Just how clean is a nuclear power plant anyway

[madokie]

Does nuclear energy produce no CO2 ?
by Dave Kimble at www.peakoil.org.au

Proponents of nuclear power always say that one of the big benefits of nuclear power
is that it produces no Carbon dioxide (CO2).

This is completely untrue, as a moment's consideration will demonstrate that fossil fuels, especially oil in the form of gasoline and diesel, are essential to every stage of the nuclear cycle, and CO2 is given off whenever these are used.

http://www.davekimble.org.au/peakoil/news/does_nuclear_energy_produce_no_co2.htm


Not to mention the cost in co2 of the steel or concrete

I'm asking a question here and it seems the answer is that nuclear energy is a long way from being 'clean.' From conception to grave that is

[kristopher]

1. Cradle to decommissioning nuclear is a low emission power source

...on a par with solar.

The issues aren't related to its CO2 emissions, they are related to the complete costs involved in those emissions compared to other low emissions technologies.

[jeff47]

2. There's similar CO2 'cost of construction' for non-nuke plants too.

Coal power plants don't just appear on the landscape. And their maintenance and fuel delivery also requires an enormous amount of gasoline and diesel.

The "clean" aspect of a nuke plant is only in it's power production. It's better than fossil fuel plants. "Better" does not equal "utterly perfect panacea".

Currently, we need something to produce 24/7 base load. In a couple decades, we may be able to do that exclusively with storage (such as batteries). In the meantime, the unlikely case of a nuclear plant disaster is better than the guaranteed disaster caused by fossil fuel plants.

[kristopher]

3. Currently, we need something to produce 24/7 base load"? No, we don't.

We need as much renewable generation as we can build so that we can phase out thermal plants that depend on the "base load" economic construct for their profits.

[jeff47]

4. There are times when the wind doesn't blow at night.

Something has to cover that. For now, it's going to be some sort of large power plant, either nuclear or fossil fuel.

Eventually, we'll be able to use storage to cover that. But it's going to be a while before we reach that point.

[kristopher]

5. Storage isn't that critical either.

We need more renewables. The wind IS always blowing. More wind, more solar, more geothermal, more biomass, more tidal, more small hydro, and so on.

Cost-minimized combinations of wind power, solar power and electrochemical storage, powering the grid up to 99.9% of the time
Open Access Article
Cory Budischaka, b, DeAnna Sewellc, Heather Thomsonc, Leon Machd, Dana E. Veronc, Willett Kemptona, c, e
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016

Abstract
We model many combinations of renewable electricity sources (inland wind, offshore wind, and photovoltaics) with electrochemical storage (batteries and fuel cells), incorporated into a large grid system (72 GW). The purpose is twofold: 1) although a single renewable genera- tor at one site produces intermittent power, we seek combinations of diverse renewables at diverse sites, with storage, that are not intermittent and satisfy need a given fraction of hours. And 2) we seek minimal cost, calculating true cost of electricity without subsidies and with inclusion of external costs. Our model evaluated over 28 billion combinations of renewables and storage, each tested over 35,040 h (four years) of load and weather data. We find that the least cost solutions yield seemingly-excessive generation capacity—at times, almost three times the electricity needed to meet electrical load. This is because diverse re- newable generation and the excess capacity together meet electric load with less storage, lowering total system cost. At 2030 technology costs and with excess electricity displacing natural gas, we find that the electric system can be powered 90%–99.9% of hours entirely on renewable electricity, at costs comparable to today's—but only if we optimize the mix of generation and storage technologies.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378775312014759



[jeff47]

6. You should probably read the articles you post. And the posts to which you are responding.

First, your article agrees with me - we will need storage.

Second, we don't have storage now.

Third, storage will not spontaneously appear on the landscape.

Therefore, we need something to cover the role that storage will eventually take over. That is the role for the base-load plants. They'll be retired as storage ramps up. But since storage will not spontaneously appear on the landscape, it's going to take a while to reach that point.

Also, your article is based on a fictional electrical grid, and does not deal with the difficulties caused by long-range transmission. We have to work with the actual electrical grid, and the actual problems caused by long-range transmission.

