, including a decline in the value of the U.S. dollar relative to the Euro; increased materials, energy, and labor input prices; a general increase in turbine manufacturer profitability due in part to strong demand growth and turbine and component supply shortages; increased costs for turbine warranty provisions; and an up-scaling of turbine size, including hub height and rotor diameter (Bolinger and Wiser 2011).
Since 2008, wind turbine prices have declined substantially, reflecting a reversal of some of the previously mentioned underlying trends that had earlier pushed prices higher as well as increased competition among manufacturers and significant cost-cutting measures on the part of turbine and component suppliers. As shown in Figure 38, our limited sample of recently announced U.S. turbine transactions shows pricing in the $900–$1,300/kW range. Bloomberg NEF (2014b) reports global average pricing for the most-recent contracts of approximately $1,000/kW for older turbine models and $1,300/kW for newer turbine models that feature larger rotors. Data on average global pricing from Vestas largely confirm these pricing points.
Overall, these figures suggest price declines of 20%–40% since late 2008. Moreover, these declines have been coupled with improved turbine technology (e.g., the recent growth in average hub heights and rotor diameters shown in Chapter 4) and more-favorable terms for turbine purchasers (e.g., reduced turbine delivery lead times and less need for large frame-agreement orders, longer initial O&M contract durations, improved warranty terms, and more-stringent performance guarantees). These price reductions and improved terms have exerted downward pressure on total project costs and wind power prices, whereas increased rotor diameters and hub heights are improving capacity factors and further reducing wind power prices.
LINK pp.59-60“Skyrocketing demand, downward trending prices
Since the beginning of 2008, wind power capacity has more than tripled in the U.S. This has happened despite a jump in wind turbine costs from 2001 to 2009. But that rise in turbine prices is, in some senses, misleading. The cost to install the same sized turbine, in an area with the same level of wind resource has gone down. However, as more of the prime real estate for building wind farms – windy terrain near power lines and big cities – is populated by wind turbines, developers have moved to areas that are farther away from population centers and power lines, or have lower wind quality. To compensate for lower wind speeds, many turbines are manufactured with bigger blades – to catch more wind. These bigger blades are more expensive, and this increase in costs was accentuated by the steep climb in commodity prices (e.g. steel and oil) from 2004-2008. But as commodity prices have receded, the average cost of new wind power has also started to recede, and deployment of wind turbines has skyrocketed. In 2012, the U.S. deployed almost twice as much wind as it did in 2011. In fact, wind accounted for 43% of new electrical generation capacity in the U.S. – more than any other source.”
http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2013/09/f2/200130917-revolution-now.pdf p.3“We expect the competiveness (sic) of wind power to increase further due to cost reductions and increases in efficiency. Our analysis is that, by 2020, wind power will be competitive with gas-fired power at a natural gas price of roughly ~$1/MMBtu less than today. For the U.S., for example, this means that wind power will be competitive with gas-fired power for a natural gas price of under $6/MMBtu.”
LINK p.53Finally, in real life some American states have found that wind is the the preferable alternative:
“Today, Minnesota gets more of its power from wind than all but four other states, and the amount of coal burned at power plants has dropped by more than a third from its 2003 peak.”
“ 'We’re adding 750 megawatts of wind in the next couple of years, and we’re getting that for a price that’s below the competing alternatives,' said Frank Prager, the vice president for environmental policy at Xcel Energy.
Bill Grant, the deputy commissioner of Minnesota’s Commerce Department, said he believed that the federal tax credit for wind-energy projects was increasingly irrelevant. 'My hunch is, given prices right now, we’d be building wind with or without the subsidy,' he said.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/18/us/politics/without-much-straining-minnesota-reins-in-
its-utilities-carbon-emissions.html?ref=todayspaperModerator Response:[RH] Hot linked URL that was breaking page format. Please try to use the link tool in the tools menu above the text box.
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sidd at 05:12 AM on 2 October 2014It hasn't warmed since 1998
"I'd guess the main problem with the theory is how such a diversion would work in practice"I can think of one. Rain. The objection would be that we don't, as far as I am aware, see more rain yet on the ice. Yet.
sidd
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Cooper13 at 05:06 AM on 2 October 2014New and Improved Ice Loss Estimates for Polar Ice Sheets
Are land-ice losses in Antarctica possibly linked with the Antarctic sea-ice gains that have been reported this year (and exploited by blogs to confound the massive ice retreats in the Arctic)?
