How much nuclear power is really going to get built in the next 20 years?

[GliderGuider]

I found this page: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/reactors.htm which gives the number and output of the reactors currently on the grid, under construction, and in the planning and proposal stages around the world. Here's how I see nuclear power unfolding out to 2025:

According to that page there are 438 reactors currently operating, with a total capacity of 372K MWe.

There are 34 reactors under construction. Let's assume that all those reactors will be on line within 4 years, for an addition of 28K MWe.

There are 81 reactors listed as "planned". Let's say the average planning/construction cycle is 7 years, and we will see two thirds of those projects carried through. So we will see a further addition of 60K MWe by 2015.

The rest of the listings on that page are in the proposal stage, which is where the most speculations and assumptions come in. This number probably represents an upper bound on construction, and I think public resistance will keep many (say half) of those from being built, with the highest completion rates in China. This means that about 110 reactors from this group would be built, probably over the period from 2015 to 2025, for an additional supply of 100K MWe.

So we go from 372K MWe today to 540 MWe in 2025. Converting that into a smoothed percentage increase from today, we get about 2.3% pa from now to 2025. This is almost exactly the assumption I used in the model that generated the graph below. At that point nuclear power would represent about 7% of the global energy mix compared to 6% today.



Much depends on how many of the reactors currently in the proposal stage get built, and then what happens after 2025. I think the demand for nuclear power will peak and decline around 2025 because increasing social and climatic instability will make the perceived risks too great, but that's just my opinion.

[whistle]

1. Need enough nuclear fusion power 4th generational type to fill the gap

left by diminished availability of oil powered plants

[Gregorian]

2. I wonder if we even have enough cooling water.

Maybe it's a limiting factor.

[GliderGuider]

3. Remember these are world-wide numbers

There will be problems in some places with cooling water, but the problem is more likely to be temperature rises from climate chaos making the water too warm to use, rather than water volumes.

I think public opinion is going to be the major limiting factor.

[Gregorian]

7. That's exactly how I see it as well.

There are already water volume troubles in some of our rivers. It's my understanding that we barely have the required temperature difference as it stands. I don't think global warming is going to raise water temperatures that much. But I am quite ignorant on all of this stuff. Nuclear isn't something I pay much attention to.

However, we may not have much of a choice. Our demands may outstrip our opinion. And then there's China. I suspect they will be requiring more, soon.

[GliderGuider]

8. China is already on board for a large percentage of the planned builds

China is responsible for 32% of the planned reactors and 40% of the proposals.

[reprobate]

9. There was an article in the local bird cage liner (Orlando Sentinel) last week

about a nuke power station - I think it was in Pittsburgh - that had to close down one of it's reactors because the river water was too warm to cool the reactor. I thought that was a seminal point in global warming.

[Kolesar]

6. Cooling water and metal for alloys may be a limiting factor for coal or nukes

Construction costs for any big engineering project are going to be huge in 30 years in a world of dwindling resources.

[phantom power]

4. Do you think it's percentage will be steady, or...

increase as fossil-based energy becomes scarcer? In other words, assuming nuclear reactors plateau, but fossil energy declines, the percentage of nuclear power can go up, even though it's absolute value does not.

[GliderGuider]

5. The percentage of nuclear in the overall mix will rise a bit

As I said above, it may go to 7% of the mix from 6% today as oil and gas decline. It could go higher than that if renewables don't expand as fast as I'm predicting. In that case nuclear power could be 10% of the mix in 2025, though its absolute contribution won't be any higher - the total energy output would simply be less.

[Javaman]

10. I'm banking on dilithium crystals. nt

[GliderGuider]

11. The problem with that is the looming shortage of unobtainium for the reactor housings.

:silly:

[Javaman]

12. Oh man and I was just checking the futures on that. That changes everything! nt

[NNadir]

13. I've been monitoring this table for years.

I will say this: Predictions about nuclear energy are usually wrong.

Just ask Amory Lovins.

Most of the world's existing reactors, providing about 30 exajoules of primary energy were built over a two decade period. That period ended in the middle of the 1980's.

Much of that time the world ignorance squad was bitching about nuclear energy. The same squad, oblivious to reality, continues to bitch today.

No matter how many reactors can and can't be built in the future, nuclear power will continue to dominate climate change free primary energy just as it has done for decades.

Every single nuclear plant that fails to operate represents an equivalent use of dangerous fossil fuels.

What does it matter if it solves all the world's problems? What would be wrong with solving some of the world's problems? Nuclear should do what it can do.

[4dsc]

14. Nuclear cannot replace oil!!

SO what's your bitch about now..

[phantom power]

15. Does it have to replace oil to be a key survival tool?

One thing that would help give economies a "place" to retreat to would be a reliable climate-change-free source of electricity for people to use.