[kristopher]

7. The article doesn't agree with you.

In fact, what you are saying isn't making sense. We have an existing system of generation built around centralized thermal, we don't "need" another one.

As the Kempton article states, the amount of storage required is very small. The most economical way to address the specific "need" you gave voice to isn't storage, as you claimed, it is "more wind", as I stated.

The modeling done by Kempton etal is indeed based on an existing grid and while transmission requirements are going to be part of the picture, that is not in any way a material constraint of the findings of the paper.

[jeff47]

9. Apparently you need me to quote your own article.

I'll stick with the abstract to keep this brief. I'll even underline the parts you seem to be missing:

We model many combinations of renewable electricity sources (inland wind, offshore wind, and photovoltaics) with electrochemical storage (batteries and fuel cells), incorporated into a large grid system (72 GW). The purpose is twofold: 1) although a single renewable genera- tor at one site produces intermittent power, we seek combinations of diverse renewables at diverse sites, with storage, that are not intermittent and satisfy need a given fraction of hours. And 2) we seek minimal cost, calculating true cost of electricity without subsidies and with inclusion of external costs. Our model evaluated over 28 billion combinations of renewables and storage, each tested over 35,040 h (four years) of load and weather data. We find that the least cost solutions yield seemingly-excessive generation capacity—at times, almost three times the electricity needed to meet electrical load. This is because diverse re- newable generation and the excess capacity together meet electric load with less storage, lowering total system cost. At 2030 technology costs and with excess electricity displacing natural gas, we find that the electric system can be powered 90%–99.9% of hours entirely on renewable electricity, at costs comparable to today's—but only if we optimize the mix of generation and storage technologies.

The result of the article is greater generation capacity can reduce the need for storage. Reduce. Reduce does not mean eliminate.

We have an existing system of generation built around centralized thermal, we don't "need" another one.

Good thing I didn't propose building one then!!

As renewables roll out, base-load will be used to 'fill in the gaps'. Eventually that will be replaced by storage.

Which gets you to exactly what the end-state the article is proposing.

As the Kempton article states, the amount of storage required is very small.

Is it above zero? 'Cause I was saying it was above zero.

Hey look! It's above zero!

The modeling done by Kempton etal is indeed based on an existing grid

Which is nowhere near the size of the US's electrical grid, does not have the very long-range transmission problems that 'scaling up' would cause.

while transmission requirements are going to be part of the picture, that is not in any way a material constraint of the findings of the paper.

Yes, because electrons travel from IA to southern CA for free!!!!!!!!!!

[kristopher]

10. That's one of the most impressive cases of moving the goalpost that I've ever seen.

Hat-tip to ya, Jeff; You are wanting to promote nuclear in the worst way, aren't you?

From

"Currently, we need something to produce 24/7 base load. In a couple decades, we may be able to do that exclusively with storage (such as batteries). In the meantime, the unlikely case of a nuclear plant disaster is better than the guaranteed disaster caused by fossil fuel plants."

And

There are times when the wind doesn't blow at night.
Something has to cover that. For now, it's going to be some sort of large power plant, either nuclear or fossil fuel.
Eventually, we'll be able to use storage to cover that.

To

Is it above zero? 'Cause I was saying it was above zero.
Hey look! It's above zero!

As nuclear proponents are wont do do, you were clearly overhyping the role of storage; trying to portray it as an obstacle that it isn't.

You wrote, "Second, we don't have storage now."

Actually Jeff, we do have storage now. We have about 24.6GW (approx. 2.3% of total electric production capacity) of grid storage, 95% of which is pumped storage hydro.