Specifically, is all of the freshwater runoff and possible ocean-layering of saltwater/freshwater in the Antarctic leading to lower salinity in the upper few meters of the surrounding oceans, enabling easier freezing of the fresher water, and thus the 'record sea ice coverage' in Antarctica?
I recall that recent ocean currents are one explanation, but curious if the land-ice losses and dilution of the ocean salinity around Antarctica is another possible cause/explanation. If so (and it makes sense from a basic chemistry perspective), this would be another signature of significant/continuing land-ice loss and the increased sea-ice coverage around the Antarctic regions is not related to a 'cooling climate', it's the result of easier freezing of the waters by a warming climate....then the sea-ice increase is partly the lost land-ice before it fully intermixes in with the rest of the ocean....
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cosmicomics at 04:48 AM on 2 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Re. wind energy in Denmark:
In the first six months of this year Denmark got 41.2% of its electricity from wind. In January the figure was 61.7%. This in itself disproves the often heard argument that grids can only accommodate small amounts of electricity from intermittent sources.
http://ing.dk/artikel/rekord-vindmoeller-leverede-412-pct-af-danskernes-elforbrug-i-foerste-halvaar-170541
The Danish Energy Agency recently found that onshore wind was the cheapest way for Denmark to generate additional electricity.
http://www.ens.dk/info/nyheder/nyhedsarkiv/ny-analyse-vind-billigst
A good number of Danish turbines have been replaced as a result of a government program to reduce the number of small (old) turbines and replace them with larger ones, thus increasing efficiency and power production, and diminishing the number of turbines spread over the Danish landscape.
Rather than indicating that turbines wear out after 20 years, the program underlines the flexibility and scalability of wind energy. It also indicates that improvements in wind technology are so significant, that they justify this kind of program, which has been renewed by governments of both the left and right.
http://www.dkvind.dk/fakta/P11.pdf
The turbines that have been installed since 2008 are 50% more productive than those that were installed before. In 1998 and 2013 the number of turbines was essentially the same, but in 2013 the turbines produced approximately four times as much electricity. By the end of August this year, more than 3 times as much. The goal is to increase wind energy's contribution to 50% by 2020 and to become fossil fuel free by 2050.
http://ing.dk/artikel/laengere-vinger-og-hoejere-vindmoeller-oeger-energiudbyttet-med-50-pct-170944
http://www.ens.dk/info/tal-kort/statistik-noegletal/oversigt-energisektoren/stamdataregister-vindmoller Oversigtstabel_Vindkraft.xls - ult. august 2014 (uploaded 23/9-2014) -
MA Rodger at 03:10 AM on 2 October 2014It hasn't warmed since 1998
Richard Hampton @288.
There certainly is a conicidence. 2007 was the year the global temperatures started showing signs of a pause and it was also the first starting melt year for Arctic Sea Ice. And the energy fluxes are not dissimilar in size (although as ice loss continues to accelerate that equivalence will fail). Yet reasons for the 'pause' proposed by the climatologists, which are quite far reaching, to date don't include a diversion of heat from atmospheric warming to ice melting. I'd guess the main problem with the theory is how such a diversion would work in practice. And the 'pause' has symptoms that date back before 2007. So the changes in rate of surface warming and ice loss remain solely a coincidence.
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wili at 03:00 AM on 2 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Ashton wrote: "If "enormous cuts are needed now to our carbon emissions" why not champion the use of hybrid cars or significant increases in taxes on petrol and diesel or banning driving more than, say, 200 Km per week or moving to rail to transport goods and cutting truck numbers by 50%? "
Since it quotes me, I assume this is addressed to me. And the answer is that I have and I do advocate things like this and many more. Why would you assume otherwise. And many businesses do in fact already manage their electricity use in cooperation with utilities, and many more could do so with the right incentives...
ZK has it right. We need to add the costs that TMI, Chernobyl, and now Fukushima have incurred and more to nearly every single nuclear facility in the world if we want anything close to an honest accounting of the probably costs of these things.
Given the vagaries of history and the propensities of individual and collective humans toward folly of various sorts, we must expect that every plant in the world, unless thoroughly decommissioned (and how much will _that_ cost??!!) will eventually go Fuku or worse.
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MA Rodger at 02:54 AM on 2 October 2014Your questions on climate sensitivity answered
Tom Curtis @21.
Yes. I did remember. Bear in mind I am using Gregory et al. Figure 1 numbers to provide ΔQ at both ends of the period, my thinking being, if Gregory et al. is good enough for 1881, its good enough also for 2000.
