The role of nuclear power in a low carbon future

[53' Stude]

Excellent post, as always, Overkill.

I’ll 2nd this statement. My brain is full; as always OVERKILL always educates me

 

[PandaBear]

That's the whole point of DGR's, the rock around them has been undisturbed for millions of years, so seal the bundles off in copper tubes that are secure for a million + years and then if civilization does collapse, they are safely stored half a kilometre below the surface in this rock.

That's the idea anyways. Cask storage is extremely robust, but it's not, and never has been, designed as permanent storage, this has always been a DGR.

On the other hand, if we do start leveraging breeders and alternative fuel cycle units like the SSR that burn up these long-lived actinides, the duration of the required storage is greatly reduced. I think that's a better solution IMHO.

The bigger concern is, what if there are conspiracy theorists, like anti-vax or some "new religion movement" folks who think nuclear radiation is a hoax and there are lost treasure of the ancient civilization, going into these places like a tomb raider, and dig up those "magic power" relic and spread them around the world? What if the value of "something" are so high into the future these guys go raid these places for the treasure?

We already have seen how stupid humanity can be even in 2021, before any collapse. We set fire on 5G cell towers and protest high voltage powerline as cancer causing.

 

[Pelican]

Burnt fuel is short to medium term (I think 30 years is consider medium and less than 4 is short, if I remember right). You know what's long term pollution? Plastic, oil spill (I think Exxon Valdez took at least 20 years to restore to original condition).

I'm all for reprocessing and transmutation, burning up all the stuff that could have long half life.

I agree about plastic entirely, but Strontium-90 and cesium-137 have half-lives of about 30 years (half the radioactivity will decay in 30 years). Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years. High-level wastes are hazardous because they produce fatal radiation doses during short periods of direct exposure. So as you can see we're in for the long haul with Plutonium. All those are by-products of nuclear fission.

 

[PandaBear]

I agree about plastic entirely, but Strontium-90 and cesium-137 have half-lives of about 30 years (half the radioactivity will decay in 30 years). Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years. High-level wastes are hazardous because they produce fatal radiation doses during short periods of direct exposure. So as you can see we're in for the long haul with Plutonium. All those are by-products of nuclear fission.

Plutonium is not highly active, they are like Uranium as it is a fuel that are "low decay". It is a fuel if you know what you are doing and many reactor are using it as a fuel, but usually they are prized as a warhead instead.

 

[bbhero]

I agree about plastic entirely, but Strontium-90 and cesium-137 have half-lives of about 30 years (half the radioactivity will decay in 30 years). Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years. High-level wastes are hazardous because they produce fatal radiation doses during short periods of direct exposure. So as you can see we're in for the long haul with Plutonium. All those are by-products of nuclear fission.

Yeah people need to remember that at Chernobyl.... A new structure has been constructed to contain that radioactive material.

And if someone doesn't believe that nuclear core material is not dangerously radioactive plus 30, 50,100+ years.... Go into the sarcophagus at Chernobyl and spend some time unprotected in that room with the elephant foot . With a Geiger counter too.


I'm definitely not against nuclear power... I am in favor of it in fact.

The accident at Chernobyl was due to critical design flaws and personnel flaws.

There is nothing man-made that does not have any risk involved with it. As minute and remote as the risk can be made... It is always there.

I agree with Trav.

And lithium ion technology is not without it's own big issues as well.

 

[Saabist]

Best quote so far in this thread, by user jstert:

"...cheap, abundant and reliable electricity, and the internal combustion engine, and the intelligence and systems that create and use them, are godsends. i suspect that many folks who are dead set on some kind of carbon neutral world, whatever that means and entails, have never even camped rough for a week."

There is no need for carbon reduction since CO2 is not a pollutant and climate change is a force of nature that we cannot control. Yes, as we continue emerging from the Little Ice Age as we have for over a century we can expect change, it is expected. Electric cars and atomic power will not change this. I don't want to get into verboten political territory but I'm old enough to have witnessed over 50 years of failed doomsday predictions by environmentalists and I'm not buying this one either. I will not be giving up fossil fuels or making any lifestyle changes to accommodate this nonsense.

 

[Astro14]

Not too confident of that one.

