The case against nuclear power - does it stack up?

[elbows]

Unless France manages to hit targets that analysts seem to think are unrealistic, France is not going to be a good advert this winter for the reliability and security of supply that some claim nuclear can offer.

Analysis-France braces for uncertain winter as nuclear power shortage looms

France, once Europe's top power exporter, may not produce enough nuclear energy this winter to help European neighbours seeking alternatives to Russian gas, and may even have to ration electricity to meet its own needs. France has for years helped to underpin Europe's electricity supply...

uk.finance.yahoo.com

There is quite a lot of info in the article, here are just a few quotes:

France has for years helped to underpin Europe's electricity supply, providing about 15% of the region's total power generation.

But this year, for the first time since French records began in 2012, France has become a net power importer as its own production of nuclear energy hit a 30-year low, based on data from consultancy EnAppSys.

The supply squeeze, caused by a wave of repairs at the country's nuclear power stations, couldn't have come at a worse time. Europe is in the grip of an energy crisis as Russian gas supplies plummet in the wake of the Ukraine conflict and France, which derives 70% of its electricity from nuclear energy, has lost its edge.

Last week, EDF - which this year has cut its nuclear output forecasts several times and issued four profit warnings - delayed the restart of several reactors to at least mid-November, fuelling more uncertainty.

Current power market prices reveal a lack of confidence in EDF's ability to put all its reactors back online in time for the cold season, a parliamentary source close to government said, although this source also said the availability of the fleet should improve from current low levels.

EDF CEO Jean-Bernard Levy said on Monday that among the reactors that are closed, 12 were for corrosion problems and the rest were either shut for routine maintenance delayed by the pandemic or taken off-line to prepare them for winter.

Levy said the company was "totally mobilised" to avoid more outages.

"These works are heavy, we will need hundreds and hundreds of very skilled people, we are making them come from abroad, the U.S. in particular," he told a business conference. He said corrosion issues required workers to operate in a part of the reactor where radiation is high, meaning exposure had to be limited.

Longer term, questions remain over whether EDF, which is in the process of being fully nationalised, can maintain its ageing fleet of existing power stations - mostly build in the 1980s - or build new ones quickly enough to replace them.

France's nuclear safety watchdog ASN said in May that fixing the corrosion issues affecting EDF's reactors could take years.

The next generation nuclear reactors EDF has built - including one in Flamanville in France, and another at Hinkley Point in England - have run billions over budget and several years beyond schedule.

 

[elbows]

Since I'e always been interested in energy issues and we are entering a messy era, I've decided to attempt to be capable of looking at these nuclear issues from anotehr angle, one where I suspend various safety concerns and public concerns and look at things from a purely practical and economic point of view.

I've started reviewing the history of the industry, with particular emphasis on the UK and France. What happens in France may well be key to determining whether nuclear power really gets going again or continues to flounder.

I wont try to tell all sorts of stories from history right now, I will probably have a few at some point. For now I'll just say that there have been technological development, industry failures, and a long failure of political will. There ahve been problems with competitiveness and some ambitious plans have been scuppered via a combination of these factors rather than one thing alone in the past.

For example, in the UK this is not the first time that we've hard from the government that they have plans to support a new nuclear power station every year for 10 years. Such things were touted decades ago too. And those werent scuppered via a simple story of public objections or problems with getting the right design of reactor. Projections for future electricity demand changed, other economic circumstances changed, other alternatives became more attractive, to name a few other factors. And if we look at France, which managed to build a rather large quantity of reactors, they also ended up with changing demand forecasts which upset certain equations and left them with so much capacity that they had to export a lot of electricity and ended up running their nuclear plants at far below the sort of capacities that are considered desirable for nuclear.

If we assume that the political will to do a lot of nuclear has returned to the UK and France via energy crisis shocks involving security and price of supply issues, then we can remove lack of political will from those equations. Placing to one side any public concerns, we can then look at other factors and lessons from both the successful and unsuccessful eras of the nuclear industry in these countries.

To start with I will probably also place to one side any possible soured relations between countries, issues with rival sources of generation, issues with financing, and the risk of any setbacks due to accidents or failures with existing nuclear power stations. Including how much trouble they may have in extending the life of existing power stations in the way currently envisaged to cover the timescale gap. When doing that, I am left thinking about two issues:

Are we using the right design of reactor for this next generation of plants?
Can we get the industry and the workforce into an appropriate state to deliver these projects roughly within the required timescale and budget?