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ZincKidd at 01:29 AM on 2 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Why is it the supposed "costs" of nuclear power consistently ignore the long term environmental costs? And given its safety record and associated risks, every few decades you should factor in the cost of a Chernobyl or Fukushima. In addition, we're talking about a technology that is often designed to operate at sea level, and I shouldn't have to remind anyone on this site what is happening with that...
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How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Ashton - A significant carbon tax would immediately act to reduct carbon emissions and change the economic landscape against fossil fuel power, in a much more organic and market responsive manner than mandates or driving bans.
Some notes here for the general topic:
- The article in the OP regards a power shortfall of about a week. At that time the wind sourced power was at a low point, not surprising as variability of renewable power only decreases with larger geographic spreads, and the UK is quite frankly small enough for a single weather pattern to have a large influence on renewable power levels.
- A week is far to short a time period to build new power plants (doh!), and the UK marker clearly went for what they had available - coal.
- There will be supplemental needs for any power system, nuclear or renewable or mixed - recent work looking at US regional grids estimated FF backup for peak times and low renewable availability were on the order of a only few percent of total grid energy. And in this case coal was apparently the less expensive option.
But this was a short-term balance issue of about a week! None of this really addresses longer term issues with renewables vs. nuclear, however, nor the general issues with the grid that are involved. As the UK moves away from fossil fuels, given it's small size, it will either have to tie into a greater European energy grid with more widely distributed renewables to maintain baseload needs, and/or build a lot of nukes. That's a geographic and economic limitation, though, not a technical one - if tied into a greater European and possibly North African grid there's plenty of potential power available.
The regulatory environment is indeed one of the limiting factors on nuclear power, that could and should certainly be streamlined. But I really have to point out that there are some environmental isses to be considered, not the least of which is waste handling, and that many of the regulations have solid reasons behind them. Much as we prevent dumping industrial waste into the water supply, no major industrial endeavor including nuclear power should be regulation-free.
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Lastly: Should we, IMO, have more nuclear power plants? Yes. We should also have more renewables, better energy efficiency, carbon taxes, and all the other wedges that can be applied to reduce CO2 emissions. No single approach will do everything.
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Jonas at 23:16 PM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
CCS from gas plants in combination with power to gas might be an inefficient but feasible way to store electric energy: advantage: it may use existing storage capacities and is versatile (use gas for electricity or heating, ...): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_to_gas
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A little off topic, but fit's into replacement debate:
this discussion here - like so many - sounds like: how can we replace all we have today by renewables. My answer: we cannot. We rich have to downsize considerably, whether we want or not, whether we call it loss or new quality of life. Our children will have to downsize anyway, so it boils down to the one question: do we currently rich people sacrifice a significant part of "our" material wealth? Of course, we will need renewables, then, as well; see Fukushima: the danger lies not only in the burning core, but in the waste, which permanently needs to be cooled and stored savely for many hundreds of generations; also, uranium is a finite resource too).
I personally prefer to have less and limit climate change and at the same time limit nuclear waste: I live in Germany, have no car, do not fly, heat very little, have no refrigerator and air conditioning, only have cold showers, eat very little animal products, eat mostly unrefined regional and organic food and have a vegetable garden, but still my CO2/ecological footprint is still much too high: single room apartement (globally seen, this is a palace ...), washing machine, electrical light, personal computer, smartphone, small music device, CDs, books, stuff, stuff, stuff, coffee/tea, cashew nuts, ... There's much more to be changed in my life.
I fear that we humans will indeed try to limit climate change, but only as it more and more hurts even the richer/powerful parts of the world (too late) and then hastily look for more or less complete replacements of our unsustainable way of life and destroy the world as we know it by a mixture of uncontrollable climate change and wide spread ecological destruction though nuclear waste radiation, deforestation and soil degradation for "bio" fuels, wars for water, oil, uranium, litium for batteries, ... resources (all generators need water for cooling ...), ... And all that, because we deny the inevitable and try to avoid the necessary changes.
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Ashton at 19:59 PM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
If "enormous cuts are needed now to our carbon emissions" why not champion the use of hybrid cars or significant increases in taxes on petrol and diesel or banning driving more than, say, 200 Km per week or moving to rail to transport goods and cutting truck numbers by 50%? Surely that is intelligently managing consumption rather than relying on alternative and erratic, sources of power supply. If you run a business one of the necessities at least in the developed world, is a constant and reliable supply of energy. It has been pointed out that NZ energy comes from renewables and that is true. But the NZ government many years before the current focus on climate change/global warming developed its power sources based on its natural resources as do many other countries. NZ is fortunate in that respect to be able to use hydro and geothermal sources of power supply. As for depending on fossil fuel, Australia has enough coal for the next 600 years and as has been dramatically shown in the US, tapping into less accessible sources of oil is clearly an avenue that will extend fossil fuel recovery and use.
