Renew your energy: February 2012 Archives

The European Pressurised-water Reactor (EPR) being built at Olkiluoto in Finland is now unlikely to be completed until 2014- five years late- and $3bn or more over-budget. Similar problems face the EPR being built at Flammanville in France. And similar problems have emerged at the two 1.7GW EPRs being built at Taishan in China, 140km west of Hong Kong: variable concrete quality, unqualified or inexperienced subcontractors, poor documentation, language issues. Unit 1 is meant to be ready in 2013, Unit 2 in 2014, followed by two more. China has also had some problems with rapidly deploying its re-engineered version of the Westinghouse AP1000, but there are reports that it may be interested in a revised version of the EPR. Indeed some reports say that EDF may ditch the current EPR design for future EU plants and go for a cheaper, smaller, simpler franco-chinese design. All this has not helped the industries finances: French nuclear company Areva has operating losses of between €1.4bn and €1.6bn, the first loss for the 10-year-old group.

Matters were not improved by the report in January from the French nuclear power watchdog ASN, which, in its post-Fukushima review, said that EDF must install flood- proof diesel generators and bunkered remote back-up control rooms at its 19 plants across the country, at a cost of perhaps €10 bn,. Overall EDF estimated the cost of extending the lifespan of its nuclear plants from 40 to 60 years at €40-50 bn over the next 30 years. ANS didn't call for any plant closures and EDF was bullish, claiming that it invested 'more than €11 bn a year across the world.' However it has decided to diversify its nuclear-dominated portfolio by building strong businesses in gas and coal, as well as hydropower and renewables. But its shares fell a further 4.06% after the ANS review.

However nuclear faces more than just technical and economic problems, but also significant political shifts. In addition to the German, Swiss and Italian decisions to abandon nuclear, in France the Socialist candidate in the presidential election wants to cut nuclear by 50% by 2025 -the party has secured agreement with the greens to campaign for the closure of 24 nuclear reactors by 2025 in the election, though the Greens would prefer a 100% shut down. And in Belgium political parties seeking to form a government (it did not have one for over a year!) conditionally agreed to revert to the original 2003 plan to shut Belgiums three oldest plants in 2015 and the remaining two by 2025. Meanwhile a new tax has been imposed on nuclear operators. They currently supply 55% of Belgium's power.

In Japan, only five plants are still operating, out of the original 54, and three of them are scheduled to shut for annual maintenance and safety checks in April. With local opposition very strong and growing, it may be hard to restart them, or any of the others- they need the local municipalities to agree to that. So Japan may end up becoming nuclear free by default. Certainly long term nuclear looks like to be very constrained. In January, Japan's new prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, said that Japan's dependence on nuclear power must be reduced to the 'maximum extent.'

The UK keeps going

There are no visions (yet) anything like that in the UK: indeed, in what some might see as a reversal of its policy on nuclear subsidies, the government has offered Sheffield Forgemasters a loan of up to £36 million "to continue its drive into civil nuclear and steelworks plant production." A similar offer had, you may recall, been withdrawn earlier.

Horizon Nuclear Power- a 50/50 RWE nPower/ EOn UK joint venture - plans to submit a planning application for a new plant at Oldbury around 2014. They say 'given the right market conditions, and subject to a final investment decision, preliminary works could begin in 2016, followed by main construction from 2019.' They have also bought land for a proposed new plant at Wyfla, with a planning submission scheduled soon, and operation by perhaps 2020. But they have yet to decide whether to go for Areva's EPR or Westinghouse's AP1000 for these sites. However, EDF and Areva have been pushing ahead with their plans to build EPRs at Hinkley and Sizewell: they submitted a site licence application for Hinkley Point C last July. And despite SSE pulling out of the consortium, NuGen is still planning a plant alongside Sellafield, with a possible 2023 start up date.

Will the nuclear plants really happen? EDF Energy is the most advanced so far. It said that before it finally committed to a go ahead it was imperative that 'transitional arrangements for the Contract for Difference are in place, arrangements for the funded decommissioning plan are set, and, we have a high level of confidence in the cost and timetable for construction.'