These are big issues that are already visible, and are likely going to get a bit more press attention. For example my own thoughts reached that stage some days ago, but now I've seen this FT article on France:

archive.ph

Confirmation of the new plants is good news for EDF, though, after years of clamouring for clarity from the government so that it may invest. The former electricity monopoly has embarked on a hiring drive and plans training schools in specialist skills, such as welding. Building a pair of new reactors as planned at Penly, in northern France, will require about 8,000 staff to move there, Faudon says.

However, some of the sector’s problems derive from EDF fiascos. Corrosion in some existing reactors has forced it into an unprecedented number of plant shutdowns, straining electricity supply in Europe at a critical time and adding fuel to the fire for nuclear power critics.

And the only French reactor commissioned as a prototype in the last quarter century, Flamanville 3 on the Normandy coast, is more than a decade over deadline and four times over budget.

“We saw an industry that had forgotten how to build,” Berthélemy says. “It didn’t have the staff and the capacity, and we also saw a regulatory framework that was not sufficiently stabilised, with constructors not understanding what the regulator wanted. You have to find the modus operandi not to repeat that.”

One encouraging lesson is that France’s ambitious nuclear construction plan of decades ago — accelerated by the 1973 oil crisis — was started from scratch, notes Dominique Vignon, former boss of equipment maker Framatome. He simply says of today’s plan, “it’s a shame it’s all come so late.”

Its going to take quite some time to find out whether these issues will be surmountable, so even if I allow myself to be positive about nuclear energy, so far I still favour a substantial hedging of bets. Ideally if there is going to be much energy and money put into attempting a nuclear renaissance, I would like to see equal attention paid to getting a revolution in energy storage going at large scale. We no longer have to question whether it is viable to do renewables at great scale, but really huge questions remain about whether we are going to store spare power from those sources at great scale, preventing us from wasting many terawatt hours of wind power, for example. Lets have a race where we back both these horses, so that if one doesnt come to fruition we at least have a chance of the other one coming to our rescue.

 

[DarkStars]

ITER comes online in 2025, at which point fission tech is yesterdays dirty news.

While I wish with all my heart that you were right, I have to say I think you've more chance of seeing Jesus in a strip club as ITER is delayed until 2031. Which puts it in grave risk of not having sufficient tritium to start it as we are globally running out fast. The trouble with half life.

Then you have to keep things in perspective my friend, ITER is not a commercial reactor, they are not planning to generate surplus grid power with it and even if proven successful, it will be at least 2060 before the first commercial fusion reactor has been built and is generating surplus power to a domestic grid. By which time I will probably be dust, as will half this world and then some.

 

[elbows]

The following doesnt prove very much other than demonstrating the rather obvious fact that there is an awkward gap between the end of life of the last generation of nuclear power stations and any substantial new era of nuclear builds, but I will post it anyway. Because some of the stats are interesting, and the price thing and the delay thing are some of the main reasons I'm not yet willing to give nuclear prospects a glowing bill of health at this stage.

Nuclear share in energy generation falls to lowest in four decades-report

The share of nuclear power in global gross electricity generation fell below 10% last year to the lowest in around four decades, an industry report showed on Wednesday.

www.reuters.com

LONDON, Oct 5 (Reuters) - The share of nuclear power in global gross electricity generation fell below 10% last year to the lowest in around four decades, an industry report showed on Wednesday.

Nuclear energy generated 2,653 terawatt hours of electricity last year, accounting for 9.8% of global generation - the lowest since the 1980s, the annual World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR) showed.

As of mid-2022, 411 reactors were operating in 33 countries, four less than a year earlier and 27 below a 2002 peak of 438.

The slow pace of new projects coming on stream has meant the average age of reactors is around 31 years old.

Out of 53 reactors under construction currently, at least half of the projects are delayed. Five new units became operational in the first half of this year, while eight closed last year.

Global investment in new nuclear construction projects last year was around $24 billion, accounting for 6.5% of total investment of $366 billion in non-hydro renewables projects.

Nuclear power is also losing ground to renewables in terms of cost as reactors are increasingly seen as less economical and slower to build.

The levelised cost of energy - which compares the total lifetime cost of building and running a plant to lifetime output - fell to $36 per megawatt hour (MWh) last year for solar photovoltaic from $359/MWh in 2009, while the cost for wind fell to $38/MWh from $135/MWh, the report showed.

However, nuclear power costs rose by 36% last year to $167/MWh from $123/MWh in 2009.

 

[elbows]

Another angle on that report:

Nuclear energy too slow, too expensive to save climate: report

Nuclear power is losing ground to renewables in terms of both cost and capacity as its reactors are increasingly seen as less economical and slower to reverse carbon emissions, an industry report said.

www.reuters.com

BUDAPEST/PARIS (Reuters) - Nuclear power is losing ground to renewables in terms of both cost and capacity as its reactors are increasingly seen as less economical and slower to reverse carbon emissions, an industry report said.