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wili at 19:26 PM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
I agree with michael that "nuclear discussions are a waste of time and clutter up the comments board" so I hope we don't have a lot more of the same here. This 'study' does seem fatally flawed from the beginning. Obviously, a temporary shut down of a few facilities is going to be different than a planned conversion of an entire energy sector.
And of course, in the absense of a high carbon tax or some even more rigorous regulatory structure, and in the presence of an eternal-growth economic model, no source, nuke or otherwise, is likely to dislodge fossil-fuels from their place of dominance.
As the article mentions toward the end, intelligently managing consumption can play a major role in incorporating more renewables, as more and better storage systems are developed.
The main thing is that nukes just can't be ramped up quickly enough (not to mention cheaply enough or safely enough) to offset the enormous cuts needed _now_ to our carbon emissions.
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BojanD at 18:36 PM on 1 October 20142014 SkS Weekly Digest #39
To moderator:
Since you're taking Russ seriously, may I suggest that all cartoons showing a man in an ostrich-like position are not to be tolerated since you can't possibly breathe with your head in the sand. -
scaddenp at 18:18 PM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
"No matter how many peer reviewed papers cite the advantages and blessings of wind power, the UK governemnt clearly showed what it thought of peer review when it burnt fossil fuels to replace energy from nuclear powered sources rather than rely on wind power."
Democratic government care what voters think, not what scientists think and if voters prefer denial, then so will governments. Governments struggle to tackle problems that require long term thinking, especially if costs can be counted to the next generation. Even without climate change, countries cannot depend on fossil fuel indefinitely so a transition to something else is required. The science is telling you do it quicker.
"I can think of no government that would jeopardise its citizen's access to cheap and most importantly reliable, power by turning to renewables as its major supply source." Think again and try mine - New Zealand. Admittedly, low population compared to UK and abundant renewables help. I think UK needs nuclear.
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jpjmarti at 16:42 PM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Since Michael mentioned the Lazard "report" , I think it is worth pointing out that their best case wind power costs we computed by assuming a capacity factor of 52%. Their worst case numbers assumed a capacity factor of 30%. Given that the US average is around 30% and EU average somewhere between 20% and 25% (in Germany less than 20%), this seems quite generous. In computing abatement costs with wind power they assumed 52% capacity factor. (In the past Lazard seems to have subtracted subsidies from the costs and then cited this figure as the cost of wind power. It seems that this year they have refrained from this practice.) Finally they choose to plot their estimated costs for wind power starting from 2009...which conventiently leaves out the pronounced cost increases between 2004-2009.
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ed leaver at 15:37 PM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Michael,
Your specific question to Keith was "Where is the utility scale nuclear plant that can load follow?" We have provided such. We provided working everyday examples in France, Canada, and the U.S. Contrary to your assertion, they do not "theoretically follow load a little." They follow in practice, daily, and by fairly substantial amounts. For those interested, nuclear load following technology and limitations is well described in the links I provided.
Your "data" does not support your argument, as unsubsidized wind at $37 - $81/kWh does not provide dispatchable baseload power, as provided by nuclear and coal. Your Lazard reference is written purely for investors seeking to make short-term profit on the margin of peak energy demand and production, low renewable penetration and established variable load gas. It says nothing about what is best long-term economic and environmental policy for the country, or for the world. Short-term marginal utility is not the same as long-term value.
For today's economics, at 0.10 EUR/kWh French consumer electric prices are the lowest in Western Europe, her industrial prices are bested only by Finland (33% nuclear, 24% hydro, 15% biofuel). See Eurostat: Energy Price Statistics. Whether state-owned EDF is anti-competitive is an issue one may take up with the EU authorities. I suspect many EU countires have similar arrangements, but certainly not all. In any event EU has well-established legal mechanism to handle complaints.
Closer to home, Ontario boasts the highest industrial electricity rates in North America. Not because it today generates 70% nuclear, 23% hydro, and only 2% wind (Canadian Energy Issues), but rather because those 2% wind were deployed without apparent consideration for costs vs benefit: Ontario’s Power Trip: Irrational energy planning has tripled power rates. Its not that wind cannot be of economic benefit, particularly at these low penetration levels. But it is a capital-intensive, inherently unreliable resource, that requires a modicum of advance planning.