I could leave it there but I'm actually more interested in sharing information than scoring points. Here is the latest from DOE on the topic.
I'm sure you can find a way to frame some of this as a "gotcha" but in fact I already understood the content of both this paper and the Kempton etal paper before this thread was started. So if that is something you feel you have to try and do, by all means enjoy yourself. But to do that, you'll actually have to expose yourself to at least some of the information involved. I hope it provides you some insight into the nature of the path that we are following to shut down centralized thermal (both coal and nuclear).
I hope this helps bring us to a meeting of minds. (Sincerely)

Grid Energy Storage
U.S. Department of Energy
December 2013
http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2013/12/f5/Grid%20Energy%20Storage%20December%202013.pdf

<snip>
Modernizing the electric grid will help the nation meet the challenge of handling projected energy needs—including addressing climate change by relying on more energy from renewable sources—in the coming decades, while maintaining a robust and resilient electricity delivery system. By some estimates, the United States will need somewhere between 4 and 5 tera kilowatt-hours of electricity annually by 2050.2 Those planning and implementing grid expansion to meet this increased electric load face growing challenges in balancing economic and commercial viability, resiliency, cyber-security, and impacts to carbon emissions and environmental sustainability. Energy storage systems (ESS) will play a significant role in meeting these challenges by improving the operating capabilities of the grid as well as mitigating infrastructure investments. ESS can address issues with the timing, transmission, and dispatch of electricity, while also regulating the quality and reliability of the power generated by traditional and variable sources of power. ESS can also contribute to emergency preparedness. Modernizing the grid will require a substantial deployment of energy storage. In the past few years, the urgency of energy storage requirements has become a greater, more pressing issue that is expected to continue growing over the next decade:

- California enacted a law in October 2010 requiring the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to establish appropriate 2015 and 2020 energy storage procurement targets for California load serving entities, if cost effective and commercially viable by October 2013 (AB 2514). In February 2013, the CPUC determined that Southern California Edison must procure 50 MW of energy storage capacity by 2021 in Los Angeles area. Additionally, in June 2013, the CPUC proposed storage procurement targets and mechanisms totaling 1,325 MW of storage. Other States are looking to the example that California is setting, and Congress has introduced two bills that establish incentives for storage deployment.3

- The increasing penetration of renewable energy on the grid to meet renewable portfolio standards (RPS) may be linked with greater deployment of energy storage. Storage can “smooth” the delivery of power generated from wind and solar technologies, in effect, increasing the value of renewable power. Additionally, when energy storage is used with distributed generation, it can improve the reliability of those assets by providing power-conditioning value, and enables increased renewable penetration to help contribute to meeting state RPS.

- Energy storage is already near commercial viability in augmenting power management and frequency regulation techniques. Large flywheel installations and power monitoring software have combined to make flywheel installation useful in ensuring that intermittent sources and variable load demands maintain a 60 Hz frequency, storage could be an alternative method of providing spinning reserve or curtailment which could improve the efficiency of infrastructure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by wasteful excess capacity and lowered heat-rates associated with excessive plant cycling.

- Energy storage can reduce the need for major new transmission grid construction upgrades as well as augment the performance of existing transmission and distribution assets. DOE estimates that 70% of transmission lines are 25 years or older, 70% of power transformers are 25 years or older, and 60% of circuit breakers are more than 30 years old.4 Extending the capability of the transmission grid—for example by pre-positioning storage on the load side of transmission constraint points—makes the grid more secure, reliable, and responsive. Additionally, distributed storage can reduce line-congestion and line-loss by moving electricity at off-peak times, reducing the need for overall generation during peak times. By reducing peak loading (and overloading) of transmission and distribution lines, storage can extend the life of existing infrastructure.

- Moreover, as the nation moves towards the electrification of the transportation sector, energy storage for vehicles, and the integration of energy between vehicles and the grid, will be critical. The focus on storage is not only for the deployment of batteries in vehicles, but also for potential second-life applications for electric vehicle (EV) batteries. For example, Project Plug-IN, a large scale public/private EV initiative based in Indianapolis, involving Duke Energy, is exploring the best customer use for stationary applications in homes, neighborhoods, and commercial buildings. This pilot project is being used to help validate the business models for future commercialization of storage technologies.