“Stabilizing the climate is urgent, nuclear power is slow,” said Mycle Schneider, lead author of the report. “It meets no technical or operational need that low-carbon competitors cannot meet better, cheaper and faster.”

The extra time that nuclear plants take to build has major implications for climate goals, as existing fossil-fueled plants continue to emit CO2 while awaiting substitution.

“To protect the climate, we must abate the most carbon at the least cost and in the least time,” Schneider said.

Over the past decade, the WNISR estimates levelized costs - which compare the total lifetime cost of building and running a plant to lifetime output - for utility-scale solar have dropped by 88% and for wind by 69%.

For nuclear, they have increased by 23%, it said.

Capital flows reflect that trend. In 2018, China invested $91 billion in renewables but just $6.5 billion in nuclear.

In the United States, renewable capacity is expected to grow by 45 GW in the next three years, while nuclear and coal are set to retire a net 24 GW.

China, still the world’s most aggressive nuclear builder, has added nearly 40 reactors to its grid over the last decade, but its nuclear output was still a third lower than its wind generation.

Although several new nuclear plants are under construction, no new project has started in China since 2016.

 

[elbows]

I havent had time to read the report for myself yet but I will do so. Its available here:

World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2022

The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2022 (WNISR2022) assesses on 385 pages the status and trends of the international nuclear industry. It provides a comprehensive overview of nuclear power (...)

www.worldnuclearreport.org

 

[bcuster]

Greta seems to prefer nuke to coal:

Thunberg: Coal worse than keeping German nuclear plants on

Climate activist Greta Thunberg says it would be "a mistake" for Germany to switch off its nuclear power plants if that means the country must burn more planet-heating coal. The German government is still debating the future of its nuclear plants, long set to be shut down this year, given the...

www.yahoo.com

 

[elbows]

Well thats a pretty standard stance for those concerned about climate change, so its unsurprising to see it applied to the current German context. For example its why, in the immediate aftermath of Fukushima, the likes of Monbiot were still busy writing desperate pro-nuclear articles. Germany have got a very awkward gap as a result of the Russian gas situation and they are going to partially fill it with something, certainly with some coal even if they keep their remaining nuclear plants going for longer than planned. And Germany was already reliant on coal for a significant chunk of its electricity generation. In the medium to long term its very important that Germany gets a grip on effective use of renewables, both in terms of their own use of power but also because their induistrial might applied to renewables will probably have influence on useful technologies and products that can be used around the globe.

 

[Pickman's model]

Well thats a pretty standard stance for those concerned about climate change, so its unsurprising to see it applied to the current German context. They've got a very awkward gap as a result of the Russian gas situation and they are going to partially fill it with something. And Germany was already reliant on coal for a significant chunk of its electricity generation. In the medium to long term its very important that Germany gets a grip on effective use of renewables, both in terms of their own use of power but also because their induistrial might applied to renewables will probably have influence on useful technologies and products that can be used around the globe.

The medium to long term? We don't have that long for them to get their act together

 

[elbows]

The medium to long term? We don't have that long for them to get their act together

Regardless of how immediate the climate threat is judged to be, little of great significance can be achieved in the short term, not when it comes to significant swings in percentage of generation from renewables terms. Key decisions could be made in the short term, but they would still take years to come to fruition, and so thats why I speak of the medium to long term. Plus the transition remains inevitable even if it doesnt happen with a timescale compatible with saving us from a temperature rise with consequences, and sadly I have to talk about what will happen rather than what I'd like to have happened.

The only thing that could really be done to make a huge difference in the short term would be massive destruction of demand, but the industrial powers are not likely to go for that either.

 

[platinumsage]

The only thing that could really be done to make a huge difference in the short term would be massive destruction of demand, but the industrial powers are not likely to go for that either.

You mean the people. The people aren’t not likely to go for that. The only way the “industrial powers” could go for that (which would need to be an order of magnitude greater than any covid shutdown) in the absence of overwhelming public support would be via massive opression.

 

[elbows]

You mean the people. The people aren’t not likely to go for that. The only way the “industrial powers” could go for that (which would need to be an order of magnitude greater than any covid shutdown) in the absence of overwhelming public support would be via massive opression.

My language wasnt very clear - by industrial powers I was mostly thinking of industrial nations that have a lot of sway globally.

But I suppose I could apply it to the powerful industries within nations too, since the politicians etc tend to be in alignment with them and neither of those would favour that degree of demand destruction either, they would be a barrier to it long before the wider public were called upon to demonstrate their opposition to such life-changing degrees of destruction.