Careful advance planning. Here in my backyard we've recently seen plans to build a new 2.1 GW $4 billion windfarm in Chugwater Wyoming, a 1.2 GW, 60 GWh $1.5 billion CAES system in Delta, Utah, and a $2.6 billion transmission line to connect them. The finished product will ship from Delta to California via existing lines. See Renewable Energy Plan Hinges on Huge Utah Caverns. Expected wind capacity factor at Chugwater is not reported, so I'll assume 43%. 2.1 GW * 35% = 900 GW average production. Assuming an 85% one-way CAES efficiency, the CAES system can store 900 GW for 2.4 completely calm days, reasonable given fossil backup. Excluding that backup, that's $8.1 billion for 900 GW of fairly reliable power, or $9 billion / fairly reliable GW.
Back in your backyard, Southern and SCG&E were planning on $5 billion/GW for new AP1000 at Vogtle and VC Summer. But these are first-of-a-kind and there has been manufacturing delays for some critical components, so these costs will rise, apparently to perhaps $7 billion per plant (Delays and more costs for Plant Vogtle). But even $7 billion nuclear is substantaily less than $9 billion wind, and includes cost of backup in its capacity factor (assumed 90%). We shall see: final tabs are TBD.
Load following is a related issue. My $9 billion wind vs. $7 billion nuclear estimate assumed baseload generation, but at 1.2 GW CAES capacity and 900 GW average wind capacity, the wind planners are obviously counting to supply at least some variable load as well. Further, the cited article isn't clear the CAES was only 60 GWh. It may be four times that but for now I'm going with 60 GWh as that is substantial and in fact sufficient to supply California's entire 6 GW 48 GWh variable demand (this time of year) for the 12 hours required if her 26 GW average were supplied entirely by baseload generation (independent of the CAES) and that single proposed Delta CAES plant (suitably uprated) were used for balance.
Those are back-of-the-envelope tradeoffs. Capital cost-wise nuclear wins. As Keith has documented, on an unsubsidised LCOE basis nuclear does well as well, but in order to pull ahead needs be computed well beyond the nominal 30 year return LCOE estimates typically assume. Neither of which are relevant because... California. And Federal subsidies. California has a state moratorium on new nuclear construction, a state mandate for 33% renewable generation and a stored energy mandate as well, though the latter is deliberately vague. In other words, Callifornia will build and buy renewable energy and storage because that's what Californians want to build and buy.
Today's Federal wind PTC is effectively $33/MWh. Should it be extended past the Utah-Wyoming start date and apply for twenty years, that will be $5.2 billion and capital-wise the project looks competetive (to the developers) even with coal. Which is why we have PTC, though there are more economic ways to subsidize wind that are not so disruptive of existing nuclear.
Whether a particular nuclear plant can operate economically as a load follower depends entirely on the market circumstance of that plant, the availability of other dispatchable reserve, and the freedom of the grid operator to minimize long-term costs. Although nuclear currently (right now) supplies 70% of Ontario's power, its capacity is about 37% total while hydro is 25% and oil/gas 16%, so while load-following, with 41% capacity for variable load Ontario is still in good shape to run her nukes at a relatively high capacity factor of 83%. France has less hydro but greater market flexibility as part of the Euro grid; her nuclear capacity factor is about 77%. Electric prices are considerably lower here in the states (12.5 cent/kWh average) and nuclear plants must run something over 85% capacity factor just to break even, though it depends on the size of the plant. Small single unit merchant sites such as Kewaunee (560 MW) and Vermont Yankee (650 MW) could not make it in competition with low-priced gas. They closed down. Carbon emissions went up.
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Ashton at 14:38 PM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
A fascinatig discussion between Keith Pickering and Michael Sweet with the latter exiting the field part way through the conversation which is rather disappointing . Michael Sweet in his posts places much emphasis on peer review but the real politik peer review is that which is important. No matter how many peer reviewed papers cite the advantages and blessings of wind power, the UK governemnt clearly showed what it thought of peer review when it burnt fossil fuels to replace energy from nuclear powered sources rather than rely on wind power. The comparisons made by Jani-Petri Martikainen clearly show that wind power despite its undoubted attractions is, at the moment, not a reliable alternative to either fossil or nuclear fuels for energy production. I thought the comment below particularly telling
"Equally clear is that when nuclear output was declining, wind power output was declining even more steeply. So rather than coming to the rescue, wind power was unfortunately galloping away when the action started. The reduction in the amount of wind and nuclear power was mirrored by a clear increase in gas and coal power. Contrary to earlier claims, low carbon sources were replaced by fossil fuels."