Although they have not given hard dates for the Sizewell and Hinkley projects, they originally said they wanted them to begin operating by the end of 2017 and in 2019 respectively. Fukushima and the need to extend the Generic Design Assessment process may have altered that but, though they have talked of an 'adjusted timetable', EDF have stressed that 'an adjusted timetable has never meant a suspended timetable, the project continues. It is on track.'

Longer term

With uranium fired reactors out of favour after Fukushima, for the longer term, some in the nuclear lobby have been promoting thorium as an allegedly safer fuel- looking at molten flouride salt systems.

The Weinberg Foundation was launched last year to promote the Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) which was portrayed as one of 'the world's safest reactor designs which cannot burn or melt down, breeds its own fuel, consumes most of its highly radioactive products, and will not release any radioactive materials into the environment'.

Canada, China and India all have projects underway but the technology is still some way off as viable commercial option. Certainly it's not without its problems. Thorium is not fissile, so to make a reactor work you have to mix it with U235 or plutonium or provide some other source of neutrons (e.g. a particle accelerator) to convert it to U233, which is fissile. What you then get, as well as heat energy, radiation, and fission products from the Plutonium and Uranium, is U232. U232 (and its decay products) emit very hard gamma radiation. That's seen as ensuring that no one would try to steal fuel from thorium reactors to make bombs - since it would be so hard to work with or shield from detection. But it also makes it hard to design safe reactors or deal with their wastes- you need very much thicker shielding for the reactor core or for waste transport containers. We are probably talking a meter of lead or so!

Some thorium enthusiasts say that nearly all the wastes can be burnt up within the reactor, but there will still be some to deal with- and there's always the chance of fuel/waste escapes/ leaks. And you really wouldn't want to be around then.

So will it happen? Should it? The LFTR may be better than the current range of uranium designs, but it will be a while before we know for certain- there's a host of unknowns and risks. Friends of the Earth seems content to leave it as a possible long term option, and certainly it's an argument against rushing into a new wave of current types of reactors. But will anyone really trust the nuclear lobby when it says 'we have the answer', as so often before? Technologies like this also seem to attract single-minded lobbyists and believers in 'silver bullet' fixes, which can distract from the development of a wider range of arguably more realistic renewable options.

For a different view see: www.theecologist.org/blogsandcomments/commentators/othercomments/962512/responsedontdismissthepotentialofthorium nuclear_power.html

In my next Blog I'll look at the prospects for nuclear in the developing world- some see that as its best hope.

The debate over how much back-up capacity is needed to balance wind variations continues. Everyone agrees you need some, but some say you need 100% and that, as a result, wind power won't save many or, even any, emissions, net. See for example: http://environmentalresearchweb.org/blog/2011/11/does-wind-power-reduce-carbon.html

There is, in this debate, usually a confusion between, firstly, short term balancing (which is done all the time, even without variable wind on the grid) to deal with occasional unexpected plant or grid trip-outs and the daily demand variations, using frequency adjustments and by winding-up power from 'spinning reserve' plants; and, secondly, longer term possibly larger and longer loss of power issues, when you may need to crank up extra plant to meet gaps, calling on the built-in extra plant margin that grids have for this purpose.

For the moment, most grids can cope with the amount of wind linked in relatively easily, as many reports have indicated. The latest, 'Strategies and Decision Support Systems for Integrating Variable Energy Resources in Control Centers for Reliable Grid Operations', produced by Alstrom for the US Dept of Energy, offers first- hand perspectives on how variable energy sources, including wind, actually impact grid operations. It finds that the ability to forecast variable energy output is vital to integrating variable energy. It also describes several decision support tools that are currently used by grid operators. http://energy.gov/articles/new-report-integrating-variable-wind-energy-grid

But some extra fast start-up back-up, and maybe extra marginal gas plant, may be needed as the share of variable renewables grows. Key roles can also be played by other grid-balancing strategies, e.g. smart-grid interactive demand management and importing power from other countries via HVDC supergrids.