The picture probably gets murkier when it comes to a slower, more modest and managed form of demand destruction. We get that at times via economic policy, and some of the stories of this century elsewhere have involved the removal of fuel subsidies, which somestimes causes unrest in countries where such subsidies are a vital part of any poverty safety net that keeps the multitides heads above water.

When the most radical climate protesters were calling for net zero to be achieved with a very short timescale indeed, my first reaction tended to be to wonder whether they really understood the ramifications of what they were calling for, did they realise quite what an impact to the economy and almost every aspect of our lives that would actually entail?

So please dont confuse me for the sort of radical who treats the prospect of that scale of demand destruction, over a short period of time, as a prospect to relish. It would be very ugly. Rather I am the sort of person who, when looking at the scale of transition required this century, has frequently wondered quite how much of the action will ultimately end up happening on the demand side rather than the supply side. But I dont have a fixed sense of timescales or quite what proportion will happen on that side of the picture, or how well managed this will be. And if it were to pan out in a way where demand destruction was a big chunk of the picture, whether it would happen in a way that seemed planned and somewhat orderly or via a series of awful shocks and declines. Since I first thought about such things I have been vaguely impressed with how much renewable capacity it has been possible to build in some countries, whilst remaining unimpressed with nuclear, the amount of effort and investment put into electric storage solutions, efforts to build a lot of housing stick that requires much less heating, and the gap between how fast we are transitioning and how fast we should have been.

Covid shutdowns were certainly an interesting source of revelations. Certain conclusions about maintaining order under sudden, shocking changes to everyday life are probably not safe to make because the lockdowns etc were seen as a temporary phenomenon, while some other conclusions may be a little safer to make than they would have been if we hadnt had lockdowns as a practical demonstration. eg we could perhaps cope with certain forms of routine mass transportation being curtailed in certain ways. And in the sectors of employment where IT enables working from home to be a practical reality, the pandemic may have acted as a catalyst for change. Certainly even though the impact on energy use was not subtle, I would agree that in some ways it was just a fraction of what truly massive demand destruction under certain scenarios would involve, and that could be used to add to the mind-boggling sense of quite how much of a challenge the energy transition this century will be.

 

[elbows]

FIndlands new nuclear plant has had another setback, pump damage:

OSLO, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Damage has been detected in the feedwater pumps of Finland's Olkiluoto 3 (OL3) nuclear reactor during maintenance work, which will likely delay the commissioning of the plant and the startup of regular production, operator TVO said on Tuesday.

The damage to Europe's largest nuclear reactor is a setback for Finland, where the national grid operator has warned of potential power blackouts in the coming winter if OL3 could not reliably supply electricity.

Finland's OL3 nuclear reactor risks more delays after damage found

Damage has been detected in the feedwater pumps of Finland's Olkiluoto 3 (OL3) nuclear reactor during maintenance work, which will likely delay the commissioning of the plant and the startup of regular production, operator TVO said on Tuesday.

www.reuters.com

 

[elbows]

Looking at things like the world energy outlook, and setting to one side the usual concerns about nuclear safety, the prospects for nuclear still arent very exciting at this time. A picture emerges of plenty of effort and expense being directed towards new nuclear, and keeping the industry alive, but the main result is that nuclear gets to maintain about a 10% share of global electricity generation. As such most bigger picture reports tend to focus on talking about other sources of power where far more of the notable, dramatic stuff is in terms of them ending up with a much bigger share of the electricity picture in the coming decades.

Of course that picture could yet be changed by future events. In terms of the UK picture, this decade doesnt seem too exciting, and if reality is going to live up to the stated aims of where we will be by 2050, perhaps we wont see more dramatic signs of quite how this will be possible until after 2030. Simply announcing ambitions to agree a new plant every year for 10 years is not going to cut it since that sort of rhetoric, often of exactly the same 'one every year for 10 years' form, has happened many times in the past without results. And alternative nuclear technologies or scales of plant are still some years away from gaining full commercial backing as far as I can presently tell. Progress with experimental and trials of these things will offer clues about their viability but I dont think I'll spend much effort talking about them until the results are seen, which wont be anytime soon.

Meanwhile it seem that in the UK this is happening on Wednesday, so I will try to remember to tune in:

The Science and Technology Committee begin its Delivering Nuclear Power evidence sessions on National Engineering Day in the UK. This session examines how UK nuclear energy production will be maintained and increased.