I can think of no government that would jeopardise its citizen's access to cheap and most importantly reliable, power by turning to renewables as its major supply source. This is of course clearly shown by the increase in global CO2 emissions in 2013 and the reluctance of governments to sign and/or comply with UN strictures on these emissions.
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WRyan at 13:05 PM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
@Keithpickering
People buy power not energy. By doing your analysis in terms of energy you have discounted the cost of financing. A higher MW/$ ratio means that the generator can repay its debts faster. This can greatly reduce the cost of a generator, esepecially those with high upfront costs.
When comparing the relative cost of various power sources, the best indicator of value is the return on investment, and that is different for every project.
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keithpickering at 12:31 PM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
@michael sweet.
" Please provide economic numbers that show nuclear can produce power as cheap as renewables."
Happy to do so.
Recently, Warren Buffett invested in five Iowa wind farms, a project of 1050 MW costing $1.9 billion, or $1.81/Watt, a nice low number. Capacity factor for wind varies widely by location, but Iowa is fairly windy so let's assume 35%, which is pretty good. Most wind turbines are designed and engineered for a 20 year lifetime (and that's the number NREL uses routinely in their calculations), but the average lifetime of a wind turbine in Denmark is 22 years, and some modern turbines are designed and engineered for a 25 year lifetime. So let's go with 25 years, best-case for wind. The total amount of energy produced in the lifetime of those windfarms will therefore be: 1050 (MW) * 8766 (hours per year) * 25 (years) * .35 (CF) = 80 million MWh. Total lifetime capital expenditure is therefore $1.9 billion / 80 million = $23.59 per MWh.
There are currently four AP-1000 nuclear reactors under construction in the US, two at Vogtle in Georgia, coming in at $15 billion for the pair, and two at V.C. Summer in South Carolina, coming in at $10 billion for the pair. All four reactors (1117MW each) will therefore cost $25 billion, or $5.60/Watt. ZOMG! Nuclear is so expensive!
But nuclear plants (and the AP-1000 in particular) are designed and engineered for a 60 year lifetime, and nuclear capacity factors in the US are above 90%. So the total amount of energy produced in the lifetimes of those reactors will be: 1117 (MW) * 4 (reactors) * 8766 (hours per year) * 60 (years) * .90 (CF) = 2.11 billion MWh. Total lifetime capital expenditure is therefore $11.82/MWh, less than half the cost of wind.
In France, where nuclear plants load-follow, capacity factors for nuclear are lower for that reason: about 77% according to the WNA. Let's assume that US plants when load following couldn't do that well, and could only manage 75%. In that case, following the same computations above, total lifetime capital expenditure of load following nuclear would be $14.18/MWh, still well below wind.
Of course, capital expenditure is not the only cost of providing electricity; there are also operating costs (both fixed and variable) and systems costs. Operating costs for nuclear are higher than wind: nuclear provides higher-paying jobs than wind, and nuclear's fuel cost, while small, are above wind's zero. According to the EIA, wind's operation & maintenance costs are a very small $13/MWh, while for nuclear they are $23.60/MWh.
Systems cost capture the cost of integrating a generator into the existing grid, and include backup, load balancing, grid connection, and grid reinforcement. These costs are higher for renewables because of their intermittancy and because renewables are typically generated far from load centers in cities. OECD puts systems costs for onshore wind at $19.84/MWh and for nuclear at $1.66/MWh.
So adding it all up, for wind, $23.59 capital, $13 O&M, $19.84 Systems, for a total of $56.43. For nuclear, even in load following mode, $14.18 capital, $23.60 O&M, $1.66 Systems, for a total of $39.44.
I should say here that I'm not at all anti-wind. Wind has a place in the grid, and its low cost of entry makes it attractive for smaller utilities. Anything that displaces fossil is fine with me. Nuclear has high cost-of-entry issues, even though it's cheap in the long run. But capitalism doesn't do "long run" very well, and when that happens it's up to government to understand those long-term implications and step in to correctly value what markets cannot. Energy and climate are issues like that.
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michael sweet at 11:27 AM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Keith,
According to your first link, wind costs 61.4$/MWh while nuclear is 71.4$/MWh. Nuclear is over 10% more expensive.
It is interesting that the Lazard report for investors shows decrease in wind costs but your sources show flat costs, hopefully someone more informed than I will tell us the difference. Certainly much more wind is being installed now than was installed in the past. Presumably that is because costs went down.
I am not going to post again, it is my experience that nuclear discussions are a waste of time and clutter up the comments board.