Alstrom's US report does note that upgrading grid transmission links is a key long-term requirement - not least to deal with the perhaps more relevant problem of how to deal with excess power from wind and other variable renewables.

All that said, you will still find substantial contrarian assertions (e.g. from the US energy collective.com and the North American Platform against Wind Power: www.na-paw.org) that the variability of wind is an unresolvable issue. Similar lines of attack have been adopted by some UK centre-right think tanks, most recently by CIVITAS.

Much is made of the large and rapid swings from full power to low power that can occur, despite the fact that grids already deal with large demand swings daily. True, the existing swings are usually predictable, which is why the US Alstrom report looks to improved wind forecasting. But, while there's no one solution, given smart grids/DSM and storage plus supergrid imports, it should be possible to balance even large variations- though it may be harder in the US, where cross national grid links are weaker and there's less gas/CCGT, although of course shale gas may change that.

Back in the UK, we have a good well integrated grid system and last year a Poyry report for the Committee of Climate Change spelt out how it, and some upgrades and extensions, could help us balance some 'stretching but feasible' scenarios with high levels of renewables (reaching up to 94% in the Max scenario).

They found that 'the electricity system was able to accommodate these high levels of renewable generation whilst complying with the specified constraints on emissions and security of supply. However, this was at the cost of shedding low variable cost generation and construction of new peaking capacity; predominantly in the two 2050 scenarios and Max scenario'.

Shedding power (or 'curtailing' excess output) is wasteful, but building new low cost gas-fired capacity is relatively cheap, and they say, not urgent 'Construction of peaking plant is not required until after 2030 in either the VeryHigh or the High scenario'.

Overall they say 'Sufficient technical resource appears to be available to deliver very high levels of renewable penetration', but if offshore wind then dominates, diversity is reduced making grid balancing harder. So they are keen on a wider range of renewables being used.

So how robust is their projected future renewables-based system? They report that their scenarios were also tested against 'more extreme weather conditions, as defined as increased frequency of low wind periods ('lulls') and greater variability of wind output.'

They say 'In our (very) high renewable scenarios, we found that there is relatively little difference between the level of security of supply...in an average weather year and from the level in one of our extreme weather years'. But 'CO2 emissions increase in the year with more lulls because fossil fuel plants run at higher load factors to compensate for lower wind output. In contrast, there is a (slightly) higher average annual load factor for wind in the more variable wind year. This leads to lower emissions, particularly in 2030.'

For the moment there should be no major problems, but we will need to act later; 'The closure of unabated gas plants will reduce generation flexibility by 2050': while in 2030, the electricity system is able to accommodate high levels of renewable penetration 'in 2050, around 40TWh of low variable cost generation is shed in the High and Very High scenarios, with a need for new peaking capacity of 6GW and 10GW respectively'.

The situation is even worse in the Max scenario when 'shedding increases to 120TWh a year, and 21GW of new peaking capacity is required to meet the desired level of security of supply. This is despite an assumed increase in demand-side flexibility and an expansion of interconnection capacity between 2030 and 2050 (and between 2050 and the Max scenario).'

So in addition to grid extensions and demand side management, after 2030 you also more peaking plant., although they add 'a more diverse renewables mix helps the system to accommodate high renewables. Increasing the deployment of solar and tidal range (and reducing offshore wind deployment) in the High scenario leads to a big fall in the amount of shedding and required new capacity build in 2050.'

They say that, although it in basically inflexible, nuclear might also play a role: 'despite the increase in shedding, construction of nuclear capacity is still cost-effective given the assumed set of fuel and carbon prices and generation costs', but they add, 'alternatively, interconnectors could be used to provide GB with access to a more diverse renewables mix in Europe'.

We do seem to have plenty of options. And Pyorys analysis does seem to be an answer to all those contrarians who say renwables can't do it , though some still say ramp-up rates will be high, and hard for existing peaking plant to cope with. The debate continues

Pyory report 'Analysing technical constraints on renewable generation to 2050', to the CCC, March 2011