Also, nuclear energy can be used to manufacture oil. (Of course, any other source of energy can in principle do the same thing)

[NNadir]

16. Yeah right. For someone with an oil fetish, you know very little about its chemistry.

You watch too much television.

[Kolesar]

17. The Soviets shut down a dozen or so reactors after Chernobyl under pressure from their European...

...neighbors. Those "nuclear plants that fail(ed) to operate" "represented" an economic collapse for the Soviet Union. That did more to cause the collapse of the Soviet empire than did Reagan and the Republicans' collectively-tight sphincters.

Our utility has done rolling blackouts. I expect a lot more of them.

[NNadir]

21. Really?

When, exactly?

The week after Chernobyl?

The Italian utilities ENEL is financing nuclear power in France, in Slovenia and Slovakia.

The Europeans were complete fools for demanding the cloture of Kozloduy's plants, all of which have been replaced by dangerous coal. The EU has it's head so far up its ass it's not even funny anymore.

Note that this piece of shit decision was negotiated in part by the Gazprom shill Gerhard Schroeder who just couldn't wait to collect his 300,000 Euros per year.

Isn't it funny that the Bulgarians now need to buy so much natural gas from Gazprom?

Lithuiania was forced by EU stupidity of the Schroeder-Tritten type to shut it's RBMK reactor. Note that even with Chernobyl, that plant was not as dangerous as the 26 coal plants that Germany is building in case it can't buy enough nuclear electricity from Slovakia and France.

The anti-nuclear industry works hand in hand with the dangerous fossil fuel industry. In fact, very, very, very, very, very, very, very clearly - all you need to do is check out Schroeder's paycheck - the anti-nuclear industry is directly paid by the dangerous fossil fuel industry.

The Russians are building, by the way, the new reactors at Kozloduy. Regrettably many people will be killed by dangerous fossil fuels and dangerous fossil fuel waste before the new plants come on line.

Tritten and Schroeder couldn't care less.

Oh, and by the way, I hate to rain on your parade with that annoying stuff called "data" but nuclear energy has hardly disappeared in Russia: In 2005, nuclear production was slightly lower than the record year of 2003. http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table27.xls

As we can see, 2005 was a record production year in Ukraine.

Did you folks in the anti-nuclear industry ever hear of Ukraine? I think I heard somewhere that you had.

Ukraine is building more nuclear reactors, by the way. In fact they are planning on more than doubling their current output from their 15 operating reactors.

I guess they know something you don't learn in the travelling solar shows.

[Kolesar]

22. Yeah...eom

[GliderGuider]

18. Here is a look at the nuclear power growth rate over the last 16 years.

It doesn't look all that healthy, does it? A constant 2.3% growth rate for the next 16 years would represent quite a comeback for the industry.

[NNadir]

19. Comeback?

First of all, I think it useful to dispense with the "percent" stuff. It doesn't mean anything.

The absolute out put of nuclear energy, the largest single source of climate change gas free primary energy by far, is given in the EIA tables:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table27.xls

It is therefore unnecessary to engage in "percent" talk. One can simply look at the <em>electrical energy</em> produced in energy units. Wind power - as we hear daily - increases by brazillions of percent each minute, but it is still a trivial form of energy producing less than one exajoule.

If one insists, however, on percent talk, it is worth noting that since 1980, when the Oracle at Snowmass, Amory Lovings, predicted the immanent demise of nuclear power, the production of nuclear electricity has risen by 382%. This corresponds to an annual growth rate of 15% - this while lots and lots and lots and lots of people who know as little about energy as the Oracle at Snowmass were doing everything in their awful little power to stop nuclear energy.

If in the next 25 years - again indulging "percent" talk - nuclear increased production by the same percentage, it would easily produce as much electricity as is now produced by the dangerous fossil fuel coal. However in percent terms, such an increase is unlikely, not impossible, but unlikely. I think it will be relatively trivial for nuclear energy to reach somewhere between 60 and 90 exajoules of primary energy, but that leaves 400 exajoules unaccounted for, not that one of the really, really, really, really, really, really cool renewable energy forms like solar, wind blah, blah, blah, blah will rise to producing an appreciable fraction of this energy.

I suspect that the consequences of several decades of Lovins type hydrogen hypercar stupidity is about to come home to roost big time. I would guess that the scramble to build reactors is about to become very, very, very, very profound and that the effort will be vast and international within a decade. Why? Because the wolf is at the door.

This wasn't necessary by the way. It was a deliberate choice by people who can barely tie their shoelaces.