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michael sweet at 10:59 AM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Ed,
Please provide data on a nuclear power plant that is economic when it load follows. It is the responsibillity of nuclear supporters to provide their data, not mine to look for it. If France, a government agency that has no public budget, is your best example I think you have made my case.
Load following and economic are two completely different matters. Some nuclear can theoretically follow load a little, but all are uneconomic when they are not working all out all the time. They are currently uneconomic when they are running all out all the time. It will lower their cost benefit if they run only part of the time.
Reading more in the Lazard report I linked before (an investment white paper that is presumably unbiased), I see that the most expensive wind in the USA is cheaper than the cheapest nuclear. Unsubsidized wind: $37-81/kwh, unsubsidized nuclear 92-132 $/kwh (page 2) (load following nuclear would be much more expensive).
Cheap wind is about 1/3 the cost of cheap nuclear. Wind is dropping in price at 10% plus per year. Nuclear's price keeps going up. Please provide economic numbers that show nuclear can produce power as cheap as renewables. I have provided data to support my argument, it is your responsibility to provide data to support your argument.
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keithpickering at 10:46 AM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
@michael sweet.
If you've heard the "too cheap to meter" claim your entire life, then you've been misled your entire life. That quote, from Lewis Strauss, refers to fusion power, not fission.
Regarding the cost of nuclear energy, see EIA's LCOE here:
http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/electricity_generation.cfm
... which shows nuclear comparable to wind, even under the (false) assumption that both generator types have identical lifetimes.
Or see a composite of LCOE studies collected by the Open IE project's Transparent Cost Database here:
http://en.openei.org/apps/TCDB/transparent%20cost%20database
... which again shows nuclear comparable to wind, and is based on literally dozens of peer-reviewed sources. So if nuclear is too expensive, so is wind, by the same token.
For actual historical costs of wind, as installed, here's the National Renewable Energy Lab:
... and here's Lawrence Berkeley Lab:
... and also see IPCC 2011, figure 7.20, confirming these sources for both Denmark and the US:
http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report/IPCC_SRREN_Ch07.pdf
... and also see also IPCC 2011 figure SPM.6, which confirms that the learning curve for wind has hit bottom and bounced:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/special-reports/srren/SRREN_FD_SPM_final.pdf
All of these peer-reviewed sources agree that wind has hit bottom some years ago.
The lack of interest in new nuclear build in the US is due to regulatory uncertainty and high entry cost. Nuclear plants cost billions to build, which effectively closes off entry to all but a handful of the largest utilities. The enormous amounts of energy produced will eventually make up for that and more, but I agree that a move toward small modular reactors is needed. It's incorrect, however, that there are no private investors for nuclear: all five nuclear reactors currently under construction in the US obtained private financing, and there are a number of VCs (including Bill Gates, for one) who are funding leading-edge startups in the nuclear industry.
You ask, "Where is the utility scale nuclear plant that can load follow?" and the answer is, every nuclear plant that has ever been built can load follow. In France, which has a mostly-nuclear grid, nuclear plants load follow routinely. In the US they don't, but that's an economic decision, not a technilogical requirement. It's simply cheaper to operate the grid when nuclear plants are in baseload mode (and it's also better for the climate too, because it avoids the maximum amount of GHG emissions that way).
Moderator Response:[RH] Adjusted image size down to 550 px wide.
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ed leaver at 10:25 AM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Michael, Google is your friend. Try "load following nuclear". See Responding to System Demand. Things are indeed a bit complicated with Pressurized Water Reactors, but in practice quite doable. See Nuclear Power in France and scroll to "Load-following with PWR nuclear plants". Boiling Water Reactors are inherently easy load followers as moderator density may be moderated by pumped recirculation rate. They are usually designed specifically for load following although of course are still most economic as base load providers. Canadian CANDU reactors also do rather well.
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Paul W at 10:12 AM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
While this argument is interesting it seems to be a bit circular.
Currently we are playing "lower fossil fuels". Current renewables can do that.
There is a greater game however which gets seen when you consider that at 400 ppm CO2 3 million years ago we did not have ice sheets.
Given that Greenland now has reported a doubling time of ice loss of less than 5 years and that an end to the world economy happens at 1 metre of sea level rise, Hansen 2012 has reported 1 metre sea level rise at sooner than 2050.
At that point the cost of adaption will exceed what we can spend on mitigation and we have lost control and are headed towards an end to civilisation.
It seems to me that the anti nukes see nuclear power as a greater threat than fossil fuels.