- Energy storage will also play a significant role in emergency preparedness and increasing overall grid resilience. An August 2013 White House report,5 written in conjunction with the Office of Electricity Delivery & Energy Reliability, details the integral role that energy storage will play in enhancing grid resilience and robustness related to weather outages and other potential disruptions.6

- Energy storage is poised to grow dramatically, requiring large investment in manufacturing capacity and jobs. According to an Information Handling Services, Cambridge Energy Research Associates (IHS CERA) report, the energy storage business could grow from $200 million in 2012 to a $19 billion industry by 2017.7

2 For a table of several such estimates, see Hostick, D.; Belzer, D.B.; Hadley, S.W.; Markel, T.; Marnay, C.; Kintner- Meyer, M. (2012). End-Use Electricity Demand. Vol. 3 of Renewable Electricity Futures Study. NREL/TP-6A20- 52409-3. Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
3 The bills before congress are S. 1030 (STORAGE Act ) and S. 795 (MLP Parity Act). Details on the California bill (AB 2514) can be found on the CPUC website: http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUC/energy/electric/storage.htm
4 Fitch Ratings, “Frayed Wires: US Transmission System Shows Its Age,” 2006
5“Economic Benefits Of Increasing Electric Grid Resilience To Weather Outages” August 12, 2013. Available at: http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2013/08/f2/Grid%20Resiliency%20Report_FINAL.pdf
6See also “Storm Reconstruction: Rebuild Smart: Reduce Outages, Save Lives, and Protect Property,” NEMA, National Electrical Manufacturers Association, 2013; and “ Recommendations to Improve the Strength and Resilience of the Empire State’s Infrastructure,” NYS 2100 Commission, 2012.
7 IMS Research (now owned by IHS-CERA) report ‘The Role of Energy Storage in the PV Industry – World – 2013 Edition’.


[jeff47]

14. Not even close.

My posts are still up there. They still say that base load will "fill the gaps" until storage ramps up.

But you're doing a fantastic job of reading what's in your head instead of what's written.

As nuclear proponents are wont do do, you were clearly overhyping the role of storage; trying to portray it as an obstacle that it isn't.

Ah, there it is. If I say something other than "Nuclear power is Satanic" then I must be wrong. Somehow.

Actually Jeff, we do have storage now. We have about 24.6GW (approx. 2.3% of total electric production capacity)

Yeah, that's totally going to cover for a windless night in Los Angeles. And the rest of the country. Truly there's no need to expand storage at all.

But I'm sure you're right. Magic pixies will make sufficient storage just appear when we need it. So we don't need to worry our pretty little heads about all the natural gas peaking plants pumping out tons of CO2 to fill that role.

[madokie]

12. Jeff can we talk about storage a bit

Seems to me there is a lot of lakes that are used for power generation scattered about through out the states. Having said that why couldn't they use those lakes as storage batteries. What I mean is we have a pumped storage lake that they use to pump water up to during the night, mostly, and then during the peak times they release the water to generate electricity to help meet the needs. In this case the generators that are used to gen are used as the motors that pump the water up the 200 or so feet distance to the lake.
I know it would take some added disconnects, electronics and motor starters, etc to make it happen but the same turbine and generator can be used as motors and pumps and the lakes are already there and in many lakes a few inches of water would store a ton of energy to be used for power generation later when its needed. At the dam closest to me they only use some of the generators/turbines most of the time as there isn't enough water to run them all without draining the lakes too much. So they would have the capacity to increase their load under most circumstances I would think. The added fluctuation in the lake level shouldn't be a problem as it could be kept to a agreed upon amount that wouldnt' really hurt the use of the lake for any of its other purposes. Anyways just a though.

I've often thought of floating this idea past some of the people in my state who regulate the lakes and see what they have to say.

[jeff47]

13. There aren't enough of them.

Efficient hydro power requires a particular arrangement of the river and it's surroundings. We've pretty much dammed up every place that's efficient.

There's some folks proposing hydro power from other configurations, but those require equipment that's never moved beyond the prototype stage. Even then we'd get nowhere near the necessary capacity for it to be more than a small part of the solution.

Btw, "storage" doesn't have to mean batteries. For example, you could take a page from the solar-thermal plants and use molten salt for storage. Just heat it up electrically when capacity exceeds demand, and use it to power a steam turbine when needed.

[madokie]

15. I don't think you understood what I was asking/proposing

you're answer indicates that anyway. Oh well
Any storage is better than none.

[jeff47]

16. No, pumped storage requires a configuration similar to "regular" hydro.

At least for large-scale efficient production. And we're out of places to expand that.

[PamW]

8. No power source is CO2 "free"

No power source is CO2 "free". Even renewables like solar and wind require steel, and the manufacture of steel is not CO2 "free".