Took only a few thousand years to lose track of a solid gold sarcophagus; unlikely industrial waste will be regarded with more care. JMO.

A specious and misleading comparison.

None of the Pharaohs were lost - many of their tombs were deliberately hidden to avoid grave robbers. In nearly every case, that plan failed.

What an ancient civilization did to hide the tombs of dead rulers has little to do with modern science and engineering.

 

[dishdude]

Nuclear has to be part of a low carbon, post fossil fuel world. I like the policy position and feel we really need to get past accidents that happened in the 70's and 80's utilizing 50's technology.

 

[IndyIan]

Very cool graphs and data, its interesting that Germany has nearly 10 GW of hydro storage.
I still think the the total lifecycle emissions level of nuclear is a bit of a question mark.
Prepared For: Ontario Power Generation Inc. by Intrinsik Oct. 2016

GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS ASSOCIATED WITH VARIOUS METHODS OF POWER GENERATION IN ONTARIO
5.1.1 Nuclear
A critical survey of LCAs for nuclear power reported a range in GHG emission rates over the lifetime of a plant of 1.4 to 288 g CO2e/kWh, with a mean of 66 g CO2e/kWh (Sovacool, 2008). This high degree of variability is consistent with several similar LCA reviews (Warner and Heath, 2012; Fthenakis and Kim, 2007; Lanzen, 2008). One of the greatest sources of variability in emission estimates was related to the quality of uranium ore which significantly affects the energy requirements for mining and milling, as well as mine land reclamation. The type of mining (i.e., open-pit or underground), as well as explosives, solvents and techniques utilized within each type of mining, also had a notable effect on the variability of the estimates. Other factors that contributed significantly to the variability in emission estimates were the local energy source utilized for the mining of uranium, the type of uranium enrichment, the reactor type, site selection, the operational lifetime, and the LCA method (Sovacool, 2008). Total lifecycle GHG emissions for CANDU reactors were estimated to be 4.8 and 15 g CO2e/kWh by Mallia and Lewis (2013) and Andseta et al. (1998), respectively. These estimates are notably lower than the means of 66 and 65 g CO2e/kWh reported by Sovacool (2008) and Lanzen (2008), respectively.

Also I suspect Nuclear has much higher ongoing labour costs per kwh than the renewable sources? Lots of people employed making lots of money which they turn into lots of carbon emissions... Maybe that's looking at it a step too far? Somebody must have an economic and greenhouse gas model for this, but since most people supporting lowering green house gas emissions, produce more than average, I guess this doesn't get alot of press!

P.S.
I found in the 2019 OPG annual report that 80% of their employees are in the Nuclear division(and presumably paid more than the hydro guys) but nuclear only produced 43.5 twh, vs hydro's 30.5 twh for the year.

 

[PandaBear]

Due to the risk, at least the perceived risk, of nuclear, there's lots of red tape, lots of lawyers, lots of engineers, lots of regulators, lots of power point presentation, lots of lobbying. Lots of money.

A dam may use a lot of labor to build and repair but not much to operate.

 

[wpod]

Best quote so far in this thread, by user jstert:

"...cheap, abundant and reliable electricity, and the internal combustion engine, and the intelligence and systems that create and use them, are godsends. i suspect that many folks who are dead set on some kind of carbon neutral world, whatever that means and entails, have never even camped rough for a week."

There is no need for carbon reduction since CO2 is not a pollutant and climate change is a force of nature that we cannot control. Yes, as we continue emerging from the Little Ice Age as we have for over a century we can expect change, it is expected. Electric cars and atomic power will not change this. I don't want to get into verboten political territory but I'm old enough to have witnessed over 50 years of failed doomsday predictions by environmentalists and I'm not buying this one either. I will not be giving up fossil fuels or making any lifestyle changes to accommodate this nonsense.

What else is really, really interesting is since the fuels have been lower Sulfur , The crop advisor told me that the farmers are having to add more sulfur to the soil to get their crops to grow well.