What can be said about the cost of nukes in the western world is that a very large part is due to extreme regulations due to the anti nuke emotions.
I think we need to be playing end fossil fuels which will needs nukes both 3rd and 4th gen as well as an enormous push for renewables.
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Rob Honeycutt at 09:39 AM on 1 October 2014People's Climate March NYC photos
Russ... You're leaving out all the other information in the article. That was just the conclusion of one estimate. Why do you leave out (or invalidate) all the other estimates in the article?
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Russ R. at 09:07 AM on 1 October 2014People's Climate March NYC photos
How many people really showed up to the People's Climate March?
"about 125,000"
But what's the harm in a bit of exaggeration for the cause?
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michael sweet at 08:42 AM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Keithpickering,
I have heard promises of nuclear energy too cheap to meter my entire life, and that is starting to be a long time. Please cite some peer reviewed data to support your claims. I currently have only your unsupported word. Meanwhile, we see daily that investors are putting up money for wind farms all around the world. Solar is currently cheaper for me to install on my house than grid. Utility scale solar plants are being built.
According to Lazard (click link half way down the page), from 2009 to 2014 the cost of wind energy went down 58%. Please cite data to support your wild claim that wind costs have been constant since 2004. Widespread investor interest demonstrates your claim is false.
Where are the investors who want to build your nuclear plants? Only governments are building nuclear and their track record is bad. In Florida, where I live, Nuclear plants can be billed ten years before they generate any power. We are currently paying $1.5 billion dollars for a plant where they never broke ground (it has been decided it is uneconomic to build). Where is the utility scale nuclear plant that can load follow? What did it cost to build and run? Oh wait, it has never been built and exists only in your imagination. Come back when you have built a pilot plant. That will take at least ten years, which is too long to help. Wind and solar are being built now.
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Tom Curtis at 08:36 AM on 1 October 2014Your questions on climate sensitivity answered
MA Rodger @20, did you downscale the ocean heat content by 0.6 to match L&C's method?
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Ken in Oz at 08:06 AM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
Increasing penetration of intermittent renewables requires increasing intermittency of generation from fossil fuels; whatever inability to respond - and with improved weather forecasting it's not all blind, moment by moment responding - needs to be recognised as inadequacies of existing fossil fuel plant at least as much as an inadequacy of intermittent generation. With a transition to low emissions as a clear goal the shift of fossil fuel plant from being the principle supply into the role of backup to low emissions alternatives needs to be recognised and facilitated, not used as an excuse to fail to continue with that transition. The burden of costs of replacing or updating infrastructure that is outdated and inadequate to the task of being backup to low emissions should land primarily upon the operators of obsolete fossil fuel plant and, if necessary, become a defacto carbon price. In this case the low emissions supply intermittency that fossil fuels are responding to is not that of wind generation but that of nuclear generation.
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keithpickering at 07:12 AM on 1 October 2014How did the UK grid respond to losing a few nuclear reactors?
@michael sweet.
I cite Budischak only to point out that even the most wind-friendly source possible admits that an all-renewable grid would be very expensive. They support my overall point. And please point out where Budischak et al. say that nuclear is too expensive? Because I'm not seeing it. What I see is Budischak et al. rejecting nuclear out-of-hand for technical reasons that do not stand up to scrutiny.
There is probably a hidden reason Budischak et al. reject nuclear, and it's not because nuclear is too expensive — it's because the nuclear gid is too cheap. Certainly anyone truly concerned for the climate would admit that a non-fossil backup for wind is superior to a fossil-fuel backup for wind. So then, why not back up wind with fast ramping open-cycle nuclear rather than fast ramping open-cycle gas? And thinking about this solution, it becomes obvious: if you have the nuclear plant, why do you even need the wind turbine? Why not just run the nuclear plant for peaking, and avoid the cost of the wind turbine entirely? Thus the nuclear-allowed grid will therefore always be cheaper than the nuclear-banned grid, because it avoids the excess cost of renewables. And if you're on the only-renewables-can-save-us bandwagon, that's a politically unacceptable outcome, regardless of the technical and financial merits.
The price of wind power hit bottom in 2004, well before Budischak was published, and has been going essentially sideways since then. As turbines get bigger, costs scale with the mass, which scales with the cube of the rotor diameter. But wind energy scales with the square of the rotor diameter. Therefore economies of scale are running up against the laws of physics and they are fighting to a draw.
And solar continues to be one of the most expensive energy sources out there, and will continue to be. Even as the price of modules continues to decline, the balance-of-system costs alone will not allow solar to compete with wind, much less fossil fuel.
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