There's also the mining of fuels. However, you have to do this analysis quantitatively, that is put in the numbers.

Nuclear fuel contains MILLIONS of times more energy per unit mass than does chemical fuels. That's why a nuclear bomb about the same size and weight of a conventional bomb blows up the entire city or metropolitan area whereas the conventional bomb takes out a single building. You get millions of times more energy for the same amount of fuel.

Or equivalently, for a given amount of energy, you need only ONE-MILLIONTH the amount of fuel for the same energy. So although it requires CO2 emissions from diesel mining equipment, nuclear requires one-millionth the amount of fuel, so the CO2 emissions from diesel mining equipment is also down by a factor of a million. It's not zero; but it is down by a factor of one-million.

The other energy intensive process is uranium enrichment; which requires electricity. However, that electricity can be supplied by nuclear power. In fact, it is. The single enrichment plant that provides all the fuel for the entire fleet of US power reactors is in the TVA service district. TVA runs nuclear power plants; so one could say that nuclear power plants are providing the energy to enrich fuel for nuclear power plants.

Staving off global warming doesn't require a zero CO2 footprint; a CO2 footprint that is one-millionth of what we have now would suffice nicely.

PamW

[nickyreiner93]

11. RE: Just how clean is a nuclear power plant anyway

It is better to use other sources of energy like solar and wind, other forms can be biogas as alternative. Clean and green concepts for better earth.

Source: Deep Blue NRG

[NNadir]

17. How clean is lung tissue coated with PM-2.5 by German coal?

Never mind. There's not a dumb anti-nuke on this planet gives a rat's ass about the 6.0 million people that Lancet reports die each year from air pollution.

There is not one of them either who has read a single LCA (life cycle analysis) paper in the primary scientific literature.

The external cost of nuclear power in carbon dioxide is a widely reviewed topic, and to be sure, it doesn't at all correspond to what dumb anti-nukes like to report.

For instance, here's one from the wind advocate Paul Denholm, one of my all time favorites:

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es049946p

Denholm posits that a "base load wind system" using compressed air would "only" produce 4 to 5 times the emissions of nuclear power. The reason that it considered this worth doing is because "people don't like nuclear power" but they love wind power. I read this as follows: "The expensive wind industry should be allowed to promise the world everything, produce almost nothing and soak up resources because dumb people who can't think rule the world."

Note that the paper was written in 2005. Zero baseload compressed air wind facilities have been built that provide continuous power. Since this exercise in the stupid assertion that wind is cleaner than nuclear was published, over 180 billion tons of carbon dioxide have been dumped into the planetary atmosphere, this while we wait - like Estragon for Godot - for the dumb guys faith based wind and solar nirvana to show up.

In the same period, about 48 million people died from air pollution.

Too bad none of these people who have led to so much death and destruction ever bothered to do more than poke around websites telling them what they want to hear. Too bad none of them bothered to get an education.


Millions of lives lost, and vast destruction to the atmosphere, might have been prevented.

But that didn't happen. Fear and ignorance won.

To a man, to a woman, they lazily rely on poking around on websites that tell them what they want to hear, which is that the big nuclear boogeyman is out to kill their dumb asses, even though it seems that they have all survived the grand radiation tragedy long enough to keep on handing out semi-literate bull, year after year, decade after decade.

It's a tragedy. A real tragedy.

[kristopher]

18. Stand alone nuclear isn't a "system"

So it's an apples and oranges comparison. BTW, the Denholm paper is available in full here:
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sustainable/refs/storage/es049946p.pdf

To bring nuclear on par with the system Denholm analyzed, you'll need to flush out the system nuclear is part of with the rest of its components. The most obvious is the present state we find today where nuclear works in tandem with coal to deliver an average of 542gramsCo2/kwh. That's about 10X the wind/storage system, isn't it?

Or, since we are talking about mating just two elements, we could ask how the nuclear/tar sands crude combo will compare with wind/storage. I don't have the numbers handy, but I'm guessing the nuclear/tar sands system really sucks.