Wednesday 2 November 2022, Committee Room 6, Palace of Westminster

Panel 1

At 9.30am

• Professor Paul Norman, Nuclear Energy Director, Birmingham Centre for Nuclear Education and Research
• Professor Michael Grubb, Professor of Energy and Climate Change, University College London

Panel 2

At 10.15am

• Professor Laurence Williams OBE, Emeritus Professor of Nuclear Regulation and Safety, Imperial College London
• Dr Paul Dorfman, Chair, Nuclear Consulting Group
• Professor Francis Livens (virtual), Director, Dalton Institute, University of Manchester

Panel 3

At 11.15am

• Julia Pyke, Sizewell C Director of Finance, EDF
• Paul Spence, Director of Strategy and Corporate Affairs, EDF

The Government has said nuclear power will play a key part in the UK’s energy security and goal of reaching Net Zero emissions by 2050, setting the intention to triple the current electricity output by 2050. However, all but one civil nuclear reactor in the UK will be decommissioned by 2028 under current plans. And only one new reactor, Hinkley point C in Somerset, is currently expected to be operational before 2030.

In the final panel, the Committee will question EDF executives on the four-year delay in the construction of Hinkley Point C, completion of which is expected in 2027. The progress in plans for a new reactor in Sizewell C in Suffolk will also be discussed.

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/135/science-and-technology-committee/news/173958/academics-and-industry-questioned-on-uk-nuclear-power-supply/

 

[elbows]

Here is an early example of the 10 year rhetoric that I have noted from the past:

18th Dec 1979 - Government announces 15000MW of new nuclear, one new nuclear station a year for 10 years from 1982 represented a reasonable prospect.

 

[alex_]

Here is an early example of the 10 year rhetoric that I have noted from the past:

18th Dec 1979 - Government announces 15000MW of new nuclear, one new nuclear station a year for 10 years from 1982 represented a reasonable prospect.

All Praise to Maggie for making sure this happened, otherwise electricity in the U.K. would be in a really bad way.

 

[elbows]

FIndlands new nuclear plant has had another setback, pump damage:

Finland's OL3 nuclear reactor risks more delays after damage found

Damage has been detected in the feedwater pumps of Finland's Olkiluoto 3 (OL3) nuclear reactor during maintenance work, which will likely delay the commissioning of the plant and the startup of regular production, operator TVO said on Tuesday.

www.reuters.com

A bit more detail emerged:

Cracks found in Finnish OL3 nuclear reactor's feedwater pumps

Cracks of a few centimetres have been found in all four feedwater pumps of Finland's Olkiluoto 3 (OL3) nuclear reactor, operator TVO said on Friday, adding it was still unclear how the damage would impact the scheduled commissioning of the plant.

www.reuters.com

Cracks of a few centimetres have been found in all four feedwater pumps of Finland's Olkiluoto 3 (OL3) nuclear reactor, operator TVO said on Friday, adding it was still unclear how the damage would impact the scheduled commissioning of the plant.

The damage was first reported by the operator earlier this month and it later said it had postponed the expected startup of regular production to Dec. 27.

 

[elbows]

Should the world actually manage the sort of net zero scenario envisaged in this years IEA energy outlook report, there is certainly still a role for nuclear. It doesnt look very exciting in terms of overall contribution, with solar and wind providing the exciting action in the graphs, but a large increase in nuclear generation is still required to deliver even this picture:



I'm including this one because nuclear get a mention in the 2035 milestones:

Nuclear power generation more than doubles in the NZE Scenario by 2050, although its share falls from 10% in 2021 to 8% in 2050, as total generation expands rapidly. More than 30 countries, where nuclear power is accepted, increase their use of nuclear power. Widespread lifetime extensions in advanced economies provide a foundation. An annual average of 30 GW of new nuclear capacity comes online in the 2030s, marking a major comeback for the nuclear industry, and innovative technologies including small modular reactors become available on the market.

In the NZE Scenario, electricity becomes the new linchpin of the global energy system, providing more than half of total final consumption and two‐thirds of useful energy by 2050. Total electricity generation grows by 3.3% per year to 2050, which is faster than the global rate of economic growth across the period. Annual capacity additions of all renewables quadruple from 290 GW in 2021 to around 1 200 GW in 2030. With renewables reaching over 60% of total generation in 2030, no new unabated coal‐ fired plants are needed. Annual nuclear capacity additions to 2050 are nearly four‐ times their recent historical average.

World Energy Outlook 2022 – Analysis - IEA

World Energy Outlook 2022 - Analysis and key findings. A report by the International Energy Agency.

www.iea.org

The report is far too long for me to quote all the relevant bits, and the net zero scenario is only one of three scenarios discussed in the report. And I dont mean to use this report to paint an entirely negative picture for nuclear, its clearly got a role in the net zero scenario and a significant increase in new nuclear builds and investment are required to get there. But there is a lot of regional variation and the most dramatic increase of nuclear comes in places like China, whereas in Europe its wind power that gets the headline slot, and in some other places solar gets star billing.

