EU Referendum


Energy: the nuclear non-option


27/09/2014



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Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has stepped into energy policy, cribbing from a UBS report on nuclear power. Actually, they aren't telling us much we didn't know, AE-P writing as he does that the cost of conventional nuclear power has spiralled to levels that can no longer be justified.

Of the two latest reactors being built in in Europe, these are European Pressurised Reactor and both have suffered major delays and cost over-runs. The Finnish 1.6GW Olkiluoto 3, the country's fifth and biggest nuclear reactor, was due to start operating in 2009, but commissioning has been delayed to 2018, with planned costs of €3.2 billion expected to double.

The other is the French Flamanville 3 1,650 MW reactor, on which work was started in 2007 by operator EDF. It was scheduled to start operations in 2012. It is still not operational, while costs have so far escalated from €3.3 to €8.5 billion.

The World Nuclear Industry Status Report for 2014 reports that, of the 66 reactors currently under construction throughout the world, 49 - mostly in Asia, but including five US reactors – have been delayed, while budgets are escalating. Average costs have risen from $1,000 per installed kilowatt to around $8,000/kW over the past decade.

So far in Britain's current nuclear power programme, only the Hinkley Point C plant – with a planned 2x1.6GW capacity - has received a site license and planning permission (as of October 2013). Meanwhile, in May 2012, EDF raised the estimated cost of a completed plant to £7 billion, up from £4.5 billion, leading one analyst to suggest that new nuclear power plants in the UK were no longer commercially viable – and that was in 2012.

The AE-P/UPS thesis though is that all the reactors being built across the world are variants of mid-20th century technology, inherently dirty and dangerous, requiring exorbitant safety controls. The argument is thus that we should turn to better reactor design, specifically that based on molten salt technology.

This, we are told, promises to slash costs by half or more, and may even undercut coal. Molten salt is much safer, and consume nuclear waste rather than creating more. What stands in the way, AE-P, asserts, is a fortress of vested interests.

However, apart from the fact that this technology is very far from proven, there is a huge gap in the thinking on nuclear technology, which rarely addressed. The fact is that big nuclear – like most major power installations – is extremely inefficient, delivering only 33-37 percent thermal efficiency.

If we are looking for a rational energy policy, it is to the more efficient use of energy that we should be looking and, of all the technologies available to achieve this, perhaps the most promising is combined heat and power (CHP) also known as cogeneration.

This is the use of plant to generate electricity and then capturing the heat that would otherwise be wasted to use for productive purposes such as space heating in buildings, or in domestic premises using district heating schemes. The technology includes the use of diesel generators, delivering as little as 500kW, or the same plant using spark-fired natural gas, to gas turbines delivering up to 50MW and steam boilers of similar size, driving steam turbines.

The value of this technology is substantial. In the EU, the current transformation efficiency in conventional thermal power and heat stations is only 49.9 percent, while CHP plants are capable of delivering over 70 percent efficiency, and the very best are rated at 90 percent.

But what is so remarkable is the way CHP is being recognised in the United States, as the most efficient way of capitalising on the shale gas bonanza, the bulk of the new plant being gas fuelled, spark ignition reciprocating engines. So important has CHP become that the Environmental Protection Agency established the Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Partnership in 2001 to encourage its exploitation.

The poster child, though, is Massachusetts, where a 2006 study of CHP potential determined that the technical potential for CHP was greater than 4,700 MW at 18,500 sites throughout the state, equal to approximately 40 percent of the electric industry's generating capacity.

In view of its potential states-wide, CHP is recognised by the EPA as an approved energy efficiency measure, making it eligible for financial incentives. From 2009 to 2011, it has delivered a commercial and industrial energy efficiency programme, making nine percent electricity savings.

On the basis of the Massachusetts studies, CHP - if adopted enthusiastically by the UK - could provide as much as 25GW of our generation capacity. That is a highly localised, dispersed capability and, if other techniques are applied to reduce demand, it could meet 50 percent of our electricity requirements, even at periods of highest demand.

The interesting thing, though, is that nuclear could follow the same route. Instead of "big nuclear", we could be looking at locally installed Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMNRs), which could also be used as CHP units adding to the small gas plant capacity. Between the two, they could supply about eighty percent of our electricity, giving us a massive boost in energy efficiency.

This is where we should be looking for our energy policy – not unrealised enhancements in nuclear technology that might, in the unspecified future, offer the promise of something better. The time is now, and the need is now and, as Massachusetts indicates, the technology is already with us. With or without SMNRs, this is the best option for our energy policy.

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