 

[OVERKILL]

Very cool graphs and data, its interesting that Germany has nearly 10 GW of hydro storage.
I still think the the total lifecycle emissions level of nuclear is a bit of a question mark.
Prepared For: Ontario Power Generation Inc. by Intrinsik Oct. 2016

Most are sceptical of the Sovacool figures, he's a notorious anti-nuke. The figures you should look at are those provided by the IPCC, which have nuclear at an average lifetime emissions intensity of 12gCO2/kWh, which are the figures used by Electricity Map. If you'd like a link to one of the IPCC reports, I can gladly provide that.

That said, this quote from your quote:

Total lifecycle GHG emissions for CANDU reactors were estimated to be 4.8 and 15 g CO2e/kWh by Mallia and Lewis (2013) and Andseta et al. (1998), respectively. These estimates are notably lower than the means of 66 and 65 g CO2e/kWh reported by Sovacool (2008) and Lanzen (2008), respectively.

Is consistent with my understanding of CANDU fuel because the uranium is mined and processed here, we have some of the richest uranium deposits in the world, we process and produce our own fuel and there's no enrichment. There will still be variability however depending on what you determine for the lifespan of the units. Andseta's figures may be based on a 30 year lifespan, while Mallia and Lewis may be basing it on the current 60+ year lifespan, which is more accurate.

Also I suspect Nuclear has much higher ongoing labour costs per kwh than the renewable sources? Lots of people employed making lots of money which they turn into lots of carbon emissions... Maybe that's looking at it a step too far? Somebody must have an economic and greenhouse gas model for this, but since most people supporting lowering green house gas emissions, produce more than average, I guess this doesn't get alot of press!

"lots" is relative. Pickering employs around 5,000 people, Darlington about 3,500. So we are talking about roughly the population of Lakefield, that's not "a lot" when compared to the millions that live and work in the GTA or even the population of Peterborough.

On the ongoing labour cost, if we are including CAPEX, then no. Darlington's OPEX is around $0.038kWh. The Lily Lake solar farm, just to pay for itself at $42 million would have to make $0.25/kWh, which doesn't include any of the labour and maintenance, that's just to cover CAPEX payback over 20 years.

What's cheaper than a nuke is a gas plant. They employ far fewer people and can produce the same amount of energy. A wind or solar farm cannot compete on reliability or availability kW to kW with either of those sources, but the low cost of gas and low labor make it a far more economical fit for subbing in than a nuke, which is cheapest to operate in full-baseload where it can churn out the most kWh.

P.S.
I found in the 2019 OPG annual report that 80% of their employees are in the Nuclear division(and presumably paid more than the hydro guys) but nuclear only produced 43.5 twh, vs hydro's 30.5 twh for the year.

Of the two stations operated by OPG, for 2019, when Darlington was still down Unit 2 (it's now down Unit 3) that would be correct. Bruce produces, with all units online, around 49TWh by itself.

In 2019 Pickering produced 23.6TWh, which is ~88% CF from its 3,100MW installed capacity. The remainder of the 43.5TWh figure was produced by Darlington 1, 3 and 4 for a total operating installed capacity at OPG of 5,728MW and an average CF of 87%. In comparison, the average CF of hydro was 46%.

Ontario has more than 9,000MW of hydro:

Which produced 25% of our electricity last year:

Nuclear was also down last year over previous years, as Bruce Unit 6 went down for refurbishment along with Darlington 3.

This is what the last few years have looked like:

And yes, hydro has lower OPEX and lower staffing than the nuke plants, which is reflected in the current cost of both technologies with Hydro having an average cost of $0.063/kWh and nuclear being $0.087/kWh.

However, we have already exploited all of the large hydro install locations. So existing dams are being upgraded as they age-out now, which will improve capacity somewhat, but not a whole lot and this will also require rate riders to recoup that cost. That's why the focus on new ULE baseload is on SMR's, it's the only thing we can deploy at scale unless we decided to go with C6's.

 

[OVERKILL]

Due to the risk, at least the perceived risk, of nuclear, there's lots of red tape, lots of lawyers, lots of engineers, lots of regulators, lots of power point presentation, lots of lobbying. Lots of money.

A dam may use a lot of labor to build and repair but not much to operate.

And most of our dams are small and operated remotely. The biggest is Beck, at Niagara Falls.

 

[Cujet]

but it bears preaching that cheap, abundant and reliable electricity, and the internal combustion engine, and the intelligence and systems that create and use them, are godsends.