 

[elbows]

And here is the relevant part of a graph about global average annual energy investment by sector/technology that would be needed for their net zero scenario, hopefully offering some further context for the role of nuclear:

 

[teuchter]

I'm interested in what would happen if we finally worked out how to do fusion on a large scale and to what extent it would turn all this upside down. I suppose it would all depend on how expensive it was to implement - but if it became cheap enough would renewables simply become redundant?

 

[elbows]

I'm interested in what would happen if we finally worked out how to do fusion on a large scale and to what extent it would turn all this upside down. I suppose it would all depend on how expensive it was to implement - but if it became cheap enough would renewables simply become redundant?

Too many variables to give a useful answer I suspect.

I suppose the presumption would be that costs would gradually come down over time, but it would still take ages for it to outcompete every other source, and the existing infrastructure for other sources would be kept going till the end of life of other projects was reached. Then there are questions of what rare minerals etc are required for all the sources of power to be implemented at great scale. And issues to do with construction timescales, skilled workforces, investment flows etc. And how well everything stacks up in terms of reliability and other risks.

Chuck in the idea of energy security and not putting all your eggs in one basket, and I would suggest that in our own lifetimes we will continue to see a complex mix of multiple sources of electricity generation. And that even if there are great developments with fusion at scale much quickjer than we may imagine, we'll only get to see the opening, relatively modest chapters.

 

[elbows]

Responding again to your question, I found an old article which discusses the issues of how far nuclear power could be scaled up. They list numerous issues that would make nuclear fusion as the complete solution to our energy needs as completely absurd. They then go on to discuss a couple of issues which would affect fusion reactors too. I am not qualified to say whether they've got all the detail on this right. But they say that the issue of 'neutron embrittlement' affects both reactor types, and would require a silly and impossible rate of new plant construction in order to compensate for how many plants would need to close if we had enough in operation to cover all the worlds needs. They also discuss an issue with

An overview of the article which focuses mostly on fission:

Why nuclear power will never supply the world's energy needs

(PhysOrg.com) -- The 440 commercial nuclear reactors in use worldwide are currently helping to minimize our consumption of fossil fuels, but how much bigger can nuclear power get? In an analysis to be published in a future issue of the Proceedings of the IEEE, Derek Abbott, Professor of...

phys.org

The full paper, and a few quotes from it:

IEEE Xplore Full-Text PDF:

ieeexplore.ieee.org

All forms of nuclear power, whether thorium or uranium, fission or fusion, emit neutrons that irradiate all metal surfaces inside the nuclear vessel. Over time these metal surfaces develop cracks due to neutron embrittlement [7]. It is an unavoidable consequence of any form of nuclear power and is part of the aging process that requires every nuclear power station to be decommissioned after 40–60 years of operation. Thus, if nuclear stations need replacement every 50 years on average, then in the steady state for 15 TW, one nuclear power station needs to be built and another decommissioned somewhere in the world every day.

To date, globally, there have been ~580 nuclear reactors that have operated for a cumulated total of 14 000 reactor years, with about 11 accidents of the magnitude of a full or partial core melt [10] this corresponds to failure rate of 11 x 100/580 = 2%. Thus, if the world had a single reactor, it would take on average 14 000/11 ~1300 years to have an accident of a similar magnitude. Thus, for a scaleup to 15 000 reactors we would have a major accident somewhere in the world every month.

the underlying problem of neutron embrittlement (Section III) will limit scalability as it does with fission. The rate of commissioning and decommissioning fusion reactors would be equally untenable.

There are a number of serious problems that limit practicability. For example, the walls of a fusion reactor absorb tritium and would need regular ablation resulting in the generation of tritium-laden explosive dust [5].

It would also appear that fusion events feed power to the fundamental mode of instability for Tokamaks.

It turns out a whole host of exotic rare metals are used to control and contain the nuclear reaction. For example, hafnium is a neutron absorber, beryllium a neutron reflector, zirconium is used for cladding, and many of the other exotics (e.g., niobium) are used to alloy steel to make the vessel last 40–60 years against neutron embrittlement.

Then, if we scale up to 15 000 reactors we will either rapidly exhaust these materials or drive them into a high price volatility regime, creating market instability. In solar thermal technology, all the metals are abundant and recyclable, whereas in nuclear technology, the metals are rare and become radioactive. Thus, in the endgame, one expects greater price volatility in a nuclear utopia than in a solar thermal utopia.