It is true that much of the nuclear infrastructure has been deliberately vandalized through appeals to monumental ignorance by people like the Gazprom executive Gerhard Schroeder. However it must also be said that in 1960 the nuclear infrastructure wasn't all that great. It was built pretty much from scratch, in fact. In 2007 we can point to many thousands of reactor-years of experience, thus we are in a far better position than were our forefathers who built the first nuclear capacity, to our everlasting benefit.

Note that France increased its nuclear production by 500% in ten years, between 1980 and 1990.

[losthills]

20. The Nuclear Messiahs are only preaching to themselves...

There are no facts, no science, no common sense and no reality behind their prophecies.

Real people with real jobs, real families and real lives see through their wild-eyed pontificating immediately.

But don't expect them to shut up any time soon. There's too much money at stake.

Unfortunately, it's our money.....

[philb]

23. Not much nuclear will be built; too many problems and alternatives projected to be cheaper soon

Widespread breakthroughs in solar PV technology bring down prices, and ocean/river power also rapidly advancing- look to likely be cheaper by the time a nuclear plant could be built- plus nuclear waste and proliferation problems not solved.

September 7, 2007
Ultra Thin Solar Modules to Make 2008 Debut in Germany
by Jane Burgermeister, Contributing Writer
Vienna, Austria
A new generation of ultra thin solar modules that can be integrated into the facades of buildings at low cost is to be produced in Germany next year. The German company Schueco has joined up with E.ON, the country's biggest energy company, to invest 100 million euros <$US 136 million> in the research and production of this new ultra thin solar technology that cuts down on the need for silicon, the costly raw material for solar cells.
"Theoretically, this technology could supply the entire electricity needs of a building, depending on its size, location and the amount of sun it gets. We believe that this new technology could be integrated into a huge number of existing office buildings and also in new buildings because investors increasingly recognize the importance of carbon neutral buildings."
Production is due to start at a site in Saxony-Anhalt in the second half of 2008.
"Our researchers are currently working on developing more efficient solar modules of more than six percent and also on ways of producing modules at a far lower cost in order to make them more attractive for builders and architects," Thomas Lauritzen, spokesman for Schüeco, told RenewableEnergyAccess.com.
The high absorption level of amorphous silicon will allow solar cells to be produced that are a few micrometers in thickness—much thinner than conventional mono and polycrystalline silicon solar cells. Glass panels of varying sizes—up to 5.7 square meters and with an output of 460 W/h—will give builders the flexibility to cover the maximum surface of any façade.
"Theoretically, this technology could supply the entire electricity needs of a building, depending on its size, location and the amount of sun it gets. We believe that this new technology could be integrated into a huge number of existing office buildings and also in new buildings because investors increasingly recognize the importance of carbon neutral buildings," said Lauritzen.
The U.S. company Applied Materials will supply the nanomanufacturing technology for the production, which will be carried out by a newly founded umbrella company called Malibu.
Lauritzen added that he sees a huge export market for the new modules in southern Europe.
Following in the footsteps of Germany—France, Italy, Greece and Spain have recently introduced legislation giving financial incentives to producers of solar electricity. Also, individual cities in Europe are enacting renewable energy legislation: the city of Barcelona in Spain recently issued a law requiring every new public building to have solar technology installed.
"The countries in southern Europe have recognized the huge potential for solar energy that they have and are introducing a favourable legal and financial framework. That's why we expect the demand to grow there, but we are also interested in other markets, including the U.S.," said Lauritzen.
Since 1997, the photovoltaic (PV) industry in Germany has reduced the unit cost for solar
electricity power plants by 50 percent and the costs are expected to fall further and to be 85 percent below the 1990 cost by 2020.
Government legislation that guarantees solar electricity suppliers a certain minimum price has also boosted the use of PV electricity: 2000 GW/h was installed in 2006 compared to just 76 GW/h in 2001.
Of Germany's electricity, 1 percent is produced today by solar power plants, but this is estimated to rise to 25 percent by 2050, saving the country an estimated 100 million tons of carbon emissions.
About 220,000 new solar power plants were installed in 2006, mostly on roofs, taking the total number of solar electricity and thermal power plants installed in Germany to 1.3 million.
To meet the growing demand, more than one billion euros is being invested this year in solar factories according to the industry association, the German Solar Industry (Bundesverband Solarwirtschaft).
Between 2007 and 2008, 15 new solar production facilities will be built, mainly in eastern Germany. Exports of the PV branch are also booming: exports were valued at 1 billion euros in 2006 and are estimated to rise to 11 billion euros by 2020, the industry association says.
Furthermore, the number of employees has increased tenfold since 1999 in the PV sector alone, rising to 35,000 people in 2006; with the number expected to reach 100,000 by 2020. Altogether, the solar thermal and PV industry employed 54,000 people in Germany in 2006.