In my lifetime of travels to wildly backwards countries, I've seen the difference power makes in the quality of existence. Quite simply, it lifts entire areas out of abject poverty, disease, and the suffering that results. Those who believe restrictions are the answer are DEAD wrong. There is no shortage of energy, and we can produce plenty of it cleanly and economically. Again, in my lifetime, the pollutant levels from all types of power production has decreased exponentially.

The nonsense that we are going the wrong way is just that. We've been getting cleaner in fits and starts for the last 70 years.

 

[Shannow]

Carbon "neutral" will never happen. The only way to achieve it is population decline. I think it is a good thing and we are reaching it in developed nations, by 2070 or so. Prediction is pretty much any nation other than India and those in Africa will lose about 30-70% of its populations due to birth decline by then.

"Carbon Neutral"...and "you are too dumb and invested to understand it" are spouted as derogatory terms for people who actually get it.

Having solar panels on the roof to pump Kwh into the grid of a day, and sucking gas peakers in the afternoon, and thermals overnight to charge the Tesla can be touted as "carbon Neutral", because of the percieved offsets that you, in your own conntected system have a "nett" footprint of zero...however, when you are a closed system, generating solar in the day (and curtailing it due to local excess supply), and using a gas generator at night, it's anything BUT carbon neutral...unless you are planting a forrest at the same time to burn later.

 

[ZZman]

I would love seeing more nuclear.

 

[Hal-9000]

Best quote so far in this thread, by user jstert:

"...cheap, abundant and reliable electricity, and the internal combustion engine, and the intelligence and systems that create and use them, are godsends. i suspect that many folks who are dead set on some kind of carbon neutral world, whatever that means and entails, have never even camped rough for a week."

There is no need for carbon reduction since CO2 is not a pollutant and climate change is a force of nature that we cannot control. Yes, as we continue emerging from the Little Ice Age as we have for over a century we can expect change, it is expected. Electric cars and atomic power will not change this. I don't want to get into verboten political territory but I'm old enough to have witnessed over 50 years of failed doomsday predictions by environmentalists and I'm not buying this one either. I will not be giving up fossil fuels or making any lifestyle changes to accommodate this nonsense.

Love your avatar “ I have a plan “

 

[PandaBear]

"Carbon Neutral"...and "you are too dumb and invested to understand it" are spouted as derogatory terms for people who actually get it.

Having solar panels on the roof to pump Kwh into the grid of a day, and sucking gas peakers in the afternoon, and thermals overnight to charge the Tesla can be touted as "carbon Neutral", because of the percieved offsets that you, in your own conntected system have a "nett" footprint of zero...however, when you are a closed system, generating solar in the day (and curtailing it due to local excess supply), and using a gas generator at night, it's anything BUT carbon neutral...unless you are planting a forrest at the same time to burn later.

It "in theory" could happen if you can peak fast enough and efficient enough, and solar isn't too big of a portion of the grid, or you can have enough load to let your grid run those NG plant all day (i.e. big enough EV charging load at the right price).

One thing for sure is they are not free, capacity is not free to sit idle and it still cost money to depreciate assets. Wall Streets love these mix and match and trading opportunities. It would be boring and no profit if everyone is just using nuclear for predictable fixed price at all time.

I wish more AC would have ice based thermal storage. It should be cheapist in shifting the duck curve 5 hours away using a big tub of ice, and it should not degrade like battery. It may not help everywhere on earth but in hot climate it should help a lot.

 

[Brons2]

There will never be an energy source as abundant as fission. If in some far off time or millennia we succeed in sucking all the fossil fuels out of the Earth, there will always be nuclear to sustain us. For that reason beyond all others mentioned, we should be developing the technology.

 

[PandaBear]

There will never be an energy source as abundant as fission. If in some far off time or millennia we succeed in sucking all the fossil fuels out of the Earth, there will always be nuclear to sustain us. For that reason beyond all others mentioned, we should be developing the technology.

Nah, hydro will always be more abundant, then if you factor in fossil fuel there's always coal and natural gas. Nuclear is a fancy one that only developed world can afford. Many developing nations either cannot afford or are not allowed to have.