In Section III, we indicated that in a nuclear utopia a nuclear station would need to be built somewhere in the world every day. In such a regime, we simply do not have the containment materials to keep up with the required construction of nuclear power stations.

 

[elbows]

I watched the selexct committee nuclear thing on Wednesday but havent had time to put my notes about it here yet. But now due to some news tonight I will comment on one bit from it.

Sizewell C came up, EDF are expecting to make a funding decision within the next 18 months, and since the UK government were due to take a 50% share in it they were hoping to see a commitment to it in the autumn budget statement. After funding decision it will take 10-12 years to build according to their current estimates. They are touting it being able to run for 60-80 years. They are keen to go on about how it will be exactly the same design as Hinkley C so there will be less issues and delays. And there is some sensitivity these days to criticisms about nuclear being inflexible in terms of being able to respond to demand or lack of demand, so they were making various claims about how actually it will be flexible.

But now this has appeared in the news:

Sizewell C: Government denies new nuclear plant under review

A government official had told the BBC that every major project was under review.

www.bbc.co.uk

A new nuclear power plant in Suffolk is under review and could be delayed or even axed, as the government tries to cut spending, the BBC has been told.

Sizewell C was expected to provide up to 7% of the UK's total electricity needs, but critics have argued it will be expensive and take years to build.

A new high speed rail line in the north of England could also be axed.

"We are reviewing every major project - including Sizewell C," a government official told the BBC.

Last month, Mrs Truss and France's president Emmanuel Macron pledged "full support" for Sizewell C station on Suffolk's coast, which is set to be developed by French energy company EDF.

The government gave the go-ahead for the plant in July. EDF has said it could generate enough for about six million homes.

But there was confusion on Thursday as executives at the French energy contractor EDF - already building a new plant at Hinkley in Somerset - and the Business and Energy department seemed blindsided by a potential change in tack on existing government policy, which promises to press ahead with both large and smaller scale nuclear projects.

"As far we know, it's still on", said one nuclear industry executive close to the matter.

New large-scale nuclear plants have been a key part of a government strategy to help reduce the UK's reliance on fossil fuels. Boris Johnson whilst PM declared it was his intention to build eight new reactors in the next eight years.

A shift away from that position would represent a major change in UK energy policy that some will lament and some will celebrate.

Obviously too early to say whats actually going to happen with this one. But one of the themes from the select committee was about having the right skilled workforce to develop and run these plants, how there are already shortfalls in terms of graduate numbers, and how important it is for people who may consider that career path to know that the projects and jobs are certain to be there. Another theme was, rather unsurprisingly, how late we have left it to build new nuclear to replace the stuff thats due to be retired in the coming years. I think any further delay or cancelation of Sizewell C will have quite large implications on these fronts, and any big blow could yet be a fatal one given the delicate nature of the industry in this country at this time. The window of opportunity could close in a way that means other energy tech will end up taking the place of nuclear to a much greater extent than nuclear advocates have been calling for.

 

[elbows]

Although another theme was that EDFs current choice of reactor design doesnt have the best reputation (thats probably obvious given the delays its caused on various projects) and also that the UKs claims about how many new reactors they want as part of their nuclear ambitions can only possibly be supported by including a bunch of the smaller designs in the mix. So if Sizewell C does get axed or put on ice, they could still end up with a new nuclear era if they manage not to keep dropping the ball on the smaller projects in future. However on that front there was some suggestion that what Rolls Royce call a Small Modular Reactor is actually larger than the strict definition of a SMR, and is more like the sort of generation size as our original 1st gen Magnox reactors were. And a point was made that the economics of nuclear really fail to add up even worse than normal unless stuff is scaled up to quite a large size, with the implciation that some of the really small reactor plans some tout are a load of guff.

Something else that came up is how we mostly have all our eggs in one basket in terms of who is actually prepared to be a nuclear licensee in this country, they are all int he EDF family of companies, and its not clear who is going to come along to improve this situation since Hitachi backed out some years ago.

The people giving evidence were asked about Great British Nuclear and none of them had a sense of what its role is actually supposed to be.

There was a sense that the politicians asking questions were rather worried about the scheduled decommissioning of our advanced gas-cooled reactors in the years ahead, and they were even fishing around to see if there was any possibility of reopening the bunch of reactors that have already been shutdown in the last year. The answers they got should leave them with little doubt that its unrealistic to expect any of those already closed reactors to be recommissioned. But when it comes to extending the life of the remaining AGRs, there is some potential for life extensions.

 

[platinumsage]

I can't see them cancelling Sizewell C at this stage, pretty sure it's just a political PR strategy saying "everything is on the table" so they can cancel some northern rail or something and say "we considered axing the nuclear power station instead but decided it was more important".