Toshiba Nuclear Reactor For Oil Sands To Be Operational By 2020: Reports
The Huffington Post Canada | Posted: 01/18/2013 2:27 pm EST | Updated: 01/18/2013

Toshiba Corporation has developed a small nuclear reactor to power oilsands extraction in Alberta and hopes to have it operational by 2020, according to news reports from Japan.

The Daily Yomiuri reports Toshiba is building the reactor at the request of an unnamed oilsands company.

The reactor would generate between one per cent and 5 per cent as much energy as produced by a typical nuclear power plant, and would not need refueling for 30 years. It would be used to heat water in order to create the steam used to extract bitumen from the oil sands.

Toshiba has completed design work on the reactor and has filed for approval with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Nikkei.com reported. The company is expected to seek approval from Canadian authorities as well...

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/01/18/toshiba-oil-sands-reactor_n_2505738.html

Now, let's get serious a moment. Here is a carefully modeled system that delivers a decarbonized electric sector:

... we simulated fluctuating power input to a large regional electric system, seeking the least-cost combinations of renewable generation and storage to provide sufficient power for load. Unlike many prior studies, we do not employ storage in order to balance generation capacity more closely to load—we only care about reliably making load at the least cost.

We find that 90% of hours are covered most cost-effectively by a system that generates from renewables 180% the electrical energy needed by load, and 99.9% of hours are covered by generating almost 290% of need. Only 9–72 h of storage were required to cover 99.9% of hours of load over four years. So much excess generation of renewables is a new idea, but it is not problematic or inefficient, any more than it is problematic to build a thermal power plant requiring fuel input at 250% of the electrical output, as we do today.

At 2008 technology costs, 30% of hours is the lowest-cost mix we evaluated. At expected 2030 technology costs, the cost-minimum is 90% of hours met entirely by renewables. And 99.9% of hours, while not the cost-minimum, is lower in cost than today's total cost of electricity.

Over-generation is cost-effective at 2030 technology costs even when all excess is spilled. If excess generation displaces heating fuels, the cost is lowered further. Today's electricity is rarely used for heating because fuel cost dominates electric generation costs and energy is lost in generating electricity, so when heat is desired it is cheaper to burn fuel on site where the heat is needed. By contrast, renewable generation's primary costs are capital and the fuel is free—once built, we will want to run renewable generators whenever electricity has any value at all. Again, the cost-optimization model forces us to think about system design differently. Today we build dispatchable generation, and design for enough capacity to meet peak load plus a reserve margin. If we applied the findings of this article, in the future we would build variable generation, designing for enough capacity to make electric load for the worst hours, and as a side effect we will have enough extra electricity to meet thermal loads.

In the 99.9% case, using fossil generation to fill the gaps in the remaining 0.1% of hours (9 h year−1) requires maintaining less than half of today's legacy generation capacity, with that capacity producing only 0.017% of the energy needed for load. Thus, further pollution-reduction will provide scant motivation to retire old fossil generation. However, maintaining old fossil plant may be uneconomic if rarely used, in which case, other existing mechanisms—such as demand management, interruptible rates, or preloading storage from lower capacity fossil—could be used to retire old fossil plants.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378775312014759

Conclusions from the 'Journal of Power Sources'
Cost-minimized combinations of wind power, solar power and electrochemical storage, powering the grid up to 99.9% of the time

What would you like to bet that the system emissions of that configuration is far, far, far, far lower than the nuclear/tar sands crude combo?

[madokie]

19. The real tragedy is

aholes like you and a couple others here who can't use civil discourse to discuss an issue rather immediately start berating any one who doesn't cow down to your bullshit. Thats the real tragedy here, mr NNadir.
You all feel you're so far above the collective of the rest of us that you think you have the right to call us names and show such contempt towards us. In fact you and the couple others who use the same tactics don't belong here at all in the present state of disdain you three have toward the rest of us.
This is supposed to be a place to share ideas and discuss issues but the three of you, (you know who you are too) try your best to derail any discussion contrary to your own view of what is and what isn't. It sucks just like you suck. Sorry but I have to call a fucking goose a fucking goose.

I don't see or read any of what you call anti-nukes use the same tactics, other than me sometimes when I get fed up with you all's shit.
NFO