 

[elbows]

Yes I know what you mean, and so I wont be surprised if the project survives. I really wont be surprised if its cancelled either though, given the large amount of money involved and the ongoing concerns about delivering that reactor design on time and on budget, and the way these projects can end up being seen as something of a while elephant. If they are really desperate to save huge chunks of money with one swipe of the pen, and avoid slashing routine services by unfeasible amounts, then stuff like Sizewell is an obvious candidate. It may come down to factors that I dont have much grasp on at the moment, such as whether they have crunched numbers to come up with a plausible sounding alternative strategy, either through other sorts of nuclear or some other generation sources entirely, and other stuff such as relations with France and the detail of the grand plan over there to save EDF.

Plus recessions have an impact on future electricity demand forecasts.

And I do struggle to escape the idea that lack of confidence with nuclear delivery, and a long history of expensive mistakes with the industry in this country (eg the way AGRs were done is down in history as one of our most expensive procurement errors), dont provide a very good foundation for rebooting the industry confidently in the UK. Even if the damaged reputation is unfair, it may sway decisions at a time like this. Not just government confidence either, and as the BBC article somewhat hints at, commercial partners can also end up with cold feet if the UK continues to flip-flop on its nuclear commitments. Much needs to happen for me to really put to bed the idea that nuclear could still end up with a 'not worth the hassle' epitaph in this country.

 

[platinumsage]

Yes I know what you mean, and so I wont be surprised if the project survives. I really wont be surprised if its cancelled either though, given the large amount of money involved and the ongoing concerns about delivering that reactor design on time and on budget, and the way these projects can end up being seen as something of a while elephant. If they are really desperate to save huge chunks of money with one swipe of the pen, and avoid slashing routine services by unfeasible amounts, then stuff like Sizewell is an obvious candidate. It may come down to factors that I dont have much grasp on at the moment, such as whether they have crunched numbers to come up with a plausible sounding alternative strategy, either through other sorts of nuclear or some other generation sources entirely, and other stuff such as relations with France and the detail of the grand plan over there to save EDF.

Sizewell C is probably the most efficient opportunity to build another large nuclear power station at the moment because it's mirroring Hinkley C and so there would be huge cost savings in transferring people, skills and knowledge across, and all the preparatory work, planning, habitat mitigation etc is already sorted. Unless we want to be left with nothing but Sizewell B and Hinkley C after 2028, or Hinkley C only after 2035 then it needs to get the go ahead. I don't think there's a currently envisaged path to net zero that relies on us having just one nuclear power station at that point.

 

[elbows]

Yes I understand the logic of what you are saying, I'm hedging my bets because I cannot completely rely on the government sticking fully with that rationale. Especially since theyve fudged the timescales and commitments plenty of times in the past.

In terms of efficiency and cost, the fact they are treating the design of Sizewell C as if its an additional 2 reactors for Hinkley C did come up in the recent select committee meeting. But I suppose that has to be balanced against any remaining concerns about this type of reactor and cost and timescale overruns experienced with that design so far.

As fror what we'll be left with and when, there is impetus to stretch the life of the plants currently due to close by 2024 and 2028 a bit further, but it wont be by all that many years, and practical realities could yet scupper such plans. eg some AGRs closed earlier than hoped, not later. I think they are more confident that they'll manage to get a more meaningful life extension for Sizewell B, but again there are always unknowns.

Just looking at my notes from watching EDF at the select committee, it my notes are accurate then they are currently investigating how much extra life to attempt to get out of Hartlepool and Heysham 1, which are currently due to close in 2024, and aim to make a decision about that in the coming year. They also hope to make a decision about the 2028 ones (Heysham 2 and Torness) before 2024 arrives. I dont know what to expect since there are some issues with these sorts of reactors at this stage of their life. And for Sizewell B, their most optimistic hopes seem to be of a life extension of 20 years for that one, and I think the wikipedia page for UK nuclear power also mentions that sort of strategic aim for Sizewell B!

 

[platinumsage]

Well the BBC have edited the article now following a denial from Downing Street:

“The government has denied that plans for a new nuclear power plant in the south east of England are under review.

A government official had told the BBC that every major project was under review "including Sizewell C" as ministers try to cut spending.

But on Friday Downing Street quashed the idea that plant would be now delayed or reviewed. However, a new high-speed rail line in the north of England is expected to be significantly scaled back.”

 

[elbows]

In that case I'll revert back to what I was going to be looking for on this front - EDF want something in the autumn budget statement that will help them with their own funding decision. So lets see if there is a commitment in there or whether the government are stalling or indulging in any underhanded use of semantics when it comes to this project.